The Tea Party Would See Ronald Reagan As A Socialist If He Was Here Today

[alp227]

If the Tea Party sees a pro-business, pro-capitalism liberal such as Barack Obama as a socialist after all his tax cuts, imagine what they would think of a president who presided over a federal government with significantly higher tax rates than today and who raised taxes while in office. Will Bunch listed five myths about Ronald Reagan, including the myth that Reagan was a tax cutter:

Certainly, Reagan’s boldest move as president was his 1981 tax cut, a sweeping measure that slashed the marginal rate on the wealthiest Americans from 70 percent to 50 percent. The legislation also included smaller cuts in lower tax brackets, as well as big breaks for corporations and the oil industry. But the following year, as the economy was mired in recession and the federal deficit was spiraling out of control, even groups such as the Business Roundtable lobbied Reagan to raise taxes.<...>

Think Progress also looked at Reagan’s record in raising taxes:

Reagan was a serial tax raiser. As governor of California, Reagan “signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till then.” Meanwhile, state spending nearly doubled. As president, Reagan “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years.<...>

Think Progress also pointed out how Reagan nearly tripled the deficit, how unemployment jumped over ten percent after his initial tax cut, and how income inequality exploded. Well, the Tea Party supports policies aimed at increasing income inequality further, but I’m not sure how many of them understand this.

Full article: http://liberalvaluesblog.com/2011/02/05/the-tea-party-would-see-ronald-reagan-as-a-socialist-if-he-was-here-today/

This idea that Reagan could be now considered a socialist has been floated in the past, such as this 2008 Cenk Uygur commentary and these 2009 DU threads.

[Joyce78]

1. C'mon ... Reagan was an imbecile.

[housewolf]

2. Or at the very least, a RINO who needed to be defeated

for "consorting" and compromising with the Democrats in order to get stuff done (no comment as to how beneficial the "stuff" was or was not).