For my tax plan, I take a page out of one of my great economists that I admire, Ronald Reagan. And under my tax plan I want to adopt the Reagan tax plan. It brought the economic miracle of the 1980s. Why not go with what works? I want to reinstitute the Reagan tax model from the 1980s.Good idea! Of course, that would mean a huge tax increase, since Bush II's cuts were much bigger than the modest tax increases of the 1990s. Today the top tax rate is 35%; In 1981, Reagan cut the top rate from 70% to 50%. It was cut again to 38.5% in 1987, in the context of a deal that eliminated lots of loopholes and deductions. The overall burden, that is, the percentage of GDP taken by federal taxes, was also higher under Reagan.
I bet that if someone tried to explain this to Bachmann, she would deny it. American conservatives seem united in their belief that taxes are way too high now, and that everything was better under Reagan.
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