I just thought you democrats would like to know what one of your fellow Democrats had to say on the subject of Carter and Reagan.
The simple fact is that using a 1979-87 time frame is not a fair way to measure the impact of a President who took office only in 1981, and whose economic policies were not in place until 1982. ROBERT S. WALKER Member of Congress, 16th Dist., Pa. Washington, July 21, 1989
Don't Blame Reagan for Carter Economy - The New York Times
What I find interesting that people that were not alive then and have zero clue about what kind of Jimmy Carter was can now tell us all based on bls stats what a great president he was when compared to the Unemployment figures of 1982. I find it somewhat surprising that somehow all the factors leading up to that somehow were cast aside. Can you say "stagflation" if the Carter years. I also find it amusing that the same Democrats who would come to the aide of Obama on any issue be it right or wrong and tell us all how terrible the economy is because Bush left it that way would now try to argue that Reagan was a bad president because his tax cuts somehow cause the 1982 recession.
During the summer of 1981 the central focus of policy debate was on the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) of 1981, the Reagan tax cuts. The core of this proposal was a version of the Kemp-Roth bill providing a 25 percent across-the-board cut in personal marginal tax rates. By reducing marginal tax rates and improving economic incentives, ERTA would increase the flow of resources into production, boosting economic growth. Opponents used static revenue projections to argue that ERTA would be a giveaway to the rich because their tax payments would fall.
The criticism that the tax payments of the rich would fall under ERTA was based on a static conception of human behavior. As a 1982 JEC study pointed out,[1] similar across-the-board tax cuts had been implemented in the 1920s as the Mellon tax cuts, and in the 1960s as the Kennedy tax cuts. In both cases the reduction of high marginal tax rates actually increased tax payments by "the rich," also increasing their share of total individual income taxes paid. Unfortunately, estimates of ERTA by the Democrat-controlled CBO continued to show falling tax payment by upper income taxpayers, even after actual IRS data had become available showing a surge of income tax payments by affluent taxpayers.
Given the current interest in tax reform and tax relief, a review of the effects of the Reagan tax cuts on taxpayer behavior and tax burden provides useful information. During the 1980s ERTA had reduced personal tax rates by about 25 percent, while the Tax Reform Act of 1986 chopped them yet again.
The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform
The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (also known as ERTA or the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut) was "A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 to encourage economic growth through reductions in individual income tax rates, the expensing of depreciable property, incentives for small businesses, and incentives for savings, and for other purpose." Pub.L. 97-34, 95 Stat. 172, enacted August 13, 1981). The Act also reduced marginal income tax rates in the United States by 25% over three years (the top rate falling from 70% to 50% while the bottom rate dropped from 14% to 11%) and indexed the rates for inflation, though the indexing was delayed until 1985. Its sponsors, Representative Jack Kemp and Senator William Roth, had hoped for more significant tax cuts, but settled on this bill after a great debate in Congress. It passed Congress on
August 4, 1981 and was signed into law on August 13, 1981 by President Ronald Reagan at his California ranch.
The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform
So what part of three years is hard to understand here?
Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA)
tax-cutting legislation. Among the key provisions:
across-the-board tax cut, which took effect in three stages ending in 1983.
indexing of tax brackets to the inflation rate.
lowering of top tax rates on long-term capital gains from 28% to 20%. The top rate on dividends, interest, rents, and royalties income dropped from 70% to 50%.
lowering of marriage penalty tax, as families with two working spouses could deduct 10% from the salary of the lower-paid spouse, up to $3,000.
expansion of Individual Retirement Arrangements to all working people, who can contribute up to $2,000 a year, and $250 annually for nonworking spouses. Also, expansion of the amount self-employed people can contribute to keogh plan account contributions.
creation of the all-savers certificate, which allowed investors to exempt up to $1,000 a year in earned interest. The authority to issue these certificates expired at the end of 1982.
deductions for reinvesting public utility dividends.
reductions in estate and gift taxes, phased in so that the first $600,000 of property can be given free of estate tax starting in 1987. Annual gifts that can be given free of gift tax were raised from $3,000 to $10,000. Unlimited deduction for transfer of property to a spouse at death.
lowering of rates on the exercise of stock options.
change in rules on depreciation and investment credit .
Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA) Definition | Business Dictionaries from AllBusiness.com
So lets look at the economy after the tax cuts were in place as a RESULT of the bill and not some revisionist look that some may wish to put up.
The bill would be in place after 1983 ...
The employment situation in 1984 reflected extraordinary rates of employment growth in the first 2 quarters, a pause in the summer months, and additional employment growth in the last quarter of the year. Total civilian employment, as measured by the Current Population Survey, stood at 106.0 million in the fourth quarter after seasonal adjustment. Employees on nonagricultural payrolls,as measured by the Current Employment Statistics program, totaled 95.5 milion of yearend. Both series were up by about 7 million from the trought of the 1981-82 recession.
With the robust employment growth early in the year, unemployment continued to drop sharply, but, as the job growth slowed, the unemployment decline slowed after midyear. At 8.2 million in the fourth quarter, unemployment was down about 1.3 million from the year before and more than 3.5 million from the recession trough. At year's end, the rate of unemployment in the total labor force was 7.1 percent; it was 7.2 percent for the civilian labor force. These indicators were down 1.3 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 1983.
Employment and unemployment in 1984: a second year of strong growth in jobs | Monthly Labor Review | Find Articles at BNET
So again while some partisans who were most likely not alive during the Carter years and were never treated to the wonderful state in which Carter left this nation now like to take statistics and claim otherwise. Frankly this sort of thing is not surprising from some on the left that would think that the debate on "Global Warming" is over and only crackpots disagree with it, that is of course if your not counting over 30,000 scientists and professors.