The liberal left likes to say that Ronald Reagan was the president of tax hikes and amnesty, since he signed bills doing both.
Reagan was lied to, and now his legacy is paying the price, and the Republicans learned nothing.
The lies by the democrats led Reagan to provide us with one of his more famous quotes: "Trust, but verify."
Ronald Reagan ran on cutting taxes, and overall he was a tax cutter, which is a part of what led us to a couple decades of prosperity. In 1981 Reagan cut taxes 25% across the board. The top tax rate ultimately dropped from 70% to 28%. In 1986 Ronald Reagan closed some tax deductions that allowed people to play games with the tax code, which democrats like to use to claim that Reagan raised taxes. Reagan was simply streamlining the tax code, reforming it if you want, but in the end, he understood that we had a spending problem, not a revenue problem. He worked to simplify the tax code, hence the elimination of a few deductions, and he changed the code from having 16 different tax brackets, to two.
In 1982, in the interest of getting some spending reductions out of the democrats, he agreed to a deal that the left likes to use the most to label Reagan as a tax-hiker. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 offered a compromise that Reagan felt was a workable deal that would make up the raise in taxes that went with it. The democrats offered three dollars of spending cuts for each dollar of a tax hike. Reagan believed that since we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem, and considering how hard it was to get democrats to reduce spending in the first place, the 3-1 ratio was a reasonable deal. The taxes went up, but true to the left's tendency to lie, the spending cuts never happened.
In 1986, Ronald Reagan decided to trust the democrats one more time, this time regarding amnesty. Reagan did not think amnesty was a good idea, and he signed the bill reluctantly. He was willing to sign the bill because of a promise by the liberal left that they would secure the border and this would be the only time amnesty would need to be granted. However, the border security provisions of the Immigration and Control Act were never implemented, and now, rather than nearly 3 million illegal aliens, we face 11 million. The 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli bill contained three promises:
- The government would make a concerted effort to control the borders.
- An effective employer verification program would ensure that only legal workers were hired.
- One-time amnesty would be granted for people illegally in the United States.
None of them were honored by the democrats.
Now, the gang of eight are ready to propose another "bi-partisan" bill filled with the same promises, and the republicans are trying to get spending cuts to go along with the tax hikes put into place last January.
Reagan learned, but the GOP has forgotten.
Simply put, the democrats lied before, and they are lying now.
Tax hikes are coming for everyone, and the borders will not be protected regardless of what folks like Marco Rubio is willing to believe.
Liberal Democrats have proven something historically - they can't be trusted, and you can't compromise with them. The only thing we need to be doing is defeating them. . . at the ballot box, and in the halls of Congress.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times? The real story - The Daily Caller
Ronald Reagan on Immigration - On The Issues
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