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The Significance of Ronald Reagan's Tax Reform Act of 1986

Decent Essays

This investigation assesses the significance of Ronald Reagan’s Tax Reform Act of 1986 in the overall decrease of unemployment levels during the last year of his presidency, 1989. Reagan’s Tax Reform Act is analyzed in comparison to other economic and political events taking place during his presidency; the Act’s policies and implementations are investigated and evaluated for their effectiveness in economic recovery, the role of the Keynesian economic cycle during his presidency, and the policies of previous presidencies that lapsed into Reagan’s. Economic Analyses and Historical encyclopedias are used to evaluate the Tax Reform’s significance. Two of the sources used in the essay, Reaganomics : An Insider’s Account of the Policies and the People by William A. Niskanen, and Why Reaganomics and Keynesian Economics Failed by James E. Sawyer are evaluated for their origins, purposes, values and limitations.

B. Summary of Evidence
Throughout most of the seventies, the American economy underwent a period of turmoil that included low economic growth, high inflation and interest rates and a pending energy crisis. 1979 saw a significant rise in oil prices. In effect, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 revised and simplified the standing US Federal tax code, designing it so that it was more fair, efficient, and far reaching . The Act’s primary objectives were to ensure that individuals with similar incomes paid similar amounts of tax, personal and corporate taxes rates were reduced to

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