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
As a result of lower taxes, it prompted corporation to invest, leading U.S consumers to buy more. As the company grew, due to increased consumer spending, it would indirectly raise government tax revenues. The trend would trickle to benefit even the poorest U.S citizens. Reaganomics principles encouraged many industries to have self-control during the early 80s. This led to greater competition and lower prices for consumers (Boskin 1887).
Ronald Reagan, President of the United States from 1981 through 1989, created economic policies throughout his presidency that aimed to pull the United States out of a recession. His policies, called Reaganomics, reduced government spending and reduced tax rates in order to foster economic growth. Reagan also appointed many conservative judges to the Supreme Court and federal courts in order to shift ideologies to the right. Because of this, Reagan was both underrated and overrated as a president.
Reagan really focused on improving the economy during his presidency, with a plan he called Reaganomics, or supply side economics. The main parts of this plan were cuts on taxes and budgets, and monetary policy. Also, he wanted to reduce government regulation on businesses. He thought that these and increasing defense expenditures would heighten economic efficiency. Reagan managed to cut taxes by twenty five percent in three years. However, the plans did not work out at first, causing a recession that some call “The Great Inflation.” The national debt heightened substantially, and the rate of unemployment reached up to eleven percent. Despite these negative outcomes, the economy experienced a sudden growth and prosperity in 1983, which was
While most taxpayers agree that tax reform is necessary for our country the problem they encounter is the difficulty they experience when trying to understand all the political terms used when discussing tax reform. This paper is an attempt to help the taxpayers of our country to better understand the political terminology and gain knowledge about some of the proposals that have been explored.
Conte & Karr (2001) report the economic growth of the 1980’s in the United States sees President Regan cutting taxes and slashing social programs. President Reagan also
There were many critical issues with Reaganomics, which was intended to help expand the economy, but it eventually became the downturn during 1981 through 1982 (Foner 832). For example, the wealthiest American families benefited the most from the economic expansion because they had spent most of their income not on productive investments and charity, but on luxury goods and corporate buyouts (Foner 832). Whereas, the poorest 40 percent of the population’s incomes have declined, especially those with wives who did not work outside of their homes (Foner 832). Foner states that the 1980s was remembered as a decade of misplaced values because buying out companies generated more profits than actually running them or
This, however, created chaos in other public programs for instance, Medicare and Social Security. Reagan was fairly ‘laissez faire’ and delivered on his promise to decrease government-intervention by reducing federal regulations on business and industry, a policy preferably known as deregulation which had begun under Carter’s presidency (Newman and Schmalbach 650). Nevertheless, Reagan opposed labor unions-he once fired thousands of striking air traffics who were against their contracts- and many businesses followed suit by taking strict measures against striking. As a result, labor union membership and striking drastically decreased as the economy grew tough during the Recession of 1982, and foreign competition for American jobs made jobs insecure and negatively affected worker’s wages (Newman and Schmalbach).
President Reagan’s radical tax cuts lead to a decrease in unemployment and an increase in incomes for Americans of all statuses. Despite the fact that, “in the late 1970s, the US economy was experiencing what was then the greatest economic crisis since the great depression… almost every economic measure substantially improved after Reagan’s reforms took effect” (Hannaford). Editors Pat Hannaford and Darcy Allen observe that, “by reducing America’s tax burden, Reagan’s
Reagan implemented policies based on supply-side economics and advocated a classical liberal and laissez-faire philosophy, seeking to stimulate the economy with large, across-the-board tax cuts. Reagan’s outlook on economics was what he and the public called “Reaganomics”. “The blueprint for “Reaganomics,” was a sketched out supply-side approach to the economic, including massive cuts in income taxes, capital gains taxes, and corporate taxes,”(340). His platform advocated reducing tax rates to spur economic growth, controlling the money supply to reduce inflation, deregulation of the economy, and reducing government spending. Reagan's policies proposed that economic growth would occur when marginal tax rates were low enough to spur investment, which would then lead to increased economic growth, higher employment, and wages. Reagan’s beliefs on cutting taxes were supported by ideas of William Sumner who believed that the best equipped to win the struggle for existence was the American businessman, and concluded that taxes and regulations serve as dangers to his survival. Reagan believed strong nations were composed of people who were successful at expanding their empires and these strong nations would survive in the struggle for dominance.
Leading up to the year 1981, America had fallen into a period of “stagflation”, a portmanteau for ‘stagnant economy’ and ‘high inflation’. Characterized by high taxes, high unemployment, high interest rates, and low national spirit, America needed to look to something other than Keynesian economics to pull itself out of this low. During the election of 1980, Ronald Reagan’s campaign focused on a new stream of economic policy. His objective was to turn the economy into “a healthy, vigorous, growing economy [which would provide] equal opportunities for all Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination.” Reagan’s policy, later known as ‘Reaganomics’, entailed a four-point plan which cut taxes, reduced government spending,
As President, Ronald Reagan encountered many significant events; from surviving an assassination attempt, to the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Perhaps the most significant event was the economic downturn. He came to office (much like President Obama) in the midst of an economic crisis; however, President Reagan was able to turn the economy around. How did he do this? In order to answer this question, you must first ask what the economy was like when he was sworn into office, how his policy changed from the prior administration’s policy, and how it contrasts our present economic policy.
This economic expansion and boost would occur through citizens who would spend the extra tax money on products and services in their geographical region or who would invest money into businesses in their area. The only problem for the government using this theory would be the initial revenues that the government would lose from the tax cuts. In theory the economic growth would eventually increase taxable incomes, this increase in taxable incomes should cause the governmental revenues to grow in the long run. With the idea of Reaganomics in mind President Reagan persuaded Congress to pass the Economic Recovery Tax Act, which is the first major step in his plan. This Tax Act called for a 25 percent tax cut that was implemented over a three-year period (David Mervin, 1990, 133-7). The only problem with this tax cut is the fact that it mainly benefited the upper - income taxpayers and large corporations. The reason that these groups were targeted is because there is more of a chance that they will invest their money in business programs that will promote economic growth. After this tax cut took effect the American people in the lower - income tax brackets were not pleased with the results. They seemed to be faced with an increase in their tax rates even though most of them were in the income categories below the national average. On the other end of the spectrum the people that were in the upper tax brackets were experiencing significant tax cuts. The
First of all, the marginal tax cut was one of the most significant policy in the governing of President Reagan. Starting from 1981, government reduced individual tax (the top tax rate was reduced from 70% to 50 %) and Windfall profit tax. As the Tax reform act of 1986 published, the tax rate of wealthiest Americans was decline to 28 % and corporation tax was decreased to 34%.” In addition, as marginal tax rate for wealthy people decreasing, personal exemption amount increased from $1,080 to $2,000. That means,
President Ronald Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 into law on August 13, 1981 that proposed to stimulate the growth of the economy by reducing income tax rates, which provided incentives for small business owners. The Act, implemented from the Laffer curve theory stating an increase in tax rates provides government revenue until a hypothetical point in the curve where the rates are too high to provide the incentive for individuals to continue working and paying taxes at which point the government revenue would relatively decrease. The results eliminated tax bracket creep, however to continue gaining revenue it caused the signing of several other tax bills throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s to compensate. Whether or not any benefit came from the Act is up to debate. Skeptics claim it increased the United States deficit, and others defend it stating that the cuts increased revenue and held economic expansion responsible for the deficit that would have gone unrestrained without the Act.
For instance, in 1988, the U.S. was confronted with high inflation and decreased consumer spending. While prices rose quickly, the nation's people began to save their money, rather than invent it in the economy. It was President Ronald Reagan's ideas to reduce the government's involvement in the situation that helped to improve economic conditions. By cutting taxes to increase consumer spending, and by restricting the supply of money in the economy, he reduced the inflation from 13% to 4%. Instead of actively taking part in controlling all aspects of the economy, the government helped to solve the problem of inflation through limited involvement in the situation. The nation's people were still free to make their own economic decisions, and by reducing the taxes, citizens were able to spend more in the market. With more money begin invested in the economy and in individually owned business, there was also a demand for in the economy and individually owned businesses, there was also a demand for workers to produce the goods that the consumers now desired. By taking little government action, Regan stirred the economy, decreased unemployment involvement was necessary in the repairing of the country's economy, the amount of state control was limited.