>International trade has no monopoly on economic illiteracy. One of the
>apparently invincible fallacies of our times is the belief that President
>Ronald Reagan's tax cuts caused the federal budget deficits of the 1980s. In
>reality, the federal government collected more tax revenue in every year of
>the Reagan administration than had ever been collected in any year of any
>previous administration. But there is no amount of money that Congress
>cannot outspend. Here again, the confusion is due to a simple failure to
>define terms.
What a pile of crap.
Here are the CBO's estimates of "standardized" revenues, outlays, and deficits as percent of GDP, from 1980-1990. Standardized means adjusted for the business cycle and various technicalities/anomalies. Note the big decline in revenues, the rise in outlays, and the expansion of the deficit, from 1980-86.
revenues outlays deficit 1980 18.8% 19.2% -0.3% 1981 19.5% 19.9% -0.4% 1982 19.2% 20.3% -1.1% 1983 17.8% 20.8% -3.0% 1984 17.1% 20.8% -3.7% 1985 17.2% 21.6% -4.3% 1986 16.8% 21.7% -4.8% 1987 17.3% 20.7% -3.4% 1988 17.4% 19.9% -2.5% 1989 17.5% 19.7% -2.2% 1990 17.4% 19.5% -2.2%