Blame Republican tax cuts for the nation’s soaring debt
The only reason the national debt is $21 trillion is because the IRS has not collected enough money since Ronald Reagan cut the top tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent and eliminated 11 tax brackets. When Reagan took office, the national debt was less than $1 trillion, despite the fact that we had just been in a long, expensive war in Vietnam.
George H.W. Bush lost re-election after he broke his “no new taxes” pledge. Bill Clinton raised the top tax rate to 39.6 percent and balanced the budget. George W. Bush, in order to get re-elected, cut the top tax rate. Donald Trump cut taxes, mostly on corporations and stockholders.
Since Reagan, Republicans have learned that voters love tax cuts even when the country can’t afford them, and they go mostly to the rich. No tax cut has ever increased revenue, as Reagan’s “voodoo economics” promised.
