Most promisses of Obama are kept WHEN and IF possible! Support him keeping all of his promisses! (794)

Americans seem to understand, on an almost visceral level, that Reagan was a transformative figure. He changed American politics, ending almost 50 years of liberal hegemony. And he did it with taxes.

Reagan began his presidency with a tax cut. A really, really big tax cut. In fact, the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA) was the biggest tax reduction in American history. The law bestowed its largesse on both individuals and corporations. Analysts have written extensively on the "bidding war" that erupted over the bill, with lawmakers competing to sweeten the pot for favored constituents. Ultimately, it passed with a host of very expensive provisions, including a phased-in 23 percent cut in individual tax rates. Even more important, the law indexed tax brackets for inflation, ending the "bracket creep" phenomenon that had buoyed federal receipts for decades. Meanwhile, corporate taxpayers got a number of goodies, including more generous depreciation schedules under the accelerated cost recovery system. ERTA slashed federal revenue by $38 billion the first year, $91 billion the second year, and $139 billion the third year. As a percentage of gross domestic product, those cuts dwarfed anything before or since, according to the Treasury Department Office of Tax Analysis.

In 1982 Reagan agreed to a substantial tax hike. More followed in 1984 and 1987, further eroding the 1981 reductions.

As Urban Institute economist and Tax Notes columnist Gene Steuerle has pointed out, ERTA marked the end of an era, the last in a series of tax cuts enacted in the 1960s and 1970s. But it also helped precipitate the beginning of a new era, one marked by profound fiscal stringency. Large and persistent deficits, attributable at least in part to the 1981 cuts, were to keep a tight lid on spending for years to come. The era of bold new programs in the New Deal mold was over. And Reagan had done everything possible to hasten that demise. Reagan was not, however, an advocate of "starve the beast" fiscal policy: That cynical scheme to shrink government indirectly by reducing available revenue. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, is the most prominent spokesman for that strategy, and he seems to draw his inspiration from Reagan. But Norquist's version of deficit discipline is far more radical, and much more irresponsible, than anything Reagan endorsed.

Indeed, Reagan's conservative credentials seem almost suspect by today's standards. He may not have championed the tax hikes of 1982, 1984, and 1987, but he certainly signed off on them. One suspects he may even have recognized, however grudgingly, that they were necessary. There isn't much room in today's GOP for that sort of fiscal responsibility. One can't help but wonder: If Reagan were running for reelection this year, would the Club for Growth target him for defeat, decrying his embrace of three major tax hikes?

Republicans recognize that Reagan's great gift to the conservative movement was not about policy, but politics. He changed everything, and the Democrats have never really recovered. When former President Bill Clinton declared that "the era of big government is over," he said more about the Reagan legacy than anyone writing obituaries last week. Like Ike, Clinton inherited a political climate largely hostile to his party's ideology. Rather than challenge that ideology in its fundamentals, he tried to co-opt it. Eisenhower accepted the huge, new federal government that emerged from World War II, replete with mass income taxation; his conservative reforms had to work themselves out within the boundaries of the New Deal state. Similarly, Clinton embraced the Reagan agenda for limited government, squeezing his progressive reforms into Reagan's fiscal and ideological straightjacket. Sometimes you have to go along to get along.

I could see Dude taking Helen Thomas to the basement.

You and dude don't constitute everyone.

She'd just got back from a week's vacation in Denmark.

Oh good...now Michelle wants to tell restaurants portion sizes.


I wonder if a 16 oz. porterhouse will now be 8 oz. ?

But that's where you refrigerate what you don't eat and have it the next day.