Michael Graetz’s new book explains how clever marketing duped America into shoveling more tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations. When Ronald Reagan accepted the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, he presented himself as a tax magician. “We are taxing ourselves into economic exhaustion and stagnation,” he said before making a tantalizing promise. He would slash income tax rates by 30 percent over three years. Government revenue would miraculously increase, because lowered taxes would foster massive new investment, creating more jobs at higher pay. Libertarian economists Milton Friedman and Arthur Laffer vigorously championed Reagan’s claims, but even many conservatives scoffed. Herbert Stein, President Nixon’s chief economic adviser, remarked that the likelihood that tax cuts increase revenue was about the same as finding “there is human life on Mars.” George H.W. Bush called it “voodoo economics.” ….more
