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Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Ronald Reagan, Populist?


      Republicans these days love to talk about Ronald Reagan in their crusade to shift the tax burden to the middle class while creating corporate welfare. Yes, Reagan did preach the concept that cutting taxes for the top 1% in America will cause a trickle-down effect and somehow magically put more money in every ones pockets but he also knew there must be exceptions. In 1986, he signed into law a corporate Alternative Minimum Tax. This ensured that firms paid a minimum amount of federal income tax regardless of how many deductions they claimed. What lead to this was 129 of the wealthiest
corporations paying no income tax. None. In fact, they actually received an average rebate of 9.6%. 
      Most liberals disagree with “Reaganomics”. What we can agree on is that even though Reagan took that stance on taxes, at least he was willing to work with Democrats to fix a problem like this when presented to him like he did so many times with Tip O'Neill. Republicans today should take a page out of Reagan’s playbook instead of just talking about him. It’s time they work to make taxes fair for everyone, not just the top 1%.        

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