McCain on Reagan

One major tax cut, then lots of raises
from CQ

After Reagan took office, "we didn't raise taxes and we didn't cut entitlements. What we did was we cut taxes."

John McCain on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 in campaign event in Westport, Conn.

See here for the story.

But here's the part you'll never hear from McCain:

In 1983, Reagan signed legislation aimed at preserving Social Security’s solvency by raising payroll taxes and taxing Social Security benefits of upper-income Americans.

The plan certainly preserved Social Security but also demonstrated that Reagan was willing to impose tax increases, even if he didn’t propose them and rarely accepted them with enthusiasm.

As former Reagan advisor Bruce Bartlett wrote in a 2003 article for National Review, Reagan signed two major tax increases in 1982 that took back much of the break he’d provided in his 1981 tax bill. After the Social Security tax increase of 1983, Reagan approved further tax increases – in one form or another – in 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987.