If you are a talk show host who doesn't like President Obama's economic policies, here are some tips: Repeat over and over again that this recovery is the worst in "modern history" and its all Obama's fault. Many of your viewers or listeners won't know that modern history starts after WW2 and does not include the 1930s Depression. This is the 2nd worst downturn after the 1930s Depression and yes, this is the 2nd worst recovery. Really bad depressions lead to really slow recoveries.
Repeat the mantra that higher taxes leads to slower growth. Don't bother your audience with facts or any comparative analysis. If your audience wanted that, they would read a book. Disregard the 1950s, 1980s and 1990s when a higher tax burden was accompanied by economic growth.
Constantly repeat that Reagan lowered taxes. Any tax increases - and there several of those - were what Reagan called "adjustments to previous tax cuts." If you repeat "tax cuts" and "Reagan" enough times and your audience does not do any research, they will believe you. Hopefully, most of your audience wasn't around or doesn't remember much of the 1980s. They remember only the hairstyles and the music.
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For those of you who want to know more about the tax cuts, increases and reform in 1986 - and like facts and a good story to boot - try Showdown At Gucci Gulch by Jeffrey Birnbaum and Alan Murray. Written a year after passage of the tax reform act, the authors had access to many of the key players, providing us with first hand accounts of the wheeling and dealing, the political feints and parries by all parties involved. The authors thrown in a small amount of budget math, just enough to understand the drama. Although the topic of the book is tax reform, the story is about people, alliances and power.
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