Why are tax cuts an article of faith?

[stpioc]

Here is Bruce Bartlett, the guy who actually designed the Reagan tax cuts:

It is G.O.P. dogma that the Reagan tax cut set off an economic boom. Every Republican presidential nominee since the 1980s has promised big tax cuts and another economic surge. Tax increases, Republicans believe, are the kiss of death for the economy.

But the Reagan tax cut played only a secondary role in the 1980s boom, which wasn’t really much of a boom. Real G.D.P. grew 37.9 percent in the 1970s, compared with 36.1 percent in the 1980s. The economy felt better because inflation came down extraordinarily quickly, far more quickly than economists in 1980 thought was possible. But this was primarily a result of the Federal Reserve’s tight money policy, not taxes.

The tax cut deserves credit for softening the blow from the reduction in inflation, which brought on a sharp recession in 1981-82. But what we think of as the Reagan boom was the typical rebound from a sharp recession, just as we had seen after all previous postwar recessions. Much credit for growth in the Reagan years must go to the sharp increase in government purchases for his defense buildup.

What many Republicans also forget is that Reagan cared about deficits and supported 11 different tax increases from 1982 to 1988 that collectively took back half of the 1981 tax cut. Although many conservative economists predicted doom from the 1982 tax increase, which equaled 1 percent of G.D.P., the beginning of the boom coincided with its enactment.

These economists also predicted catastrophe from the 1993 tax increase enacted under President Bill Clinton and from the expiration of many of President George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2013. But in each case financial markets and the economy grew sharply afterward.

By contrast, the economy tanked during the Bush years despite numerous large tax cuts. The final proof that tax cuts are not the be-all and end-all of growth policy is the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which dropped the top income-tax rate to 28 percent. Conservative doctrine predicted an economic boom, but I don’t remember one, nor can I find one in the data.

Trump’s Misguided Embrace of Tax Cuts - The New York Times

Who is Bruce Bartlett?

I know something about the Reagan tax cut. In 1977, while working for Representative Jack Kemp, Republican of New York, I drafted the Kemp-Roth tax bill, which Reagan sent to Congress in early 1981. The law cut statutory tax rates by about 25 percent across the board.

Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. He is the author of “Reaganomics: Supply-Side Economics in Action.”

Trump’s Misguided Embrace of Tax Cuts - The New York Times