{"id":3528,"date":"2009-10-01T20:33:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-02T00:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=3528"},"modified":"2009-10-06T22:20:21","modified_gmt":"2009-10-07T02:20:21","slug":"tinkle-on-economics-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2009\/10\/01\/tinkle-on-economics-2\/","title":{"rendered":"tinkle on economics<\/em>…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


Total Government Spending [1940-2007]<\/sup><\/p>\n

In the last several posts, I’ve been exploring the Republican Talking Point that Democrats are the "tax and spend<\/font><\/strong>" party. In war on Talking Points…<\/strong><\/a><\/u>, I concluded that the "spend" charge is false. Looking at this graph of total spending plotted as % of the Gross Domestic Product, it’s apparent that in the both parties have participated in the escalating spending. In fact, the only exceptions are the Democrats – Bill Clinton and to a lesser extent, Jimmy Carter. Another related Republican Talking Point is "big government<\/font><\/strong>." Looking at the graph, one can hardly argue that government isn’t expanding, at least in terms of costs.  But again, it doesn’t look like it’s a partisan issue. Both parties seem to be equal opportunity spenders. And when Clinton actually reversed the trend, the Bush Administration pointed us back upwards. <\/p>\n

When it comes to taxation, things are a bit more difficult to pin down in the pre-Reagan period. In Mr. Hypothetical goes to Washington…<\/a><\/u><\/strong>, I tried to look at the partisan question. Once FDR put the graduated Income Tax in place weighted heavily towards the wealthy, the only  pre-Reagan President to make much of a change was Lyndon Johnson when he assumed the remainder of Kennedy’s term. Neither Eisenhower, Nixon, or Ford did anything to change it. The Democrats’ reputation as heavy taxers seems primarily based on FDR’s New Deal taxation scheme in the face of the Great Depression and World WarII.<\/p>\n

In my last post, I expressed the Reagan Tax Reform in the standard way using a version of this graph<\/strong><\/a>, but it’s hard for me to even understand – and I drew it. So I went at it from a different direction. The graphs below show the Tax Brackets on the vertical axis and the Adjusted Gross Income on the horizontal axis [Note: $100K = $100,000.00, all values corrected to 2007 dollars]. The years selected represent:<\/div>\n