Who says you can’t raise taxes during bad economic times, writes physician and consultant Paul Abrams. Conservatives and media pundits have yammered incessantly lately over President Barack Obama’s intention to allow tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans to expire, claiming the move will wreck what it is already a broken economy. But raising taxes during a downturn has been proven to work, Abrams argues.

 

Case in point: Ronald Reagan, 1982. Like Obama, Reagan found himself in his second year in the White House dealing with a recession and high unemployment. What did he do? Signed off on the (then) biggest tax increase in American history: $100 billion. First he raised taxes on businesses, then he increased payroll taxes and finally he upped energy taxes.

 

Reagan’s approval rating dropped to 35%, but the economy began improving in 1983, and in 1984 Reagan won a landslide re-election victory. And by the end of his time in office, the country had gained nearly 17 million new jobs.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Reagan and Clinton Raised Taxes in Recessions—And Created 40 Million Jobs (by Paul Abrams, Huffington Post)