US Presidency
1982

Those rates should be lower now than they are, with the success we've had in reducing inflation. But part of the problem is psychological, a pessimism in the money markets that we won't stay the course and continue lowering the cost of government. The projected increase in budget deficits has added to that pessimism and fear. And this brings us back to that so-called greatest tax increase in history and the budget proposals now before the Congress. When I submitted the 1983 budget to the Congress in February, it contained very significant spending cuts on top of those we obtained last year. This time, however, we couldn't get the support we had last year. Some who had not been happy about the tax cuts then were now insisting we must have additional tax revenues. In fact, they wanted to cancel the reduction scheduled for next July and cancel the indexing of tax brackets. Others proposed tax increases mounting to about $ 150 billion over a 3-year period.