Stein was chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. The political and economic arguments for a tax cut are strong. Tax cut would increase the incentive to increase saving, investment, risk taking and entrepreneurship. After the Reagan tax cuts, revenues grew faster than in the 1990s, which have seen two of the largest tax hikes in American history. Real federal receipts climbed 24 percent between 1982 and 1989.
Tax cuts are also good for growth.
The economy surged by nearly 5 percent a year after the Kennedy tax cuts in the early 1960s. After the two 1990s tax increases under Bush and Clinton, the economy is limping along at less than 2 percent annual growth. What's more, everybody benefits from a tax cut. The great lie about the 1980s is that the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. In fact, every income group did better.