Can the GOP Turn Tax Cuts into Electoral Success?

Mitch McConnell, speaks at the dedication of the Dr. Norman Borlaug statue in the National Statuary Hall at the U. S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, Mar. 25, 2014. USDA photo by Lance Cheung.

After enacting the largest tax cuts since Ronald Reagan’s, Republicans will now have a chance to campaign on their efforts. Whether in 2018, or 2020 the effects of the tax cuts will be put to the test at the polls. Pat Buchanan says that the tax cut vote should not be underestimated. He writes:

By how they voted Wednesday, Republicans yet believe in “supply-side” economics. In the early ’80s, this was derided as “voodoo economics” and “trickle-down” economics, and pungently disparaged by John Kenneth Galbraith as an economic philosophy rooted in the belief that, if you wish to feed the sparrows, you must first feed the horses.

The problem for Democrats is that Reaganomics worked, and is seen historically to have been successful. In 1984, growth was near 6 percent and Reagan rode to a 49-state landslide over Fritz Mondale who, at his San Francisco convention, had declared he would raise taxes.

Thus the importance of what happened Tuesday and Wednesday on Capitol Hill should not be underestimated.

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