REAGAN'S TAX HISTORY IN WASHINGTON, D.C. AND IN CALIFORNIA ... MORE MYTH THAN REALITY

Governor Reagan and President Nixon, 1970

Here's something most conservatives don't want to acknowledge. President Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times while in the White House. According to Bruce Bartlett - who served as a top domestic policy advisor to President Reagan, and as a Treasury official for George H.W. Bush - this added up to $132.7 billion in tax hikes for the Gipper (about $350 billion today). 

Legislation	Billions of Dollars
Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act	57.3
Highway Revenue Act of 1982	4.9
Social Security Amendments of 1983	24.6
Railroad Retirement Revenue Act of 1983	1.2
Deficit Reduction Act of 1984	25.4
Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985	2.9
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986	2.4
Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986	0.6
Continuing Resolution for 1987	2.8
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987	8.6
Continuing Resolution for 1988	2.0
TOTAL TAX INCREASE	132.7

When you take the $132.7 in tax hikes away from $275.1 billion in tax cuts that President Reagan implemented it becomes clear that the man who has become St. Reagan for the GOP could taketh as much as he giveth.

Then we have Reagan's tax history while he was governor of California.  

Governor Reagan initiated a series of tax hikes that equaled (or exceeded) $1 billion per year through the early 1970s. This means that:

... Governor Reagan presided over an astonishing expansion of taxes in California. According to the California Department of Finance, state revenues tripled from $2.9 billion in the 1966/67 fiscal year to $8.6 billion in the 1974/75 fiscal year, Reagan’s last.

On the positive side, Governor Reagan did leave small budget surpluses for his successor, Gov. Jerry Brown (1974-1982), who would grow those surpluses to about $5 billion by 1978.

Governor Reagan and Governor-elect Brown, 1974

However, these surpluses would disappear after the tax gutting Proposition 13 was put on the ballot (as an initiative) and passed in 1978. Governor Brown was forced to use state funds (and the surpluses) to help financially crippled local governments make ends meet throughout the state.

The story line here is real simple. Ronald Reagan's tax history as governor and as president is more myth than reality.

- Mark 

FYI: The Sacramento Bee has additional historical data on California's finances, which can be found here.