Reagan’s tax rate cuts helped produce the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history. Total tax revenues grew by over 99 percent during the 1980s, and the economy grew by an average of 4 percent each year. As we saw in the 1960s, the wealthiest Americans paid the most taxes following Reagan’s rate cuts. The top 10 percent of income earners went from paying 48 percent of all taxes in 1981, to over 57 percent by 1988.

The other lie liberals perpetually tell is that low tax rates cause budget deficits. History proves just the opposite – that cuts in income, capital gains and dividends tax rates increase the amount of federal revenues available for Congress to spend. The only thing that can cause a budget deficit is when Congress spends in excess of available revenues, and the president at the time signs off on that spending. Members of Congress who blame tax cuts for causing deficits might as well argue that gun manufacturers cause homicides, fast food restaurants cause obesity and cigarette makers cause lung cancer. Surely no one would agree with that flawed logic.

Fiscal conservatives who advocate low tax rates, and even complete replacement of the income tax code with a consumption tax, can be assured that they are on the right side of history, and the right side of economic common sense. Liberals of both political parties who decry low tax rates would harm our nation’s economic infrastructure, and the poor and wealthy alike.

Nearly everyone has a chance to succeed in our dynamic economy, provided that government does not confiscate their wealth through the tax code. As former President Abraham Lincoln once stated, “That some should be rich shows that others may become rich and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise . . . I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.”