Former Ronald Reagan speechwriter Jeff Bell found a lot to like in Donald Trump’s tax plan.
“Trump’s plan for tax reform is the most populist so far seen among the presidential candidates. It is also the most faithful to supply-side principles,” Bell contends.
Bell says that the plan comes closer to meeting the definition of supply side tax policy.
“Cutting taxes for individuals and families is a vote of confidence in the ability of ordinary people to make use of their income, rather than sending it on a round trip to government and other elites to decide what they need. It is far more like Ronald Reagan’s tax revolution, which focused on personal tax rate cuts rather than corporate incentives.
“Reagan’s tax rate reductions, which saw the top rate on personal income drop from 70 to 28 percent between 1981 and 1988, were successful in both economic and political terms because they trusted the people to make good decisions. Reagan made some tax changes favorable to businesses, but economically speaking they were minor and politically speaking they are unremembered.
“Supply-side tax policy, which at its best is a subdivision of populism, imposes the lowest possible tax rates on the widest possible definition of income. The plan offered on September 28 by Donald Trump, while not perfect, comes the closest in many years to meeting that definition.”
