Will Bunch interviewed in Salon:

The American economy was doing very poorly in the early 1990s, there was a recession during the presidency of George H.W. Bush. Bush 41's presidency basically collapsed because he was forced to increase taxes to deal with the continuing deficits that were a legacy of Reagan. There was high anxiety among the American people starting in Reagan's second term about the loss of jobs in manufacturing, the growing clout of Asia — so all of these things really caused Reagan to be viewed pretty negatively at the time.

Bill Clinton campaigned very aggressively against Reaganomics. When Clinton was able to get some of his economic policies through Congress in the first two years of his presidency, Time ran a cover with a picture of Reagan upside down, and it was about the death of Reaganomics. That was the tone in the early '90s, before this conservative campaign to build what I call the Reagan myth got started.

There's been plenty of hagiography and myth-busting leading up to this Holiest of Days (a unique confluence of Super Bowl Sunday and Reagan's 100th Birthday), but I can't help adding just a smidge more to the mix.  As we in Vermont work out the details of our single-payer implementation, including debating payroll taxes and such, there needs to be an honest discussion about raising revenues to safeguard the common weal in very ugly economic times.

Sadly, I don't see a lot of political courage, let alone reliable memory, when it comes to tax increases.  Governor Shumlin appears to still suffer from this:

Let me be clear — Vermont's biggest problem is not that our income taxes are not high enough — they are too high. Our problem is not that our sales tax isn't high enough — It's too high. Our problem is not that our rooms and meals tax isn't high enough — It is too high.

I'll set aside his glaring omission of the regressive property tax burden and simply take serious exception to his notion that our income taxes are too high, at least when it comes to the top marginal rate.  It's almost like many Democrats today have internalized Reaganomics Bullshit or suffer from Stockholm Syndrome.

Let me be clear: Reagan proved you can, and must, raise taxes during economic downturns.

After his disastrous first tax cut, Reagan raised taxes seven times–the economy improved.  George HW Bush raised taxes to address the massive deficits he–left by the Voodoo Economics he mocked before getting the VP nod.  Bill Clinton raised taxes and gave us a surplus–remember those days of prosperity, deficit hawks?

And let's not forget Vermont's Republican Governor, Richard Snelling.  Some of his political descendants might dismiss Snelling's raising taxes on the rich as anachronistic, but we've seen over the last 30 years that Laffer was wrong and the only path to recovery is making wealthy people to kick in.

So how about it, Mr Shumlin?  Would you rather be on the right side of history as well as the side of ordinary Vermonters, or not?

ntodd