Obamacare "Only" the 10th Biggest Tax Increase In History?
And virtually tied for the
seventh biggest ever. Now, it's tempting to just let it go at that, because after all, getting the liberals to admit it's a very big tax increase is a win in itself. But let's take a harder look at the data. Note that the size of the tax increase is defined as a % of GDP. But what else do we note?
Seven of the nine previous largest tax increases in history came under Democratic presidents. And there's an asterisk next to the "Reagan" tax increase of 1982; it partially undid the Reagan tax decrease of 1981, so net between those two years, taxes were actually cut substantially. Realistically, the only tax increase by a Republican president that exceeds the Obamacare tax increase is the Bush I deal of 1990, and that only by a fraction of 1/100th of a percent.
It's pretty obvious, too, that if you look at it in raw dollar terms, the Obamacare tax increase is the largest ever, as the GDP was much smaller during those earlier tax increases. It may be the largest ever even in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars. I haven't run the numbers, but it seems pretty likely just by eyeballing it.
Labels: Barack Obama, Obamacare, Tax Increases
