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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Supply-side: increased revenues:Income Tax Receipts
Message-ID: <808@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Nov-85 14:15:52 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.808
Posted: Wed Nov 13 14:15:52 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Nov-85 21:09:24 EST
References: <543@drutx.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany
Lines: 46

Apparently supply-side advocates have difficulty understanding
basic categories of government revenues and expenses.
To wit Dave Olson responds to my figures:
  > > tim      > Dave Olson
> >I have posted this before so I will simply summarize the *facts* as
> >presented in a New York Times article, Sept. 18,1984:
>   
> >  1)Tax revenues have *not* gone up.  Here are the facts:
> >     1981                      1982
> >    $284.1 billion,        $276.9 billion
> 
> Uh, Tim.  Revenues were *only* $200 and-some-odd billion?  Double those
> figures, and you will have the approximate figure for 1980.  For last
> year it was something like $750 billion.  Point of fact: according to
> the _Information_Please_Almanac_ of 1985, federal receipts for 1981 was
> $663.9 billion and for 1982 was $690.4 billion.
> 
> David Olson

The 1981 tax cuts which were expected to produce the supply-side miracle
of increased revenues from lower taxes only involved INCOME TAXES.
The figures cited by the New York Times (quite properly!)
are therefore for actual revenues
from INCOME TAXES as tabulated by the Internal Revenue Service.
Since these were the taxes which were reduced, this should be the
category which increases in revenues according to supply-side theory.  
It was not.
Along with the income tax cuts which benefited the affluent over
other income groups, Social Security taxes were increased.
If you examine the sources of the $690.4 billion in total revenues
for 1982, I am sure you will find that Social Security revenues
were the primary source of the increase.  If you recall this,
along with elimination of some Social Security programs, was one
of the things recommended by the bipartisan commission on Social Security
(and enacted with support from both parties in Congress) to
insure the Social Security Trust Fund would remain solvent.
It was a front page news story at the time. Do you remember it?

Thus as logic would dictate those taxes which were decreased (namely
income taxes) led to *reduced* revenues and those taxes which
were increased (namely Social Security) led to *increased* revenues.
Despite their posturing supply-side advocates have yet to produce
something from nothing!
Your incessant confusion of budget categories has still failed to
produce such legerdemain.  We can see your hands up your sleeves!
      tim sevener  whuxn!orb