[muldoon]

Except for the fact that O'Neill fought tooth and nail against the Reagan tax cuts that led to the success.

Reagan cut taxes, revenues quadrupled, and O'Neill and the Democrats gladly spent it all plus much more.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...increases.html
Started by cutting taxes...then reversed course


.....Still, his administration reversed course after the first tax-cut bill became law, when budget projections showed the deficit poised to reach levels not seen since the World War II era.
“We were scared out of our wits because that seemed to be unimaginable,” David Stockman, Reagan’s first budget director, said in an interview.


Reagan’s biggest deficit came in 1983 when it reached 6 percent of the gross domestic product -- about two-thirds the size of the shortfalls the government has run in each of the past three years.

The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, then criticized as the largest tax increase in history, scaled back corporate tax breaks, increased unemployment-insurance levies, and raised excise taxes on cigarettes, among other changes.

“The goal is simple and just: to see to it that everyone pays his fair share,” Reagan said in August 1982. He predicted the tax increase would help the economy because it would reduce the deficit, which he said would lead to lower interest rates.


Reality vs. Myth