Volume 31, Number 6 · April 12, 1984
The Reagan Variety Show
By James Fallows
The Supply-Side Revolution: An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington
by Paul Craig Roberts
Harvard University Press, 327 pp., $18.50
Presidential Economics: The Making of Economic Policy from Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond
by Herbert Stein
Simon and Schuster, 414 pp., $16.95
The Barbaric Counter-Revolution: Cause and Cure
by W. W. Rostow
University of Texas Press, 126 pp., $13.95
Near the end of his second year in office, John Kennedy proposed a dramatic reduction in federal income-tax rates. The maximum rate, applied to income above $200,000, would fall from 91 percent to 70 percent, and down through the rest of the income distribution, rates would be cut by an average of 20 percent. Corporate taxes were to be cut, too. The reductions were enacted soon after Kennedy's death, and their first stage took effect in 1964. Immediately afterward, America entered a period of unparalleled prosperity.
Review, 4927 words
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