President George H. W. Bush (the 41st U.S. President) famously said, "Read my lips: no new taxes," in his 1988 Republican National Convention acceptance speech, but later broke this promise by signing a budget deal that included tax increases to address the growing deficit.
"Read my lips: no new taxes" is a phrase spoken by American presidential candidate George H. W. Bush at the 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans as he accepted the nomination on August 18.
The phrase Reagan tax cuts refers to changes to the United States federal tax code passed during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. There were two major tax cuts: The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 and the Tax Reform Act of 1986.
The bottom 99% also saw an average federal tax rate increase by one percentage point from 2012 to 2013, mainly due to the expiration of the Obama payroll tax cuts, which were in place in 2011 and 2012. However, for income groups in the bottom 99%, the average federal tax rate remained at or below the 2007 level.
Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 into law on August 10, 1993. The law created a 36 percent to 39.6 percent income tax for high-income individuals in the top 1.2% of wage earners. Businesses were given an income tax rate of 35%. The cap was repealed on Medicare.
The Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) reduced the federal top corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, bringing the combined US federal and state rates to about the average for most other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, and eliminated the graduated corporate rate schedule ( ...
So with Reagan's signature, Congress undid a good chunk of the 1981 tax cut by raising taxes a lot in 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1987. George H.W. Bush signed another tax increase in 1990 and Bill Clinton did the same in 1993.
At the end of 2025, the individual tax provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) expire all at once. Without congressional action, most taxpayers will see a notable tax increase relative to current policy in 2026.
To raise additional revenue for reform, the ACA imposed excise taxes on health insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and manufacturers of medical devices; raised taxes on high-income families; and increased limits on the income tax deduction for medical expenses.
“President Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act not only strengthened American manufacturing, but promoted job growth, drove innovation, increased hardworking Americans' take home pay, and increased U.S. competitiveness.
Seven major tax cuts took effect for 2025 under the OBBBA:
Yes, federal income tax is legally mandatory for most U.S. citizens and residents, enforced by the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), with the Supreme Court upholding its constitutionality, meaning failure to pay can lead to significant civil and criminal penalties, despite common "tax protester" arguments that the obligation is voluntary or unconstitutional. Compliance is mandatory, though the system is called "voluntary compliance" because individuals must self-report and calculate their taxes, but the requirement to do so is law.
In 2012, during the fiscal cliff, Obama overcame the sunset provisions and made the tax cuts permanent for single people earning less than $400,000 per year and couples making less than $450,000 per year, but did not stop the sunset provisions from applying to higher incomes, under the American Taxpayer Relief Act of ...
Multiple other analyses have found that higher debt and deficits lead to upward pressure on interest rates. Paying for the cost of extending and expanding tax cuts will directly lead to lower interest rates than extension without offsets. Lower interest rates mean lower borrowing costs throughout the economy.
Bush administration was characterized by significant income tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, the implementation of Medicare Part D in 2003, increased military spending for two wars, a housing bubble that contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–2008, and the Great Recession that followed.
Bush lost the 1992 presidential election to Democrat Bill Clinton following an economic recession, his turnaround on his tax promise, and the decreased emphasis of foreign policy in a post–Cold War political climate.
President John F. Kennedy and later President Lyndon B. Johnson aimed to stimulate economic activity through a significant reduction in tax rates, particularly targeting individuals and small businesses.
The top individual marginal income tax rate tended to increase over time through the early 1960s, with some additional bumps during war years. The top income tax rate reached above 90% from 1944 through 1963, peaking in 1944, when top taxpayers paid an income tax rate of 94% on their taxable income.
High-Income Taxpayers Paid the Majority of Federal Income Taxes. In 2022, the bottom half of taxpayers earned 11.5 percent of total AGI and paid 3 percent of all federal individual income taxes. The top 1 percent earned 22.4 percent of total AGI and paid 40.4 percent of all federal income taxes.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in 2018 that the 2017 law would cost $1.9 trillion over ten years, and recent estimates show that making the law's temporary individual income and estate tax cuts permanent would cost roughly another $4.2 trillion through 2035.
If the individual tax cuts expire, taxpayers in all income groups would face higher and more complicated taxes. Machinery and equipment expensing is a key provision that, if allowed to expire, would especially harm capital-intensive industries like manufacturing.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was legislation passed by the 115th Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the tax rate reduction reduced the tax payments of middle class and poor taxpayers. The net effect was a marked shift in the tax burden toward the top 1 percent amounting to about 10 percentage points. Lower top marginal tax rates had encouraged these taxpayers to generate more taxable income.
President Reagan signed major bipartisan Social Security reforms in 1983, primarily to address funding shortfalls, which included making some benefits taxable, gradually raising the full retirement age to 67, and accelerating payroll tax increases; he also signed legislation restoring minimum benefits and increasing penalties for misuse of Social Security numbers.
The act notably lowered the top individual tax rate from 50% to 28%, while simultaneously raising the bottom rate from 11% to 15%, marking a rare occurrence in tax policy.