A great advantage of having been present when history was made is that later you can sometimes recall what actually happened. Such institutional memory is important today in assessing the 1981 Reagan tax cuts, whose effect is now being relitigated in the debate on the Republicans’ proposed tax reform. To refute claims that the Reagan tax cuts slashed federal revenue, in the words of President Reagan, “well, let’s take them on a little stroll down memory lane.”
In 1980, the year before Reagan became president, …