The other day I was going through an edition of The Wall Street Journal when I came across this headline on an op-ed, Washington Needs the Tax-Reform Spirit of 86′.  I thought, “Wow, finally somebody is beginning to make sense.  It’s about time.”  And then I saw who had written the piece – Rahm Emmanuel.

That gave me pause.  I smelled rat, but I didn’t automatically conclude that it was a scam.  Then I read the article.  It indeed was a rat, and a lying, thieving, smelly Democrat rat to boot.  On reflection though, falling for the headline was my own fault.  I forgot, you see, that that Democrats and Republicans both might speak the English language, but that the vocabulary words may have different meanings.

For a Republican, “tax reform” means finding a way to lower the tax burdens faced by Americans.  Many Red States have done so, by keeping their governments running without imposing State income taxes on their citizens.  For Democrats, on the other hand, “tax reform” means something very different.  The phrase contains two of the Democrats’ favorite words.  “Tax” and “reform.”

First there’s the Democrats’ favorite word, “tax.”  They truly never met a tax they didn’t like and want to increase.  Next we’ll consider the word “reform.  This word is one of those non-threatening sounding generic terms, which suggests a change in policy which will benefit the citizen.  However, in Democrat speak, “reform” is just another Trojan Horse term, designed to disguise the real intent, which is now and ever has been to raise taxes and spend even more money.  Democrats have many words, all of which support more taxing and more spending.

For instance, in the sane world, “investing” means saving money and watching it grow.  Whereas, for a Democrat, “investing” means spending, as in, “We are investing $8 billion to allow Somalis to open daycare centers in Minnesota.”  You know how that one ended.

Rahm Emmanuel, of course, was employing the Democrat definition of “reform.”  His article celebrated the 1986 tax reforms, only to the extent that they included the closing of some tax loopholes.  Emmanuel  complains that the tax code contains too many deductions and deferrals, which he says are “costly and encourage the wrong behavior.”  I’ll translate.  As far as Democrats are concerned, keeping more of the money you earn is the wrong behavior.

Emmanuel has an puzzling take on the tax code in general, which he says, “has evolved from an instrument designed to create wealth to one designed to preserve it.”  I’m not sure what that means.  The government neither creates wealth nor does it accumulate wealth.  If it’s working properly, the government creates an atmosphere which is conducive to the creation of wealth by entrepreneurs.  Once that wealth has been created, the tax code is designed to separate the earners from a goodly portion of it.

To this end, Emmanuel supports the only solution to government finance that Democrats ever come up with, raise taxes.  He favors ending “the practice of wealthy families borrowing against their equity to cover their expenses tax free.”  I suppose he means by this home equity loans, which, if I have to say this, aren’t needed by the very wealthy.  Home equity loans help the middle class to make necessary repairs, and to finance home improvements that otherwise wouldn’t be made.  These expenditures benefit the economy by creating jobs for builders and repairmen, and by increasing home values, which in turn benefits local governments, which levy property taxes based on property values.

Emmanuel also opposes the stepped-up basis rules that allow estate beneficiaries to value bequests as of the date of death of the decedent, and not the value when acquired.  Emmanuel complains this “allows them to pass fortunes from one generation to the next free from capital gains taxes.”  Such a change wouldn’t hurt billionaires, who have enough lawyers to preserve their assets, but would ruin family farms and other small businesses, which would have to be liquidated to fork over 20% (Emmanuel prefers 28%) of their value.  And not just businesses would be affected.  Consider a New Jersey decedent, who bought of home 45 or 50 years previously for $50,000, and which home is valued at $1 million today (yes, that’s quite possible).  At Emmanuel’s favored 28% rate, the heirs would be handed a bill for more than $250,000.

In addition, Emmanuel wants to require U.S. corporations to pay more taxes, which would result in the creation of fewer jobs and higher prices for consumers, because that’s how corporations fund their tax bills.  And this from the people complaining about affordability.  He then complains, once again about the carried interest rule, which President Trump was prepared to put an end to in his tax plan, but which Congress  refuses to vote for.  They don’t want to anger their donors, after all.

If you’re wondering just what all this tax raising nonsense has to do with the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980’s, join the club.  It seems Emmanuel invoked the Spirit of ’86 simply in an attempt to mislead the historically ignorant, which means most of the electorate, to believe Republican Ronald Reagan’s reforms were tax increases.  That couldn’t be any further from the truth.

To recap, the Reagan Tax Reforms reduced a top tax rate of 70% to 28%.  This reduction came along with the closing of some loopholes, to be sure, but the result was that, by the end of the 1980’s, income tax revenue collected by the federal government doubled.

In the wake of the Reagan tax cuts, the wealthy, you know, those hated “rich” who Democrats keep telling us need to pay their “fair share,” have paid a higher percentage of income taxes.  Today, the top 1% of earners pay over 40% of the income taxes, the top 10% pay 70%, and the bottom 50% of earners pay only 3%.  Yet, despite these facts, we’re still subjected to the “rich must pay their fair share” meme, while no Democrat ever has, or ever will, tell us how much “their fair share” is.

Rahm Emmanuel’s op-ed went so far as to dare to suggest that spending cuts will be necessary, or as he put it, “We’ll have to make hard choices.”  Of course, the only thing he suggested cutting was the entire budget for ICE Detention Centers, which, of course, won’t be needed once Democrats reopen the borders to illegal invaders and grant citizenship to the untold millions who have yet to be deported.

Emmanuel tells us that his “reforms,” a/k/a tax increases, will greatly simplify the filing of tax returns.  I fear that this is true.  I’ve long suspected that Democrats favor a 2 line tax return form.  Line 1 – Enter your income.  Line 2 – Remit the amount on Line 1.  So much for the Spirit of 86′.  As for Rahm Emmanuel, his spirit may be willing, but his facts are weak.