Romney: No need to detail how I’ll pay for massive tax cuts. Just trust me.

[tpfkaw]

Every time I use facts to destroy a cherished myth like "The Bush Tax Cuts Caused a Massive Drop in Tax Revenues!", the thread goes dead.  

It's hard to take seriously a forum where facts end a discussion rather than starting one.

Umm..............

Billions in federal tax receipts:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200

2002: $1853
2003: $1782 (first year of Bush tax cuts)
2004: $1880
2005: $2154
2006: $2407
2007: $2568
2008: $2524
2009: $2105
2010: $2163
2011: $2304
2012: $2469

Tax revenues were higher than prior to the tax cuts in every year except for one, and grew every year except 08 and 09 for obvious reasons.  Even the 1-year drop in revenue doesn't necessarily put them on the wrong side of the Laffer curve if one takes a time horizon longer than one year.  In fact, the growth in tax revenues from 2003 to 2007 is much greater than in any 4-year period before it.

[tpfkaw]

So you can discount 2008 and 2009 because of a bad economy, but not the preceding years because of a good economy?

First of all, I was under the impression that the preceding years were a bad economy, per red avatars, and secondly you're always going to have lower tax receipts during a recession, which was my point.  Also, as I pointed out, the increase in tax revenues prior to the recession was much higher than at any previous point.

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Actually, those are inflation-adjusted values, as you can see from the top of the webpage I linked to.  Witty rejoinder would go here, but unfortunately I'm muzzled by inconsistent moderation.

[tpfkaw]

I see separate columns for current and constant dollars. Your numbers are from the current column.

Here are the numbers from the constant column:
1998: 2,040.9
1999: 2,136.4
2000. 2,310.0
2001: 2,215.3
2002: 2,028.6
2003: 1,901.1
2004: 1,949.5
2005: 2,153.6
2006: 2,324.1
2007: 2,414.0
2008: 2,288.1
2009: 1,899.0
2010: 1,927.9
2011: 1,998.7

Furthermore, the very own website you've chosen to cite says the following:

"The Bush tax cuts contributed, along with underlying economic conditions, to a historic decline in federal tax revenue. In 2000 total federal tax revenue was as high in proportion to the U.S. economy as it had ever been. By 2004 federal tax revenue in proportion to the economy had fallen to its lowest level in almost fifty years." link

Alright, I read that website too quickly, but inflation-adjusted or not all my claims are still accurate, so I'm failing to see your point.  Of course it would be like the Brookings Institution to make ridiculous claims when reality has a bias against liberals - tax revenues as a % of GDP are of course determined by tax rates, if there are higher taxes there will always be a higher amount of tax collection as a percentage of GDP, but that of course does not mean that the absolute amount of tax revenue is as high as it could be.