Will President Trump's tax cuts pay for themselves?  Of course not, according to NPR and the rest of the MSM.  They all just know that Reagan's tax cuts "exploded" the deficit.

Here are the data, so when your liberal friends repeat that canard, you can present them with facts.  Though most on the left seem impervious to facts, some may have their eyes opened.

(A far longer essay could be written on the notion that tax cuts "pay for themselves": the very phrase assumes, perversely, that all current tax revenue belongs to the government in the first instance, and it's only out of the kindness of their hearts that our "public servants" deign to return any of our money to us.)

My methodology is simplicity itself: go to Insidegov.com and look up the U.S. budgets for 1981, the year Reagan was inaugurated, and 1988, the last year he had meaningful input on the budget.

The headline numbers are these: total federal outlays grew by $310 billion in that period, while total revenue grew by $220 billion.  Told ya so! the liberal will say.  Reagan expanded the deficit with obscene spending on defense!

Reagan did increase defense spending by $68 billion, but that is nowhere close to the $220-billion growth in tax revenues.  Besides, when the economy recovers, the government spends far less on unemployment, food stamps, welfare, etc., as the graphs here show (scroll down to the breakdowns of mandatory spending).

So where did the rest of that $220 billion go?  Here's a clue: Democrats controlled the House for the entire eight years of Reagan's presidency and the Senate for two years.  Remember, all spending bills must originate in the House.

So the next time someone tells you tax cuts cannot "pay for themselves," reply as Reagan did: "It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant.  It's just that they know so many things that aren't so."

Henry Percy is the nom de guerre of a writer in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d[at]gmail.com.