This scheme is so mind-boggling even Republicans have stopped lying about it

[justaprogressive]

[excerp]
Forty-four years ago, the Reagan administration — after winning the White House because they cut a criminal, treasonous deal with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to hold the American hostages until after the 1980 election — decided to take a second massive chance at deceiving the American voters.

Today’s rightwing media machine didn’t exist at the time; there was no Fox “News,” no 1,500 rightwing radio stations, no rightwing bloggers and podcasters getting millions from Russia and neofascist foundations, no rightwing billionaire owners of social media and the nation’s biggest newspapers and TV networks, so the risk of simply and blatantly lying to the public was far greater than today.

But in 1981 Ronald Reagan and the GOP decided — after 48 continuous years of Americans embracing both the New Deal’s programs and it’s top 90%-74% income tax bracket for the morbidly rich — that the risk was worth it. After all, if their bet paid off the rewards (that would come as future campaign donations) would be in the hundreds of billions.

So, they rolled out one of the most audacious lies, the biggest defiance of simple math and common sense, in the lifetime of most Americans: “Tax cuts pay for themselves and, as a bonus, increase prosperity for average working people.”

At the time, everybody knew it was a lie.

https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/this-schtick-is-so-mind-boggling-even-the-gop-has-stopped-lying-about-it/