Bruce Bartlett, who worked for Ronald Reagan, explains why his old boss would not be embraced by today's Republican Party…and might even be called a Dirty Socialist by some in it. Last year at a party, I got into a bit of unpleasantness with a Republican with Tea Party overtones who insisted that no, no matter what anyone says, Ronald Reagan did not (repeat: not) raise taxes. Apparently, all those press reports at the time were forged by the same guy who does Obama's birth certificates.
As Bartlett notes, Reagan also raised taxes when he was governor of California — an action he took almost immediately upon taking office. My recollection is that everyone — Democrats and Republicans alike — advised a smaller increase with the possibility of another one later if necessary. But Reagan figured that he could blame one tax increase on his predecessor and didn't want to chance having to raise them again later. He had this idea that the public counts tax increases, not their amounts.
Say Elected Official A pushes through a tax increase of 5% and later, because it proves to be needed, an additional hike of 3%. Then say Elected Official B just pushes through one 12% increase. In that situation, the claim would then be that B was the fiscal conservative because A raised taxes twice as often, never mind their size. Way too often, voters buy into that. When running in '88, the campaign of George Bush (the first one) gained a lot of yards by pushing the number, not the amount, of tax hikes when his opponent, Michael Dukakis, was governor of Massachusetts.
The amazing thing Reagan got away with regarding his California tax hike was that hindsight showed it was way too big; that the more modest recommended amounts had been correct. The state wound up with a huge budget surplus (remember budget surpluses?) which Reagan tried to credit to his prudent financial management. But any state can show a surplus if they raise taxes a lot higher than necessary…