When Prince Charles married Diana, the House passed the Reagan tax cuts

If you listen to the Thom Hartmann radio show, you might hear him say "roll back the Reagan tax cuts" frequently when he discusses the American budget deficit. (He wrote an article about that back in 2007 and commented about the Reagan tax cuts on the radio the next year or 2009.) Something you probably didn't know about the Reagan tax cuts, officially the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (Wikipedia, Library of Congress): the House of Representatives passed the tax cuts bill on July 29, 1981, a royal wedding day - that of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer (they'd divorce 15 years later, and Princess Diana is killed in a car crash in 1997).

When Prince William married Kate Middleton on Friday, that provided the world with some happy news in the midst of a tanking world economy, global warming, and conflicts in the Middle East. Meanwhile, in America, Congress had been squabbling over a budget, and a tornado severely wrecked Alabama.

Curiously, I visited the Vanderbilt University Television News Archive to see what else was going on in the world back in 1981 during the last major royal wedding, of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. (A blog also did that, here.) The Reagan tax cuts vote was the other major event that day, and other events of late July 1981 included the air traffic controller union dispute (the strike would begin the nex month), the baseball strike, former Iranian president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr escaping to France, conflict between Israel and Syria (before the 1982 Lebanon War), Senator Barry Goldwater calling for CIA director William Casey to resign, and food shortages in Poland.

The House can pass whatever they want. The President won't sign the stupidest shit.

was not identical to the amount given to the poor. do the math. much better to let the cuts expire and make up or down votes on extending unemployment in SEPARATE and make the repugs show who they are. We had a DEm Senate, a Dem congres, and a Dem presi at that moment. What he did in December guaranteed unemployment and future unemployment for millions.

We are "reaping the benefits" now.

and then later the Senate by 67-8. I cannot get a breakdown of votes by party, but the House was controlled by Democrats by 242 to 192. It had been controlled by Democrats by 277 to 158 until the election of 1980. Reagan had won the election handily, and brought control of the Senate as well as a 35 seat gain in the House, so the feeling was that he had a mandate to try his voodoo theory.

Still, at least 133 Democrats voted for it, and no more than 107 Democrats voted against it.

In the next election, Democrats picked up 27 seats in the House and stayed above 253 until the Clinton mid-terms when the New Democrats knocked them down to 204.