The basis for flattening our tax structure to 15% was average growth rates of 8%. We know it had to be higher than the 5% our economy had been clipping for ages and with higher top tax rates. This makes sense. It's like a business which was previously growing at 5% and had a gross margin of 20% decides to cut that margin to 15% thinking it can grow at 8%. It would go for something like this if it wanted to increase its market share. A predator would of course raise prices after and if it had managed to drive its competitors out of business. For example Amazon.com now has physical stores.
But as the above chart shows we never got the 8% growth rate in any of the ten years since Sithanen starting promising them. We got only half that rate on average. Which is less than what we were clocking before tax rates were slashed. And it's not because of the Great Recession which lasted only 18 months. As he had argued. In fact the rates we've been clocking for the past six years reflect the low growth path his massive policy blunders -- implemented to finance his tax-cuts -- has put us on.
