Liberals revisit taxes.

A SUBTLE CHANGE has crept into the national economic dialogue. A case in point is a recent New York Times article [see also "On the Right," p. 62] describing the twists and turns of federal tax policy during the Reagan-Bush years. Washington correspondent Richard Rosenbaum's analysis contained a nugget you wouldn't have found in the great paper before November 4: "One popular misconception is that the Republican tax cuts caused a crippling federal budget deficit, now approaching $300 billion a year. The fact is, the large deficit resulted because the government vastly increased what it spent each year, while tax revenues changed little."

Actually, Mr. Rosenbaum stepped somewhat short of the truth. Tax revenues didn't change "little." They rose by more than $550 billion between 1980 to 1992, growing 45 per cent (in constant dollars) over that period. But Mr. Rosenbaum's sin of omission is trivial when you consider that for years the Times called for higher taxes--preferably on the wealthy--to remedy the effects of Reaganomics supposed revenue loss.

Of course, the alleged unfairness of the tax burden resonates far more loudly with the electorate. The pre-election Times never missed a chance to portray Reagan-Bush tax policy as welfare for the rich paid for by the middle class. We read in Mr. Rosenbaum's article, however, that "The wealthy now pay a higher proportion of total taxes than they did in 1980."

Mr. Rosenbaum's article is billed as the first of a four-part series. How far will the revisionism go? We will be delighted to read that runaway social spending explains most of the deficit increase since 1980; or that tax cuts for the rich paid for themselves; or that economic mobility was at record levels during the 1980s; or that the years in which Congress tried to dose the deficit with higher taxes were invariably the ones in which the deficit worsened.

We know that Mr. Clinton's people were dose readers of the Times before the election. We hope those reading habits won't change.