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Yes, but there are similar economic events coincident with most of the big changes. How do you pick and choose. As is so often said, correlation is not causation.
And why did it only start working in 1987? All of the previous changes in the rate didn't do much to move the revenue unless you are going to say that a rate reduction in 1982 took 5 years before having a major impact while a relatively small rate reduction in 2002 caused an immediately tripling of it. And a big rate increase in 1972-3 did nothing really, but relatively smaller one in 1987 immediately tanked it. There are four spikes in the graph. The first happened when rates went up. The second happened when rates were unchanged. The third peaked two years after they went down but the peak starts before the change. The fourth happens simultaneously.
Or it could be the there is no strong causal connection and that they are just inversely impacted by the same underlying things. I don't know if that is the case. But while the chart seems to indicate an inverse directional correlation it doesn't seem to be consistent in scale and none of that indicates cause. Perhaps when when the revenues go too high that creates political pressure to increase taxes on those who are getting rich in the stock market and so congress does this but since the stock market is somewhat cyclical they generally do this at just around the same time that things start to go south? I have no idea if that is true but it would be a causal link in the opposite direction (success brings to light money that government thinks it can take without outrage so it does). In 2002 you had the dotcom bust which is a not rate possibility for why revenues fell. But in 2000 you had the dotcom boom which would also be a non-rate indicator of why they rose.
While the Wall Street Journal editors obviously accept the causal link you'll find plenty of other economists and market journalists who do not. And of course, it ignores the fact that even if a previous decrease caused an increase that this does not mean that further decreases would do so.
Plus, what if it is just the downward movement that does it, and it isn't so important what the actual rate is? Then this would mean that every once in a while you need to dramatically increase it again, take the short term hit, so that you can go about lowering it in steps again. Just like eventually the Fed is going to have to raise rates back up to 4-5% again otherwise they won't have the stimulus tool of lowering them available (as Japan learned once they hit zero).
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