No shit! Now say that with as much condescending and snarky
cynicism as you can manage and yet it won't be enough to fit the
circumstance. You see, the central tenet of Republican politics has
been the idea that cutting the tax rates for the very wealthy will spur
the economy and yet, as far as I can tell the evidence for that has been
the repetition of the formula in very stentorian and hortatory tones.
In fact all the evidence I can see, and many economists agree, suggest
that quite the opposite is true and reduced sufficiently, the economy
will at first experience soaring markets and catastrophic busts and
recessions. And of course we've seen some very prosperous times with
90% tax brackets for earned income and much higher rates on Capital
gains. One can argue all day about what should happen according to one
hypotheses or conjecture, but of course most people have learned in the
last half millennium that the outcome of experiment, of experience
counts more than dialectic and endless repetitions of doctrine. It
wasn't politics that settled the question of how fast things would fall
after all.
But it seems to be politics that has to
decide for all time whether the very wealthy are "job creators" who will
create more and better jobs if they have sufficient capital, because
experience shows otherwise. The numbers history gives us show otherwise
and like so many battles involving politics and religion, those made
powerful through those things have to resort to things other than honest
numbers. The other lesson of history is that denial, anger and
retribution are the responses of religious and political power,
threatened by strongly supported truth.
So you're not going to be surprised to hear that a report by the research service,
a nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress argues that the
foundations of the Republican edifice are as solid as Lamarkian
evolution, an Apache rain dance or the Heliocentric universe. Actually
they've been far easier to refute. Supply side economics is a crock. No shit!
Is this the first time you've bothered to seek confirmation of that
whackadoodle gospel? Didja examine entrails, consult the oracle,
sacrifice a goat? Well you know about those first stages of grief.
Denial and anger, right? So withdraw the research and repeat the catechism sirs -- and do it loud!
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteThe sole reason for the existence of the current Teapublican Party is to protect extreme wealth and privilege, so no, of course they don't care half an unsatisfying whit whether their goddamn theories are correct or wildly out of sync with any reasonable approximation of reality. They don't care even a quarter of the aforesaid white, really, any more than they give an eighth part of that quarter they don't care about for the welfare of the average poor deluded sap who votes for them.
No, trickle down doesn't work and yes, they'll keep trotting it out to each new generation of naive, beaming-faced adults with the minds of children -- the "myth of the unadulterated market" is the fable of our times for the grown babies who practically decide the world's fate every four years.
The great engine of advancement in a capitalist order is DESIRE for things; it isn't "bid'nissmen." The job-creators are the ordinary people who want stuff and buy stuff when they have money. Not that business initiative and desire to make money don't matter -- of course they do -- but they aren't what drives the system forward.
The issue should be framed as lowering the tax rate for legitimate businesses. Those corporations down to legitimate small businesses that really do provide jobs to people seeking them.
ReplyDeleteThe wealthy business owner, corporate executive, and everybody else should pay taxes based on their personal income, however it is derived at.
Seems to me it is the entire tax code, with its exemptions, deductions, special deductions, and the ability to "hide" income needs to be overhauled. Personally I a flat tax with 0 exemptions or deductions and a lower rate. More money would flow to the treasury, the wealthy would have no place to "hide", and for those below at or below the federal poverty level there would be no taxes.
Sounds simple? Maybe it is and maybe it ain't. Bur it should be clear something is certainly amiss. And the nations continues to sink as a result.
The problem is, as I said elsewhere is that the discussion is based on theories and conjectures and shoulda's and oughta's and predictions. Historical results of such attempts are ignored -- often deliberately because people pet ideas are always more precious that truth. That's why they're still preaching economic theories that are prescriptions for disaster and why people still support them failure after failure. Theories are proved or disproved by results everywhere but in politics and religion.
DeleteLooking at what most Americans pay in taxes, the actual results show that from working class to tycoon, the difference in percentage of total taxes paid on earned income is rather small, making Romney's 47% less than 47% true.
the positive result of a graduated income tax has been to change our country from a place of low income for 95% and all the money with the Rockefellers and Carnegies and Fords to one with a large middle class making enough to spend and drive the economy. The negative result of a flat tax would be that there is less money being spent because most people will be paying more and the economy winds up like Mexico or India or any of those places that actually have no regulation, weak government and consequently huge amounts of poverty, disease and an outflow of capital into other economies.
Ford had it right. Build a car Americans can afford and they will purchase. He succeeded. Karl Marx would have been smiling no doubt had he been alive.
DeleteOh, and he paid his employees enough they could afford to buy the cars they built.
DeleteActually, Ford kept his prices low to undercut the competition and lead the market. It apparently worked, since by 1920, half of the cars in the US were Fords.
DeleteThe fact that it was technologically superior to every other car helped that: it was cheaper to maintain, cheaper to build, and reliable. One of the reasons that it was cheaper to build was Ford's innovative ideas: the assembly line, for example, cut the cost significantly.
Another way he cut costs was to hire and keep the best mechanics, rather than a rotating series of itinerant workers. And one of the ways he kept the best workers was to set up a $5/day salary: better workers make a better product. (A side benefit - other manufacturers had to raise salaries to keep their workers, which cut into their profits.)
But this "triumph of the free market" scenario goes quickly astray: the only way to get into the "profit-sharing" program (you know, "socialism"), to allow you to buy a car (and thereby returning money to the company) was to be monitored by Ford's "Social Department," which frowned on misbehavior: drinking, gambling, consorting with "loose women" and the like (the ultimate in privatized "nanny-state" government).
He also detested the idea of labor unions, and kept a large security force on hand who were known to beat union organizers to death with their clubs. (The "Battle of the Overpass" actually hurt Ford's reputation and provided the UAW with wider support than they'd had previously. It was also the reason that the Pulitzer Prize for photography was established.)
And we probably shouldn't get into Ford's anti-semitism or his support of the Nazis.
Well, my greatest and unsatisfied desire is to see the rope industry thrive on new demand. But hanging the criminals doesn't make the public any smarter, does it? Or any less greedy or neurotic.
ReplyDeleteYea, I know about Ford and his bigotry, but he did change the world. He also would have run the company into the ground because he refused to build a more modern car and the T was pretty archaic by the time he was bullied into the "New Ford" for '29.
ReplyDeleteThe T was a blast to drive though. I had a 1926 Tudor sedan for years. Sold it in 1982 and I wish I hadn't.
Tax levels have little to do with economic growth. Taxing only the rich won't help much. The tech boom helped Clinton reach a budget surplus more than his tax hike on the 2%.
ReplyDeleteI understand why conservatives disagree with the social policies of FDR and LBJ, but they never had the votes to overturn those policies. So they "starved the beast" and simply bankrupted those programs.
For decades the American people voted for those tax cuts, and now it seems they are ready for an administration that will finally kill off those programs.
A difference of opinion of what government should be doing compared to the voters of the last 80 years, but bankrupting America to push their agenda is inexcusable, and history will not be kind to Republicans.
Being correct is no substitute for a healthy, progressive society, but then I won't be around to pay the consequences. I have done what I could (more than voting) to satisfy my conscience.
We will be the first generation to leave an America worse off, than it was left to us, for strictly selfish reasons.
It is not the findings of the Congressional Research Report that should shock us. We have known, certainly suspected as much, for years. No reputable economist has ever subscribed to trickle-down, and all historical data refutes it.
ReplyDeleteRather, it is the SUPPRESSION of evidence by Flat Earth Republicans that commands our attention; the same anti-science, climate change denier, creationist rabble whose raison d'être is threatened by it. What the Report says:
“The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.
However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 …
At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income disparities.”
Bingo! An inconvenient truth! Ahh, but this is “income redistribution” you know. Collectivism! Socialism! No, no, no! We can’t have that. Better to suppress truth!
Notice how neatly "trickle-down" ties in with Ayn Rand and the "Go Galt" crowd. RN, did you catch that?
Caught a lot Octo, caught a lot...
DeleteBut they're all about suppression -- about forcing round reality into a square hole. Whether it's punishing people who raise embarrassing truth or drowning them out. The same damned people who are still angry about having to allow people with annoying accents or skin colors or the nerve to have their own ideas.
ReplyDeleteCapitalism is, as I see it, about money in motion, not sitting in a box. It's about creating and satisfying demand in large quantity, not about making Faberge eggs for the Czar or building palaces. Ford was successful because he made LOTS of cars 15 million model T's instead of one or two Rolls's or Deusenbergs a week.
They're not about Capitalism. They're not about freedom, they're about grabbing it all and keeping it to an elite; about using lies and propaganda and tribalism and class animosity and snobbery and bigotry to grab power and money. They're not bothered about extreme income disparities, they revel in them because the more the disparity, the more that wealth brings power and if you want to see what the real results of an economy rigged for the benefit of the few and the lucky, look at Mexico. Look at Latin America.
We lost our bragging rights about economic opportunity a long time ago -- at about the time we got conned and scammed by the Feudalists -- at about the time we forgot how it used to be before we broke up the trusts and made it more difficult to amass such capital that no one could compete with you and with enough capital, you became the government, you became the king. Our tax structure was, in my opinion, the dominant factor in creating a middle class of the sort we've had until recently.
The oligarchs are pulling the strings, the puppet masters. They are good at what they do.
ReplyDelete