What exactly is the purpose of massive tax cuts to the wealthy if

[KlatooBNikto]

those tax cuts do not increase investments and create jobs? I thought the entire premise of Supply Side Economics was that the tax cuts would actually increase tax revenues by creating these additional jobs.Why did the Democrats in Congress support the tax cuts as Dean asked yesterday? Why are they not calling for its repeal?

[leftyandproud]

1. because people like tax cuts..

and the dems wanted to get re-elected.

[papau]

2. ?? -- Dean suported the new 10% rate for the near poor - plus the

middle class kid credit and marriage fix -

when did Dean endorse the the 39.6% bracket for the rich being cut to 33%? - with even less investment income being considered as worthy as wages for being taxed - Bush has dividends now at 15%

??????

[KlatooBNikto]

3. I did not say Dean supported the tax cuts.I said he asked why the

Democrats in Congress supported the tax cuts.Please read carefully.

[papau]

5. they were wimps?-$2 T is too much, only 1.3T - then an oh well have it all

It was an attempt to prove they too were for tax cuts - so they would not lose seats in Congress ...

Does anyone think they have learned and grown a backbone since then?

I hope they have....

:-)

and sorry about my mis-reading your post

:-(

[DebJ]

4. purpose: destruction of the middle class, silly.

[One_Life_To_Give]

6. Add 1000pts to the Dow n/t

[sam sarrha]

7. they are still in denial about anything Reagan..here on Planet Reagan

[highplainsdem]

8. It's their "starve the beast" policy, deliberate creation of debt in order

to get people to accept the demolition of the social safety net. These people really don't believe in supply-side economics, though they might say they do in public, unless they're talking to a rightwing audience.

Here's a Paul Krugman article from 9/14/2003 about what's really going on:

http://www.faireconomy.org/econ/taxes/KrugmanTaxCutCon.html

Krugman wrote:

What does ''reducing the size and scope of government'' mean? Tax-cut proponents are usually vague about the details. But the Heritage Foundation, ideological headquarters for the movement, has made it pretty clear. Edwin Feulner, the foundation's president, uses ''New Deal'' and ''Great Society'' as terms of abuse, implying that he and his organization want to do away with the institutions Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson created. That means Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid -- most of what gives citizens of the United States a safety net against economic misfortune.

The starve-the-beast doctrine is now firmly within the conservative mainstream. George W. Bush himself seemed to endorse the doctrine as the budget surplus evaporated: in August 2001 he called the disappearing surplus ''incredibly positive news'' because it would put Congress in a ''fiscal straitjacket.''

-snip-

Here's how the argument runs: to starve the beast, you must not only deny funds to the government; you must make voters hate the government. There's a danger that working-class families might see government as their friend: because their incomes are low, they don't pay much in taxes, while they benefit from public spending. So in starving the beast, you must take care not to cut taxes on these ''lucky duckies.'' (Yes, that's what The Wall Street Journal called them in a famous editorial.) In fact, if possible, you must raise taxes on working-class Americans in order, as The Journal said, to get their ''blood boiling with tax rage.''

-snip-

If Grover Norquist is right -- and he has been right about a lot -- the coming crisis will allow conservatives to move the nation a long way back toward the kind of limited government we had before Franklin Roosevelt. Lack of revenue, he says, will make it possible for conservative politicians -- in the name of fiscal necessity -- to dismantle immensely popular government programs that would otherwise have been untouchable.


I hope you'll read the entire column. That snippet barely touches on the rightwing plans to turn back the clock and destroy the social safety net.

And if they can succeed in their lunatic plan to replace income tax with a high national sales tax, the burden of which will fall hardest on the poor and middle class, then they'll have created even more voter incentive to do away with the safety net.

This is not supply-side economics. It's ugly reactionary politics trying to hide behind the myth of supply-side economics. And if you know anyone who's deluded enough to believe this really is supply-side economics, please send them that column of Krugman's, which may help open their eyes.

[Unstuck In Time]

9. Any talk of "stimulating the economy," "creating jobs," etc. ...

... is just smoke and mirrors, a comfy little cover story for the mob to ponder.

Tax cuts are about more wealth for the wealthy. It's that simple.

Bu, but... won't the economy suffer? Maybe, probably. But there is a whole class of people who are so wealthy that do just fine no matter what shape the economy is in, some even manage to make more money the worse things get.

(Oh, and they are NOT the rural, red-state voters who so gleefully annointed bush their king!)

So feel free to ignore all the talk, all the rationalizations, and just remember that simple phrase: More wealth for the wealthy. It explains everything.

[OldEurope]

10. The purpose of tax cuts to the wealthy is to

make the rich even richer.
It´s a bit naive to expect anything else, I think.