Doesn't the fact that there's high unemployment PROVE tax cuts to the rich don't work?

[mod mom]

Not an economist but have noted the long standing GOP argument since Reagan that tax cuts to the rich benefit all since they create jobs. Isn't it past time to bury this idea?

Since the GOP is so concerned with our deficit that they handed off to Obama, along with a crappy economy, they should understand their premise FAILED and it's time to move toward closing loopholes for the rich and increase their taxes.

Just wondering

:hi:

[Iggo]

1. Yes.

[tekisui]

2. It has been proven for 30 years that trickle down is bullshit economics.

[slackmaster]

3. No, it doesn't really prove or disprove anything

HTH

[Jack Rabbit]

4. That is so obvious that it goes without mentioning

It is also worth noting the funny idea conservatives have of "producers," the people at the top who produce nothing.

America's golden age was a time when the producers had an easier time joining labor unions.

[YOY]

5. They do produce jobs though...

Just not here.

[The2ndWheel]

13. When it comes to a global economy, is there really a "here" or "there" anymore?

I find the word outsourcing to be funny. It makes it sound like place still matters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BVqIjKyJh0

Still a great scene.

[glinda]

20. True. Those CEOs feel no patriotic obligation to this Country.

[liberal N proud]

6. But you can get the fundies to hear that

They cover their ears and close their eyes because they know that a tax cut for the rich equals a larger campaign donation in the fall.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Tax cuts DO work, so quit saying that.

No, they don't create jobs, but that's not their purpose. They work very well to increase the gulf between the haves and have-nots, and that is their purpose.

[w4rma]

8. Absolutely. But, the very wealthy are trying to keep the spoils of their propaganda wars. (nt)

[Oregone]

9. Too many variables here to prove anything

But it doesn't have a hot track record

[SunnySong]

10. It's because taxes were not cut enough. We need a negative tax rate for the rich so they can invest

in Chinese factories. In addition it's been months since congress has given a trillion dollars to wall street and high season is already here in the Hamptons. Those dinner parties are not going to cater themselves you know.


I feel the little people are once again being selfish.


You know when ewe start jailing the rich and good looking just because they broke a few minor laws society as whole breaks down.


Plus we are importing tons of labor so the poor don't have to work and all they do is complain.

[joeybee12]

11. But, but, but...how dare you try and reason through this!!!!

:hi:

[WillyT]

12. Yes... They Are Not Even Trickling On Us Anymore

:shrug:

[Scuba]

14. It's worked exactly as intended....

...the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

[baldingrockwarlord2]

15. Ross Perot was right about at least one thing....

That giant sucking sound WAS all or most of our middle class and manufacturing jobs leaving the country...The senile old coot was right about that. Not saying he should have been elected, just saying he had that right. But he was talking more about NAFTA, and not really about tax cuts.

[TheWebHead]

16. unemployment is high throughout the world's "developed" economies

and there are high taxes and low taxes depending on the country. on the corporate tax side the question is that do cost increases and regulatory changes create an uncertainty for business on the cost of doing business, and if you listen to those involved with hiring in the private sector (as opposed to academics and political partisans) that seems to be a resounding yes of late unfortunately.

[Coyote_Bandit]

17. Tax cuts to the rich don't work because

the trickle down theory discounts the effect of greed. Those that benefit retain more wealth than they did before rather than letting that wealth trickle down to benefit others through job creation.

That's the same reason that trickle down stimulus plans don't work either.

[mrcheerful]

23. Now now now, the rich don't get greedy they have more money then they can spend in 10 life times

the real greedy people are the poor and unemployed, they want something for nothing, haven't you been listening to the wing nuts?I mean really if they really wanted to be productive members they would all start their own businesses and be rich beyond their wildest dreams. Remember according to wing nuts if a business goes belly up its not from lack of customers, I have a business I don't need no stinking customers, it's because the owner was a bad business manager or some other personal defect that fits the wing nuts belief system. But it is never the economics that causes a bad business adventure.

[unblock]

18. greed always finds an excuse. high unemployment proves we haven't cut taxes ENOUGH.

see how easy that was?


i keep saying, this republican shit is EASY!

[Greyhound]

19. The problem is not a lack of proof, for there is nothing but proof that this belief is fallacious.

The problem is the persistent lying to the sheeple that the evidence indicates the opposite of reality. This, in turn, is due to the fact that said sheeple don't know anything, and actively resist learning anything, about economics.

Raygunomics did appear to increase revenue in the short-term and that increase coincided with the tax cuts, but correlation does not prove causation and that's another concept that most seem incapable of grasping.

[Octafish]

21. Like Mass Media, Economists are on the Payroll.

If they don't toe the company line, they'll end up with the rest of us in the bread line.

[mod mom]

28. Not all. It's the reason that Paul Krugman or (the enlightened) Robert Reich

won't be the light of a cabinet post under another administration.

[phantom power]

22. No, it proves that we need even more tax cuts and deregulation.

At any rate, that's what we'll be told. Until the entire house of cards crashes down around us.

[L0oniX]

31. I'd like to be deregulated ...so I don't have to pay taxes.

[ParkieDem]

24. It doesn't prove anything.

It doesn't prove that tax cuts work or don't work. The Bush tax cuts happened in 2001. Unemployment stayed relatively low until a couple of years ago.

Levels of government spending and borrowing have more of an impact on unemployment than tax cuts themselves. In fact, a Keynesian would argue that we should cut taxes even more during this period, as well as increase spending.

[tom_paine]

25. RW Authoritarians aren't interested in facts or proof, mod mom; they are interested in POWER

Well, the Authoritarian Leaders, anyway. Authoritarian Followers are more interested in the rush that comes from being in the "In Group", and the comfort that comes from belief unchanging, no matter the facts.

Like the Nazis and every bunch of Authoritarians before them and since, this is what makes them extremely effective is their relentlessness and zealotry, which ultimately translates, among other things, into an ability to lie and lie and lie with a straight face; and to keep on lying even after their lies have been debunked.

Goebbels' Big Lie. But don't kid yourself, the strategy was used LONG before the Nazis came along. It's just that Goebbels and the rest were so arrogant and sure of endless victories, they seemed to take a perverse pleasure in announcing what they would do to their victims, so they laid it all out and didn't bother with a whole lot of Plausible Deniability, though they did use it. Just not to the sophistication and degree that our modern American RW Authoritarians do.

How do you "prove" something to RW Authoritarians and their followers, knowing what they are.

Answer: You don't.

This would not be so bad except for the fact that they have bullied, intimidated, parasitized and neutralized the American Free Press into ultimately becoming an adjunct to the RW Lie Machine. In doing so, RW Authoritarian Lies dominate our National Dialog, regardless of their factuality and no matter how many times one of their lies is debunked, it doesn't matter.

Sure, lots of things are becoming obvious, and lots of RW Authoritarian Lies have been debunked.

And yet, the Repugs keep rising back up, no matter how discredited. Sadly, a testament to the fact that Authoritarianism has always been very successful at what it does - using psychology, linguistic trickery, projection of it's characteristics onto it's victims, and of course it's own Party-Loyal Sub-Media to make sure there are as few places as possible to peer beyond the lying False Reality they create.

At this point, it only could have been countered by a President willing to use his bully pulpit in an FDR style, and to "welcome the hatred of the economic royalists", as FDR did. To forcefully and in an unafraid manner, SMASH through the wall of RW False Reality and Lies, then let the chips fall where they may.

He didn't do that, and if you notice the customary mode of the RW Lie Machine/Corporate M$M quickly snapped back to it's previous RW Authoritarian paradigm, it's default position.

It all comes back to the fact that "proof", "truth" and "reality" are meaningless in the face of a determined, well-financed RW Authoritarian movement once it passes a certain "critical mass" without being opposed.

This is where we live now, and it is likely only to get worse since Obama has proven incapable of doing anything other than slowing down our descent a very little, and then only in areas which will easily be reversed when the Bushies regain power (long may that time be coming).

[mod mom]

29. but what about their sheeple? aren't they wondering what happened to their jobs?

Do they really hate liberals so much they are willing to sacrifice their families to better feed the powerful's greed?

[tom_paine]

32. That's why the Corporate M$M and RW Lie Machine have fused

to create the most powerful propaganda machine in human history, not to mention the most subtle.

Ham-fisted Nazi/Soviet tactics could never work on our nation, due to it's Founding Principles. Another method had to be invented, one suffused with 10 times the Plausible Deniability the Nazis or Soviets used.

In any case, as with most subjects of totalitarian nations even a RW Corporate Inverted Totalitarianism as the old USA has become, the whole point is to creat and information-poor and disinformation-high False Reality Bubble where the Subject Population simply does not have the correct, verified information to make informed decisions as is required by a democratic-republic.

Another way to look at it is the "Grand Narrative" discussion that so often occurs on DU. What Corporate M$M and the RW Lie Machine have done is created a situation where no other Grand Narrative is possible, unless you want to work very hard indeed to pierce the seamless False Reality Bubble. And most people, even if they had the desire, don't have the time. So they go back to the Corproate M$M and RW Lie Machine, which are pretty much as one, but in a Plausibly Deniable way.

So, everything old is new and vice versa. The Grand Narrative is the RW Lie Machine's narrative is the Corporate Aristocracy's narrative, which diverts people's anger and rage from the real perps to the usual collection of scapegoats: liberals, gays, blacks, hispanics, the poor. The Jews would be part of today's pantheon except Hitler went overboard (quite the euphemism considering the pure evil he and the Nazis were, yet still apt) and discredited the use of Jews in the Pantheon of Scapegoats, at least for now.

So, the sheeple ARE wondering what happened to their jobs. Don't you know? The liberals, gays, blacks, hispanics and the poor stole them!

The answer, as it always is presented by the Aristocracy to the Peasantry, is to transfer more wealth and power to the Aristocracy.

Did the medieval nobles need the peasants to be doing well so they could by their crap? No, and as it was so shall it be again if the Aristocracy gets their way and the New Feudalism is finally fully implemented. All trends indicate it certainly will be and we don't have many decades left before it happens.

[killbotfactory]

26. Tax cuts make rich people richer, that seems to be the point

So in that sense, they work.

[ThomWV]

27. Trickle Down has always meant that the workers will be pissed on - frequently and hard

[L0oniX]

30. Tax the hell out of them and if they leave then tax the fuck out of their products.

For fucks sake ...it ain't like we are going to lose more jobs than normal for their out sourcing ...the asscarrot fuck sticks!

[closeupready]

33. Yes, and since we now know it is counterproductive to a healthy economy, they need to pay more taxes

such as the rates of pre-Reagan.

[trayfoot]

34. YES!

[EstimatedProphet]

35. Of course not! It proves tax cuts to the rich DO work!

Just like high employment proves that tax cuts to the rich work!

Just like steady employment proves tax cuts to the rich work!

Just like the major league baseball scores prove tax cuts to the rich work!

Just like the fact that the sun rose this morning proves that tax cuts to the rich work!

Repeat with every possible idea that can be written coherently.