10 Republican Lies About the Bush Tax Cuts

from Perrspectives

So it's come down to this. On Saturday, David Stockman, the legendary Reagan budget chief who presided over the Gipper's supply-side tax cuts, announced that the "debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts." The next day, the former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, who famously helped sell the 2001 Bush tax cuts to Congress, declared them simply "disastrous."

Sadly, Stockman and Greenspan are just about the only voices in the Republican Party speaking the truth about the fiscal devastation wrought by the expiring Bush tax cuts. After all, the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, only to double again during the tenure of George W. Bush. And as it turns out, the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy accounted for almost half the budget deficits during his presidency and, if made permanent, would contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession - combined. Of course, you'd never know it listening to the leaders of GOP.

And that's just the beginning. Here, then, are 10 Republican Lies about the Bush tax cuts:

* Lie #1: Democrats Plan Across the Board Tax Hikes on January 1st
* Lie #2: Democrats Want a $3.8 Trillion Tax Increase
* Lie #3: Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves
* Lie #4: The Bush Tax Cuts Didn't Add to the Deficit
* Lie #5: Expiring High Income Tax Cuts Will Hurt Small Business
* Lie #6: The Estate Tax Devastates Small Businesses and Family Farms
* Lie #7: The Bush Tax Cuts Helped All Americans
* Lie #8. Extending Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy is the Best Way to Stimulate the Economy
* Lie #9. Bush Tax Cuts Produced 52 Straight Months of Job Growth
* Lie #10: The Rich Pay Too Much in Taxes Already

(Continued here, with multiple hotlinks.)