Let's dispel this myth: Tax cuts DO NOT help the economy
By DAVID LEONHARDT, NYT
Washington
FOR one of my occasional conversations with Representative Paul D. Ryan over the last few years, I brought a chart. The chart showed economic growth in the United States in the last several decades, and I handed Mr. Ryan a copy as we sat down in his Capitol Hill office. A self-professed economics wonk, he immediately laughed, in what seemed an appropriate mix of appreciation and teasing.
One of the first things you notice in the chart is that the American economy was not especially healthy even before the financial crisis began in late 2007. By 2007, remarkably, the economy was already on pace for its slowest decade of growth since World War II. The mediocre economic growth, in turn, brought mediocre job and income growth — and the crisis more than erased those gains.
The defining economic policy of the last decade, of course, was the Bush tax cuts. President George W. Bush and Congress, including Mr. Ryan, passed a large tax cut in 2001, sped up its implementation in 2003 and predicted that prosperity would follow.
The economic growth that actually followed — indeed, the whole history of the last 20 years — offers one of the most serious challenges to modern conservatism. Bill Clinton and the elder George Bush both raised taxes in the early 1990s, and conservatives predicted disaster. Instead, the economy boomed, and incomes grew at their fastest pace since the 1960s. Then came the younger Mr. Bush, the tax cuts, the disappointing expansion and the worst downturn since the Depression.
(More here.)
Washington
FOR one of my occasional conversations with Representative Paul D. Ryan over the last few years, I brought a chart. The chart showed economic growth in the United States in the last several decades, and I handed Mr. Ryan a copy as we sat down in his Capitol Hill office. A self-professed economics wonk, he immediately laughed, in what seemed an appropriate mix of appreciation and teasing.
One of the first things you notice in the chart is that the American economy was not especially healthy even before the financial crisis began in late 2007. By 2007, remarkably, the economy was already on pace for its slowest decade of growth since World War II. The mediocre economic growth, in turn, brought mediocre job and income growth — and the crisis more than erased those gains.
The defining economic policy of the last decade, of course, was the Bush tax cuts. President George W. Bush and Congress, including Mr. Ryan, passed a large tax cut in 2001, sped up its implementation in 2003 and predicted that prosperity would follow.
The economic growth that actually followed — indeed, the whole history of the last 20 years — offers one of the most serious challenges to modern conservatism. Bill Clinton and the elder George Bush both raised taxes in the early 1990s, and conservatives predicted disaster. Instead, the economy boomed, and incomes grew at their fastest pace since the 1960s. Then came the younger Mr. Bush, the tax cuts, the disappointing expansion and the worst downturn since the Depression.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
I call BS. If the tax rate is 0%, government revenue will be $0. If the tax rate was a hypothetical 100%, what do you suppose government revenue would be? Go to the head of the class if you answered $0. We can argue over an optimum level of taxation but it is false to state that cutting tax rates cannot raise more revenue. There is a curve, some say government revenues max out at 33%. There can and should be a substantive discussion around the proper tax rate, it is unfortunate that those on the left side of the aisle cloud the issue with clever but economically false arguments. I am not advocating tax rates of 100% but if they were, cutting them would increase tax receipts and I believe this would be true at 33%, perhaps even less. I have more concern over those who have no or little federal income tax liability, the ones that can vote themselves a raise by voting Democrat.
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