Just the facts, please, re taxes and economic growth
I've become increasingly disillusioned with so-called "news" programs these days. It seems that "balance" has been substituted for actual fact. Is it fear? The media owners' biases? For the life of me, I don't know why "news" networks put opinions on the air instead of actual content.
For example, who cares whether someone thinks tax cuts will help the economy? Why not examine the actual facts to see if they support such an assertion?
This Slate article states:
It's equally unsupportable, factually, to claim that raising taxes on the rich slows economic growth. As the data in the above article clearly shows, that is not true. In fact, the reverse may be true.
For those who complain about entitlements, realize that Social Security is not a freebie. We all pay into it as we work, so it makes sense we all should have access to those funds when we retire. It's a forced savings account. The word "entitlement" has come to mean something unearned. but we did earn that money.
And why don't fiscal conservatives ever stop to ponder the cost of war? That's the biggest drain on the budget, by far.
But this isn't about politics. This is a post about facts, and the need to evaluate facts, rather than weigh opinions. And facts show that lowering taxes do not improve the economy, and that raising taxes not only won't hurt, it might even help grow the economy.
For example, who cares whether someone thinks tax cuts will help the economy? Why not examine the actual facts to see if they support such an assertion?
This Slate article states:
During the period 1951-63, when marginal rates were at their peak—91 percent or 92 percent—the American economy boomed, growing at an average annual rate of 3.71 percent. The fact that the marginal rates were what would today be viewed as essentially confiscatory did not cause economic cataclysm—just the opposite. And during the past seven years, during which we reduced the top marginal rate to 35 percent, average growth was a more meager 1.71 percent.As the article notes, the economic growth may have happened for other reasons at the time that it did. But one thing is absolutely clear from the data. Lowering tax rates did not spur any significant economic growth at any point. So that argument is simply ridiculous.
It's equally unsupportable, factually, to claim that raising taxes on the rich slows economic growth. As the data in the above article clearly shows, that is not true. In fact, the reverse may be true.
For those who complain about entitlements, realize that Social Security is not a freebie. We all pay into it as we work, so it makes sense we all should have access to those funds when we retire. It's a forced savings account. The word "entitlement" has come to mean something unearned. but we did earn that money.
And why don't fiscal conservatives ever stop to ponder the cost of war? That's the biggest drain on the budget, by far.
But this isn't about politics. This is a post about facts, and the need to evaluate facts, rather than weigh opinions. And facts show that lowering taxes do not improve the economy, and that raising taxes not only won't hurt, it might even help grow the economy.
posted by Real History Lisa at 9:14 AM - Permanent Link -
2 Comments:
We have reached the limits to endless growth on a finite planet.
The liberal social justice view is that we need to share the economic "pie" more fairly, but it often fails to recognize that the "pie" has grown as big as it can. Converting the military budget and the military industrial complex for our survival is needed as mitigation on the energy downslope, but as this blog has pointed out, that proposal is essentially why President Kennedy was removed from office.
"The Limits to Growth" in 1972 predicted the current economic "crisis" almost perfectly. Our "leaders" prefer to profess incompetence instead of malice.
“If anybody could have predicted this economic crisis, I would have liked to have met them.”
-- Ellen Weiss, senior vice president for news, National Public Radio
PBS News Hour December 11, 2008
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec08/npr_12-11.html
"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
-- George W. Bush, September 1, 2005
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."
-- Condoleeza Rice, May 16, 2002
http://www.oilempire.us/peak-money.html
Peak Money
the world he would say is run by two systems
the first is the culture of money and time
if I loan you a dollar today in a year you'll pay back a dollar and dime
that assumes that there's more and more tomorrow
on the upslope that's certainly true
but we can't keep on doubling the energy system
in the end only physics will rule
-- “Marion King Hubbert,” a song by Kurt Liebezeit
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
"Money As Debt"
47 min - Feb 12, 2007
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
"The Crash Course" on energy and money
http://www.postcarbon.org/new-site-files/Reports/Searching_for_a_Miracle_web10nov09.pdf
SEARCHING FOR A MIRACLE
Net Energy Limits and the Fate of Industrial Society
by Richard Heinberg Foreword by Jerry Mander
A Joint Project of the International Forum on Globalization and the Post Carbon Institute. [ False Solution Series #4 ]
September 2009
http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy_video1.html
"Arithmetic, Population and Energy"
Albert Bartlett, professor emeritus of physics, University of Colorado
1 hour - probably the best introduction, but not fancy enough for the MTV generation (no stroboscopic psyops included)
http://www.steadystate.org
Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy
an old growth forest is an example of a steady state ecosystem - the amount of growth is balanced by the amount of decay
We have reached the limits to endless growth on a finite planet.
The liberal social justice view is that we need to share the economic "pie" more fairly, but it often fails to recognize that the "pie" has grown as big as it can. Converting the military budget and the military industrial complex for our survival is needed as mitigation on the energy downslope, but as this blog has pointed out, that proposal is essentially why President Kennedy was removed from office.
"The Limits to Growth" in 1972 predicted the current economic "crisis" almost perfectly. Our "leaders" prefer to profess incompetence instead of malice.
“If anybody could have predicted this economic crisis, I would have liked to have met them.”
-- Ellen Weiss, senior vice president for news, National Public Radio
PBS News Hour December 11, 2008
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec08/npr_12-11.html
"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
-- George W. Bush, September 1, 2005
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."
-- Condoleeza Rice, May 16, 2002
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