BTW, guess which party tried to bury this? Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory-GOP Suppresses Study Here's an excerpt: It really bothers me that neither party will acknowledge that the best way to grow the economy is to increase DEMAND for goods and services. Any businessman worth a damn isn't going to hire someone just because he has more money - he's going to hire because the demand for his product is more than his current workforce is capable of handling. So giving that businessman a tax break won't create any jobs if his workforce is already sufficiently handling the existing demand. What both parties should be looking at are ways to increase the buying power of the greatest economic force in this country - the middle class. Give the middle class more buying power, and companies will both see an increase in their customer base and will also require a bigger workforce (or more third party services) to meet that demand. So the real question is - how do you increase the buying power? Improve education opportunities? Tax incentives for businesses who keep the ratio of their CEO to employee salaries within a certain number? Lower the middle-tier tax rates and jack up the top-tier?
And I get a fail for not completing the title section. Any chance a mod could replace it with "No correlation between top tax rate and economic growth"?
In before someone calls the Congressional Research Service "left-wing." People did it with the CBO, too. And yes, these same people use the CBO as reference if it has anything that could be mud for Democrats (e.g. the false message about the ACA costing jobs).
The traditional way the US has built buying power is through infrastructure i.e. the best ports, roads, highways, education, electric grids and pure science research. Robert Reich writes about it all the time.
Sadly there are no billionaires willing to fund think tanks and endowed professors of "free" market economics as we see with trickle down. . Also no billionaires willing to buy large media networks to spread the virtues of trickle up. No billionaires willing to invest in national politicians to push for trickle up. I'm all for trickle up. I would think the evidence would indicate that it would grow the economy more. Tax increases for the wealthy tax cuts and probably a combination of tax cuts and smart infrastructure spending by the government would reverse the redistribution upward of the past 35 years and lead to increased consumer spending and increased employment by the government leading to lower unemployment, less welfare spending and increased growth as more of the idle work force starts working. For those too old to remember the days of high taxation for the wealthy, the wealthy still had fancy houses, vacations, cars and yachts, great life styles and went to work and or started businesses. Americans still had freedom and still spent a lot on military for fans of that type of spendinng.
Reagan was the enthusiastic implementer of the policies that have led to the redistribution of wealth upward as he was the beginning of the conservative dominance.
Does anybody have any statistics as to whether the more social democratic governments of Europe, Australia, and Canada had as much of a redistribution of wealth upward during the same period as we have had? Would be interesting
I found the same thing in a data analysis paper I did a few semesters ago... Too long to post (academic paper), but here's the link. Bonus points for anyone who can catch the one, minor mistake I made. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3E7IZf1pxPeMXpCY3JVakktTHM/edit?usp=sharing
I agree 100% and sadly this has become almost common knowledge. IMO the only solution is if the wealthy won't create jobs then tax them and use the money to build and improve infrastructure. If a presidential candidate actually stated this however what would be the reaction?
The linchpin of his economic policy was a fraud that has thrown the country into an era of unprecedented wealth inequality and debt. That's a good start.
O.... You are one of those types that believe The Gipper was solely responsible for the end of the Cold War.
You cant remotely believe this..He inherited a mess from Carter who is the worst president of all time just above Obama. If you really believe this please pry tell what made him one of the worst. I will hang up and listen.
