What Ever Happened to That Prosperity the Tax-Cutters Promised?

[marmar]

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



What Ever Happened
to That Prosperity
the Tax-Cutters Promised?
Don't expect an answer from the ranters and ravers who frequent 'Tea Parties' — or the politicians who egg them on.

November 23, 2009
By Sam Pizzigati


You don’t have to dig particularly deep, in the United States today, to find some striking similarities between today’s virulently anti-Obama “Tea Party” crowd and the media darlings who birthed the “Tax Revolt” phenomenon back in the late 1970s.

The Tax Revolters burst onto the national scene amid an inflation-battered economy. They blamed “big government” for what ailed America, and they offered a simple remedy: cut taxes. Lower taxes, they promised, would get average Americans back on track.

The Tea Party zealots have, like the Tax Revolters, also coalesced in tough economic times. They attack “big government,” too. They even make the same promises about taxes.

But the Tea Party types, so far at least, haven’t scored any early political success. The Tax Revolters did. In 1978, in a ballot-box stunner, they passed a statewide initiative in California known as Prop 13, an unprecedented cap on property taxes.

Within a few short years, almost half America’s states had followed suit with tax cuts and caps of their own. In 1980, at the national level, this Tax Revolt surge would carry Ronald Reagan into the White House. One year later, a pliant Congress would give President Reagan the biggest across-the-board federal tax cut in U.S. history.

Tax relief had become, in the wink of an eye, America’s most potent political creed. Tax cutting and capping would go on to dominate the nation’s political discourse for the next three decades, an entire generation. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.toomuchonline.org/articlenew_2009/nov23a.html

[4dsc]

1. Say what? Trickle down isn't working after 30 years??

Like I keep telling everyone, we are witnessing the failure of 30 years of conservative economic policies. Consumerism is dying a slow death as our current economic model is not sustainable..

[Warpy]

2. That's what I keep asking the wingers

"If cutting taxes on the rich frees up investment money, where are the JOBS? It seems there were plenty of jobs around when the top rate was over 90%. Where did they go now that the rich have enough money to employ all of us?"

They invariably mumble and stammer that US workers are paid too much. I then ask them how much more they're paid than they can live on and they slink away.

[marmar]

3. Yep. Facts are like kryptonite to right-wingers.

:scared:

[doc03]

4. Well that is simple, taxes weren't cut enough

you see the lower the taxes the more revenue the government has. I don't understand you liberals if we totally eliminated all taxes we could balance the budget. God you people are stupid.:sarcasm:

[Doctor_J]

5. Yep. That's the line doc

No taxes = more revenue = balanced budget. And the war on education has insured that idiot tea-baggers will believe it.

[CrispyQ]

6. Kick for a great article.

Thanks.

[Demeter]

7. They Got Theirs

and the Sheeple think theirs is lost in the mail, or stolen by an illegal immigrant or welfare queen.

[inna]

8. They never believed in "trickling down" anyway, as far as I can tell.

(Other than in a "pissing on us" sort of sense.)

The whole tax cutting business is directed at further incresing income inequality (which is already by far the highest in the industrialized world).

See this for some gruesome details:
http://ampedstatus.com/the-critical-unraveling-of-us-society