“You have to admire one thing about the Republican
perspective on taxes: their unflagging insistence, despite a mountain of
evidence to the contrary, that the best and perhaps only way to affect the
economy is by adjusting the tax rate paid by wealthy people.
Here's a quick history review of the last two decades: In
1993, Bill Clinton signed a budget that included tax increases. Republicans
unanimously said it would bring a "job-killing recession." It didn't;
in fact, almost 23 million jobs were created during Clinton's two terms.
Then George W. Bush got elected and signed two rounds of
enormous tax cuts. Republicans promised these cuts would super-charge the
economy. They didn't; job growth was weak throughout Bush's term.
Then at the end of 2012, the deal ending the "fiscal
cliff" allowed
the top income tax rate to revert back to what it had been
during the Clinton years. Republicans grumbled that this increase would
hamper job growth. That didn't happen either; in the two years since, the
economy has created 5 million jobs.
In other words, the Republicans'
essential theory about upper income taxes—increasing them destroys jobs and
smothers growth, while cutting them explodes growth and creates huge numbers of
jobs—is not just wrong, but demonstrably, obviously, spectacularly wrong.
Yet they keep saying it.”
---Paul Waldman, The American Prospect
March 14, 2015
