This should be a warning to everyone that the idea that tax cuts produce jobs and increased revenue was always magical thinking. Not that the supply-siders will pay attention because for them this is a religious belief.
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
So now that the Kansas experiment failed so badly, Republicans all over the country are carefully looking at that evidence and re-thinking their reverse Robin Hood economic assumptions, right? … Right? … Hello? Is anybody there?
Yes well, we’ve known for the last forty years or so that the trickle-down approach does not work, but hey let’s put a poverty-stricken state on the line just to check. And since the governorship is a financially secure position, he may never even know the harm he caused.
It was around the time the NDP got their surprise win in Alberta last year I read a columnist in one of the local papers repeat the “tax cuts increase revenue it’s a known FACT!” line. If that fact were in fact a fact, you’d think governments on both sides of the border would be swimming in tax revenue by now.
I would love to hear a Republican defense of the situations in Kansas and Louisiana.
Louisiana’s corporate tax “cuts” have gotten so out of hand that in the last 3 months of last year, they “refunded” $210m MORE than they took in.
Unsurprisingly, a huge number of people there are now blaming the new Governor for raising taxes (typical democrat, pfft) in order to pay for everything that Jindal wasn’t just giving away, but was actively paying people to take.
tax cuts produce jobs and increased revenue was always magical thinking
It’s the only reasonable rebuttal to the counter-argument that killing the rich and redistributing their shit would promote equality and would boost the economy considerably for everyone except for the rich. They had to have a semi-plausible counter-lie.
If they believe in “tax cuts” why don’t they cut the military budget to about 1/20th of what it is, and refund all of that to the taxpayers?
Obviously they’re not going to cut THAT spending, they only want to cut the spending on pointless free stuff..
… like healthcare and education.
Whoops that was supposed to be a link to the “we told them it would trickle down” picture
http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/62064629.jpg
#4
Clearly, the cuts weren’t comprehensive enough. Here’s the plan:
1. You (i.e. not rich people) need to tighten your belts and push through the difficult times,
2. the governer needs to cut taxes even further,
3. ?????
4. Profit!
P.S. step three repeats itself indefinitely.
I think it’s long past time that we seriously consider the possibility that (at least some) supply-siders are not sincerely deluded true believers, but are in fact running a deliberate con.
How could you tell the difference? Timing is obviously an important clue. Most of these yahoos destroying their state economies have national aspirations. The trick then would be to impress the Republican Party apparatus by implementing Republican economic “theory” but time it so that the damage only becomes apparent after you have left the governor’s mansion for the White House.
On a related note, I am glad that the 2008 recession, since it was going to happen, happened before W left office. The politically ingenuous still try to blame it on Obama, but it makes it easier for even the average person to see through it.
Ahhh … I see why you think this failed experiment means that those policies shouldn’t be replicated nationwide. You just need to take into account two tiny bits of information to see why that is exactly the wrong conclusion. Let me explain:
1) The claims of widespread economic growth were a misunderstanding. The GOP is only interested in helping the .01%. In that context the policy worked beautifully. It didn’t help the other 99.99% … but those are all unimportant people. So who cares?
2) Tax cuts are an article of faith. Articles of faith are not subject to logic, proofs, or experimentation. IF they don’t work as advertised you either failed to understand the criteria being examined (see above) or you haven’t tried hard enough. Articles of faith cannot, by definition, fail. They can only be failed.