Fool Me Once, Shame on You

Fool Me FOUR TIMES, ...

The Republican candidates for President have just come off the rounds of weekend appearances leading up to Stupor Tuesday, and it's kind of fun to watch them trying to trample each other in their race to the top of the right-wing heap.  The one area they all seem to agree on, however, has to do with reducing taxes on the nation's high-income earners in order to stimulate job creation.

When I was in high school about a million years ago, I was fortunate to have a dynamic and innovative teacher named David Kellum in Social Studies, which was admittedly my weakest subject area.  In those pre-internet days, Mr. Kellum taught us how to go into a library, wade through the maze of card catalogs and periodical rooms, and eventually get the factual answer to pretty much any question about history, no matter how obscure.  It was a lot of work.

Well, I guess Romney, Santorum, and their partners in crime think we're still back in those dark information ages, because they don't seem to realize that we can now check facts with a few clicks of the mouse.  Take a look at this graph, which compares job creation to the top marginal tax rate over the last 15 administrations:

• Back in the 1970's, Nixon adhered to what was then called "supply side economics."  His administration implemented SSE by lowering the top tax rate by about 15%, and what happened?  Job growth decreased from almost 40% to barely over 20%.  Fooled me once!
• In the 1980's, Reagan put forth the "trickle-down" theory of economics, and cut the top tax rate in half.  The benefits were supposed to make their way down to the rest of us.  What happened?  Job growth all but disappeared by the time Bush I took over.  Fooled me twice!
• In the 2000's, Bush II implemented his tax cuts, and he couldn't even come up with a clever new name for the policy.  What happened?  The worst job growth record since Hoover.  Fooled me three times!

So now they're calling it "tax relief for job-creators" or some such euphemism, but it's the same old failed policy being put before us once again.  With such easy accessibility to information today, do they really think we're going to be fooled again?

Just in case you think the above graph is incorrect or biased, here are two other graphs from two different sources that you might want to look at:

The first one compares the top tax rate to unemployment rates over the last fifty years or so.  The pink line represents the top tax rate, and the blue is the unemployment rate.  Notice how much the reduction in tax rates has reduced unemployment.  Oh, wait...

The second graph arranges the data by tax rates rather than chronologically.  Notice that the very best job growth was achieved when the top marginal tax rate was way up at 75 to 80%.  Even a rate of just under 40% produced pretty darn good results!

So what are we going to do - go back to "supply-side-trickle-down-job-creator" policies one more time in the hopes that all the data from the last 75 years is wrong?  Or maybe that most voters won't bother to check what the facts are?  Not me!  Thank you, David Kellum, wherever you are, for teaching me to be a critical thinker and base my opinions on FACTS.  You have the facts - what are YOU going to do?

I welcome your comments on this and other posts.

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