I wish the DNC would have taken Rush's bet
In 1993, Rush Limbaugh set off on a campaign to damn centrist tax policy from the Clinton administration. He said it would ruin America, keep us from growing, etc.
Time and time again, when we raise taxes on the wealthy, oddly, we get job growth and sustained middle class wealth distribution. It worked in the 40s, 50s, and 60s... and we've stalled out since the end of the 70s and into the 80s through now... except in the 90s, the one time in my adult life we had a Dem who managed to get Leftist economic policy through the wall of the Right.
It's almost [sarcasm]as if the Right-wing policies may not actually work like they say they do [/sarcasm]. (Of course they don't.) This from Salon:
The standard revisionist claim from the right is that the prosperity and balanced budget of the 1990s was a product of the Republican Congress, not Clinton's budget. But their revisionism misses the point: The claim -- pushed by Rush and echoed by every Republican in Congress -- was that Clinton's budget, because it raised taxes on the wealthy, would make recovery impossible. It didn't do that at all -- and all of the economic indicators that Rush said would get worse actually improved between the time the plan was passed and when the Republicans took control of Congress in '95.
In other words, we have a decade's worth of compelling evidence that raising income taxes on the wealthy can reduce deficits and (at the very least) not inhibit sustained economic growth. And yet, Limbaugh is still telling is listeners -- in rhetoric that Republicans on Capitol Hill are still parroting -- that this has "never worked." -Source
The 90s were fucking awesome. I miss them. I had opportunity and things were looking up.
Unfortunately, I graduated in 1999. That shiny optimism fell on its face late in 2000 and has left a scar on me ever since.
I don't see why this is so difficult to swallow for the majority of people. High tax rates on the wealthy mean that they hide their money in businesses, which means that there is more capital available for growth. High tax rates also mean that the government can provide services to the poor so that they can make ends meet, which means they get to buy products they wouldn't normally buy. High tax rates on the wealthy means that your roads, bridges, and government services (which benefit us all) increase social lubrication, thereby making life easier/better for everyone. The rich never have this problem. They're always doing fine. In fact, it is only the marginal rate that they pay high taxes on, I believe. So the first bits of income that most people live on, they're taxed at the same rate as the rest of us. It is just whatever is above and beyond that is different. And, from a fairness standpoint, is 1.6% really going to ruin anyone? Raise my taxes 1.6%--I don't care.
Time and time again, when we raise taxes on the wealthy, oddly, we get job growth and sustained middle class wealth distribution. It worked in the 40s, 50s, and 60s... and we've stalled out since the end of the 70s and into the 80s through now... except in the 90s, the one time in my adult life we had a Dem who managed to get Leftist economic policy through the wall of the Right.
It's almost [sarcasm]as if the Right-wing policies may not actually work like they say they do [/sarcasm]. (Of course they don't.) This from Salon:
The standard revisionist claim from the right is that the prosperity and balanced budget of the 1990s was a product of the Republican Congress, not Clinton's budget. But their revisionism misses the point: The claim -- pushed by Rush and echoed by every Republican in Congress -- was that Clinton's budget, because it raised taxes on the wealthy, would make recovery impossible. It didn't do that at all -- and all of the economic indicators that Rush said would get worse actually improved between the time the plan was passed and when the Republicans took control of Congress in '95.
In other words, we have a decade's worth of compelling evidence that raising income taxes on the wealthy can reduce deficits and (at the very least) not inhibit sustained economic growth. And yet, Limbaugh is still telling is listeners -- in rhetoric that Republicans on Capitol Hill are still parroting -- that this has "never worked." -Source
The 90s were fucking awesome. I miss them. I had opportunity and things were looking up.
Unfortunately, I graduated in 1999. That shiny optimism fell on its face late in 2000 and has left a scar on me ever since.
I don't see why this is so difficult to swallow for the majority of people. High tax rates on the wealthy mean that they hide their money in businesses, which means that there is more capital available for growth. High tax rates also mean that the government can provide services to the poor so that they can make ends meet, which means they get to buy products they wouldn't normally buy. High tax rates on the wealthy means that your roads, bridges, and government services (which benefit us all) increase social lubrication, thereby making life easier/better for everyone. The rich never have this problem. They're always doing fine. In fact, it is only the marginal rate that they pay high taxes on, I believe. So the first bits of income that most people live on, they're taxed at the same rate as the rest of us. It is just whatever is above and beyond that is different. And, from a fairness standpoint, is 1.6% really going to ruin anyone? Raise my taxes 1.6%--I don't care.