Republicans are pushing for the continuation of the Bush tax cuts for the rich. On the one hand, they criticize the present administration for the size of the budget deficit, yet on the other, they want the tax cuts to continue. They say that we can’t afford $20 billion dollars in assistance to the unemployed, but we can afford the $650 billion in tax cuts for the rich.
How can they defend that? Well, according to the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, “There is no evidence that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy.†This is complete hogwash! President Clinton left office with a surplus. When the Bush tax cuts took place in 2001, the surplus turned into a deficit, and we have had a deficit every year leading up to the crash.
We already know that this economic concept does not work, no matter how “vibrant†we may limn it to be. President Reagan said the same thing, that his tax cuts would reduce the deficit. Instead they blew out the deficit to three times the amount.
Now Republicans are insisting that the tax cuts are an essential tool to increase employment. We have had nearly ten years to see if increased employment is a benefit of the tax cuts. What do we find? Since the tax cuts were instituted, there has hardly been any job growth, and, of course, in the last couple years with the economy in its inevitable decline, the tax cuts have done nothing to counter the loss of jobs and the severe decline in family income.
There is absolutely no evidence that the continued gift of $650 billion to those who need it the least will produce one single job. We are better off putting that money back into revenue.