The Job Creator Myth Is Dead...Long Live The JC Myth!

MakingTheirOwnReality
AllOverAgainVille


Remember that US Republican talking point that has wormed its way up the hard-con gullet to Canada where it has taken hold deep in, and is hollowing out the guts of, the British Columbia that Gordon Campbell's public asset-sucking parasites have ravaged?

You know, the myth that says that if you cut taxes to the well-off (and, conversely, jack the crap out of consumption taxes and user-fees that hit the not-so-well-off the hardest) you will spur economic activity and create jobs.

Well, guess what.....

As Ian Reid said yesterday about Christy Clark's Job's Plan, the 'job creator myth' is nothing but lies and bullshit.

And a non-partisan study from 'Congressional Research Service' in the United States says as much.

But.

Guess what else...

Senate Republicans in the States appear to have forced the 'withdrawl' of the report in a concerted effort to keep the myth alive.

Johnathan Weisman had the story in yesterday's NYTimes. Here is his lede, which is a thing of beauty, what with its extremely broad base on top and super-pointy tip on bottom:

WASHINGTON — The Congressional Research Service has withdrawn an economic report that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth, a central tenet of conservative economic theory, after Senate Republicans raised concerns about the paper’s findings and wording...


Imagine that.

For the record, here is the kicker of the 'withdrawn' report:

...Throughout the late-1940s and 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was typically above 90%; today it is 35%. Additionally, the top capital gains tax rate was 25% in the 1950s and 1960s, 35% in the 1970s; today it is 15%. The real GDP growth rate averaged 4.2% and real per capita GDP increased annually by 2.4% in the 1950s. In the 2000s, the average real GDP growth rate was1.7% and real per capita GDP increased annually by less than 1%. There is not conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth. Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. The share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. The evidence does not suggest necessarily a relationship between tax policy with regard to the top tax rates and the size of the economic pie, but there may be a relationship to how the economic pie is sliced...


And you know what boggles-my-mind about all of this...

Not with respect to the intentions and desires of the parasitic super-rich who fund the hard-cons.

After all, those intentions and desires, which are currently in the fullest of full-bloom, are self-evident.

And I am not even that surprised by the attitudes of the comfortably well-off*.

But, I am surprised by the attitudes of those in the rapidly deteriorating middle who have been bamboozled into buying into the Big Con of the hard-cons precisely because they have been convinced that we have to get back to the 1950's.


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*Although, I must confess that I am baffled by the uber-connish attitudes of the ladder puller-uppers, some of whom are my colleagues...
And, on another topic....Ron Obvious catches up and does a pretty good job of summarizing just about every post we wrote in the last week, here.
Well, just about everything, because, as is to be expected, many pro-pundits have blinders over, and/or flies buzzing around, their eyes when it comes to massive elephants sitting in the vestibules of the insider access-appointed rooms...Elephants, which to his great credit Vaughn Palmer noticed this week, like....This.

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