THE SEVEN BIGGEST ECONOMIC LIES
Seven Biggest Reasons why Robert Reich is full of shit
The President’s Jobs Bill doesn’t have a chance in Congress — and the Occupiers on Wall Street and elsewhere can’t become a national movement for a more equitable society – unless more Americans know the truth about the economy.
Here’s a short (2 minute 30 second) effort to rebut the seven biggest whoppers now being told by those who want to take America backwards. The major points:
1. Tax cuts for the rich trickle down to everyone else. Baloney. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both sliced taxes on the rich and what happened? Most Americans’ wages (measured by the real median wage) began flattening under Reagan and have dropped since George W. Bush. Trickle-down economics is a cruel joke.
Is it poor people who are creating jobs?
2. Higher taxes on the rich would hurt the economy and slow job growth. False. From the end of World War II until 1981, the richest Americans faced a top marginal tax rate of 70 percent or above. Under Dwight Eisenhower it was 91 percent. Even after all deductions and credits, the top taxes on the very rich were far higher than they’ve been since. Yet the economy grew faster during those years than it has since. (Don’t believe small businesses would be hurt by a higher marginal tax; fewer than 2 percent of small business owners are in the highest tax bracket.)
We live in different times with a more mobil economy. Impose a 91% tax rate right now and watch the mass exodus of rich people from the US. Fuck even Warren Buffet would haul ass.
15 yrs ago if you lived overseas, you did not get the news, newspaper, sports scores or any food you cared for. Today you can live in Singapore, have less crime rate, lower taxes, read the USA today, follow your sports on the internet while drinking a Starbucks coffee every morning.
Wake up - that had to be the most antiquated argument I have ever read.
3. Shrinking government generates more jobs. Wrong again. It means fewer government workers – everyone from teachers, fire fighters, police officers, and social workers at the state and local levels to safety inspectors and military personnel at the federal. And fewer government contractors, who would employ fewer private-sector workers. According to Moody’s economist Mark Zandi (a campaign advisor to John McCain), the $61 billion in spending cuts proposed by the House GOP will cost the economy 700,000 jobs this year and next.
Governments have never been a more efficient supplier of jobs. See comunist expirements.
4. Cutting the budget deficit now is more important than boosting the economy. Untrue. With so many Americans out of work, budget cuts now will shrink the economy. They’ll increase unemployment and reduce tax revenues. That will worsen the ratio of the debt to the total economy. The first priority must be getting jobs and growth back by boosting the economy. Only then, when jobs and growth are returning vigorously, should we turn to cutting the deficit.
Almost all enonomic theories would say this is correct and it is probably true right now as well. But if you look at the top American corportations, they are in really good shape, growing revenue, earnings and flush with cash. Why are they not expanding and hiring?
They are absolutely terrified about the US deficit and who is going to pay for it. Saving cash for when the tax man comes.
I am not totally for cutting budgets immediately but a balanced budget amendment would do more for job growth than ANY jobs program the government can put together.
5. Medicare and Medicaid are the major drivers of budget deficits. Wrong. Medicare and Medicaid spending is rising quickly, to be sure. But that’s because the nation’s health-care costs are rising so fast. One of the best ways of slowing these costs is to use Medicare and Medicaid’s bargaining power over drug companies and hospitals to reduce costs, and to move from a fee-for-service system to a fee-for-healthy outcomes system. And since Medicare has far lower administrative costs than private health insurers, we should make Medicare available to everyone.
Wrong again - both are going up so fast because they are being abused by both hospitals and patients. You can't keep spending $500k on the last two weeks of a terminally ill patient and you can't keep providing EVERYONE that walks into an emergency room with medical care.
6. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Don’t believe it. Social Security is solvent for the next 26 years. It could be solvent for the next century if we raised the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax. That ceiling is now $106,800.
If we raise the ceiling, won't that also raise the payments to the people paying in more? Or do you now just get to keep paying in lots more social security but get the same benefits? Problem with social security is we are living so much longer - have to adjust for our current life spans.
7. It’s unfair that lower-income Americans don’t pay income tax. Wrong. There’s nothing unfair about it. Lower-income Americans pay out a larger share of their paychecks in payroll taxes, sales taxes, user fees, and tolls than everyone else.
Payroll taxes are not a tax - they are a prepayment of retirement benefits. In addition, lower income tend to be a higher user of governemnt services. I am not saying they should get them all for free but they do need to understand they come at a cost.
Demagogues through history have known that big lies, repeated often enough, start being believed — unless they’re rebutted. These seven economic whoppers are just plain wrong. Make sure you know the truth – and spread it on.
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