Republicans in both houses of Congress have continued to harp on the whimsical notion that cutting taxes for the richest of the rich produces jobs for the rest of America. As the lapse date for the Bush tax cuts edges ever closer their anger at the prospect of asking the wealthiest Americans to pay up has become even louder.
According to The Huffington Post, Republican leaders who had been so vociferous in their proposals to cut the deficit and maintain fiscal austerity are now up in arms about a tax increase that would bring hundreds of billions of dollars into the Treasury.
Republicans are all about "curbing the deficit" when Democrats want to give health care to the uninsured, cut medical costs, or fund such unnecessary things as school lunches for the poor and education for America's students. However, when the rich are asked to go back to pre-Bush tax levels the GOP suddenly morphs into a populist crusader.
First things first, we need to dispel the idea that cutting taxes for the rich creates jobs. That is the Republican Party's key talking point on the issue and it is simply wrong. The fact that the GOP continues to trumpet this should be considered nothing more than intentional misinformation.
President George W. Bush cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans in 2001, 2002, and 2003. He brought taxes for the top bracket down from 39.6 percent to 35 percent. President Bill Clinton had previously opted to raise taxes from just 31 percent to the aforementioned 39.6 percent.
During the Clinton years, which saw a 27.7 percent increase in tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, the unemployment rate dropped from 7.3 percent on his first day in office to just 4.2 percent on his last day.
Breaking from this example President Bush pushed for tax cuts, which were sold to the American people as a means of creating jobs. They immediately resulted in unemployment soaring 1.5 points in his first year. The tax cuts also cost the government trillions of dollars in lost revenue contributing to the overall economic destabilization that saw unemployment skyrocket from 4.2 percent when the Bush administration took over to 7.7 percent when it was finally replaced.
Clearly, tax cuts did not create jobs in the United States. What they did create was runaway deficits and a culture of fiscal irresponsibility that now dominates both parties and the American public.
This nation is much better off paying a bit more, but getting more in return, than it is paying less and getting nothing at all.
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