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President Obama pushed his “middle class economics” message hard during a Cleveland speech earlier this week. And, in the process, offered his take on recent US economic history:
Barry keeps cherry-picking his comments about the economy because that’s all he can do. We didn’t “try” trickle-down economics; characterizing what “we” did and what we “tried” is laughable, considering the confluence of tax and monetary policy, the private sector, and massive federal borrowing. It’s not as if a President comes into office on a Tuesday and presses the “Trickle-Down” button.
Secondly, if there’s any trickling going on, it’s the fact that half the country pays no income taxes, and of the half that do, the top half of that group pays 97% of all income taxes collected. We’ve been trying that trickle for decades and the result is that we have the lowest labor force participation rate in decades and a record number of people on federal assistance.
If you’re looking for failed policies, Barry, go hold up a mirror and stop smiling into it at yourself.
The reality is that the two biggest/broadest tax cuts in the last 3 decades, under Reagan and Clinton (although Clinton went along with it simply because he knew his veto would get overriden and there was literally zero downside to his not vetoing the tax cut passed by Congress), both helped to usher in huge economic booms. Not all by themselves, but those cuts contributed, because what happens when people keep more of their money?
They save it, they spend it, or they invest it – and those 3 things drive GDP more than the gov’t spending does, and create real jobs, and increases wealth.
That’s why those policies work. It’s simple. It doesn’t have to be complex, because it isn’t.
Reminds me of a 1970’s cocktail napkin drawn in front of Cheney, Rumsfeld and a WSJ columnist by a young, little known economist named Art Laffer.
I recently read a book by a daughter about her relationship with her mother–not a political book at all, but politics came into it because the mother was conservative and the daughter distinctly not. As a consequence, the book was full of political asides. One of the most breathtaking of these to me was when the daughter/author said that in 2008 she was, of course, relieved that now the economy would obviously improve since Democrats were in charge.
This author is old enough that she was a young adult during the Reagan recovery. I simply cannot imagine how anyone lived through the Carter and Reagan years and still remains confident that Democrats are good for the economy. It only goes to show that some people perceive only those things that fit with their worldviews.
I am sick of the president’s demagoguery on economics and taxes.
Dems love to use the term “trickle-down” because it has become a term that many find worthy of ridicule. And because a trickle of anything is a small amount, it suits their purpose of portraying wealth as something that is hoarded by the wealthy, who deign to throw a few crumbs of bread and trickles of water to the lower economic classes. It has the air of a “let them eat cake” concept. The truth is, there is no agreement as to what “trickle-down” means. It is a casual term, rather than precise term that refers to specific policies. It is really just a rhetorical club used by liberals to beat up conservatives.
“Slashed”: a very active verb. Violent. But not very accurate. According to Heritage.org, “[t]he top 10 percent of income earners paid 68 percent of all federal income taxes in 2011 (the latest year available), though they earned 45 percent of all income. The bottom 50 percent paid 3 percent of income taxes, but earned 12 percent of income.”
Once – just once! – I’d like to see an interviewer ask the president, “You imply the current tax structure is not progressive enough, because you say that the rich are not paying their fair share. Well, how much should the top 10% pay, considering they pay 68% now? 75%? 90%? 100%? Please, sir, give me the number that constitues a ‘fair share'”.
“Stripped out”: again, very active imagery. Does anyone with half a brain think that federal regulations are stripped to the bone?
Liberals love euphemisms. “Investments” of course means government spending. Someone needs to explain to the president that the government does not create wealth.
A famous Obama quote is, “I actually believe my own [B.S.]” Clearly, he does, and he is seriously deluded if he thinks that his presidency has been anything other than an economic disaster. The federal budget is nearly balanced, job growth is robust, and the economy is on a tear?
If only… If only.
1) First 8 years of this century, refers to GWB. Not Reagan or Clinton. No reason to lump GWB with those 2 together.
2) He’s wrong only in that Bush didn’t do “trickle down economics”. He did “big government conservatism”.
3) He’s right in so far as the 2000s, as a whole decade, were one of the worst performing decades.
Since I know populist “conservatives” here on Ricochet just love “median income” and “middle class” talk, take a look at the 2000s decade under Bush:
Yes, after the dot-com crash/recession and 9-11 there was a steady increase.
Why do you put quotes around “Conservatives” when referring to the denizens of Ricochet. Ive seen you do this before.
#Curious
Seems to me problem is a lot bigger than the dot com crash or 9/11. It’s the entire decade that is stagnant.
Whatever people want to say, the fact remains, the 2000s were one of the worst performing decades.
I put “conservatives” in quotation marks, because being a “conservative” is an entirely self-labeling process. When people who hold views which are indistinguishable from the left on economics, like certain “conservatives” who don’t need to be mentioned, call themselves that, then it becomes a meaningless label. Hence, since simply calling oneself that, doesn’t make one that…
These weekly economics posts are a good example of that. While on one side praising “trickle down economics”, on the other side they usually advocate for “subsidies” of all sorts, advocate for populist policies aimed at the fictitious “middle class”, which are just a nice way of disguising subsidies.
So we get this strange position where, because people need to call themselves the “conservative” label, then they need to defend “trickle down economics”. But then, they go and advocate policies which are the opposite of that.
Speaking of flaccid performances, let’s take a look at that federal gov’t trickle-down effect, since federal deficits have tripled under Barry, more people are on public assistance of one kind or another at record levels, etc. Oh, there it is. That’s where incomes go to die:
You see where the wages started going up in 2007-2008? And what happened after Barry “Big Boy Pants” strolled into town?
The “trickle” term applies wherever one wants it to apply. I would argue that massive spending done on the backs of borrowing and wage earners is trickling down the backs of its recipients – but I wouldn’t call it rain, either. I’d call that trickle something else.
When Obama/the Democrats say that we have “dramatically lower deficits,” they just mean that the deficits are low compared to the last year of Bush, when the stimulus bill was passed. Compared to every other year of Bush, Obama’s deficits have been higher. Is that correct, or am I misreading the data?