BROKEN COMPACT

Boy, have we been fooled. 

This one has been irritating me for a long time:  Trickle-down Economics, the conservative Republicans instructed us, would result in a booming economy.  “If you give big tax cuts to the wealthy we will use that money to create jobs.”  A Grand Bargain. 

There is, however, a glitch to this compact between the wealthy and our workers.  While jobs were created, those jobs are — wait for it — OVERSEAS.  So, how did the American workers benefit from making this compact with the wealthy?  

They didn’t.  The jobs are gone;  we have a disappearing middle class; the corporations and well-to-do are pocketing lots more money;  and our nation is no longer thriving the way it did when the marginal tax rates were much higher.

After 30 years of Reganomics this fairy-tale theory of economics has become so embedded in our thinking that it is now “common wisdom.”  Many, if not a majority of our citizens, still believe (despite the evidence to the contrary) that we need “broad-based tax cuts” — which mostly benefit the wealthy — in order to create jobs.

The result of this 30 year compact is that American workers got fewer, lower-paying jobs;  the wealthy and corporations got richer.  And our nation has been cheated out of the tax revenues we could have used to, oh let’s say — pay down the deficit;  rebuild our infrastructure, etc.

So, now what?  Geez, I don’t know.  The damage is done, but maybe we could at least begin to try re-thinking our automatic reflexive chant, “We need broad-based tax cuts to create jobs!”  How’d that work out for us during the last administration when W. jammed multiple, massive tax cuts through Congress?  (Using by the way, that demonized process, Senate Reconciliation.)

President Bush:  WHERE are the jobs that your tax cuts to the wealthy were supposed to create?  He has no honest answer. 

So, let’s figure this out logically.  President Bill Clinton raised the top marginal tax rate to 39.6%, and despite the dire predictions of all Republicans, the economy boomed (and we even had a budget surplus).  W. cut top marginal tax rates from 39.6% to 35% and the job creation was anemic, the economy tanked and he doubled the national debt in only eight years. 

How could that be true when it’s “common wisdom” that tax cuts on the top income level creates jobs, and that tax hikes depress job creation in the country?  Gosh, could W.’s Dad, President Bush 41, have had it right all along when he called Trickle-down Economics “Voo-Doo Economics?”

Let’s all get behind letting these Bush tax cuts expire and use the revenues to build our country a brighter future.  Let us leave old, stale ideas in the past and like our founding Fathers (and Mothers) let’s look for new and dynamic ideas to build our nation.