AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

by Daniel Mitchell PhD (excerpted):

The economy's sub-standard performance in recent years should come as no surprise. As seen below, major changes in tax policy inevitably affect growth.

Across-the-board tax rate reductions in the 1920s reduced the top rate from 71 percent to 24 percent. The economy boomed, growing by 59 percent between 1921 and 1929.

In 1930, Herbert Hoover raised tax rates from 25 percent to a maximum of 63 percent, and Franklin Roosevelt boosted them to 79 percent later in the decade. The 1930s, to put it mildly, are not remembered as one of the American economy's better decades.2

Across-the-board tax rate reductions introduced by President John F. Kennedy reduced the top rate from 91 percent to 70 percent. These lower rates, along with substantially lower taxes on savings and investment, are associated with the longest economic expansion in American history.3

The Johnson surtax, enacted in 1968 during the administration of President Lyndon Johnson, combined with the inflation-induced bracket creep of the 1970s (subjecting taxpayers to higher rates even though their real incomes had not changed), resulted in a decade of stagflation.

Reagan's across-the-board tax cuts ushered in America's longest peacetime expansion, helping to create 20 million new jobs and pushing incomes and living standards to record highs.

The tax rate increases imposed under George Bush and Bill Clinton, as outlined below, are associated with the slowest growing economy in 50 years and a decline of more than $2,000 in the average family's income.
http://www.heritage.org/research/taxes/BG1086.cfm

Karl Marx had the well intended but misguided view that if you could just force society to structure itself so that everybody enjoyed the same benefits and assets, then we would have as close to utopia as can be achieved in this life.

But Marx did not allow for human behavior, human ambition, human greed, human willingness to leach off others, human distaste for being taken advantage of by others. And it was these characteristics of humanity that doomed Marxian ideals to failure. No government was possible that held that ideals are more important than self-serving power, influence, and profit and no society was subjected to a government that held that did not become mostly impoverished, oppressed, and without hope or opportunity to help themselves.

A reasonably regulated Capitalism, however, seeks for all to be all that each and every one of us are capable of being, and when it is manifested in a free and compassionate society, all persons are encouraged and have incentive to be all that we all can be. The government then serves best by performing its constitutionally mandated responsibilities, enacting sufficient laws to prohibit the people from doing injustice and violence to each other, and then it gets out of our way.

Instead of the government accumulating trillions more in debt by attempting to spend us out of the current economic mess, if we must accumulate a huge deficit, let's do it by trusting the people to spend more of their own money more wisely, efficiently, and effectively than the government will do on their behalf.

SUMMING UP CONTENT OF LINKS I PREVIOUSLY POSTED

CARTER
Unemployment increased from 7.1% in 1977, to 7.6% in 1981.
Income tax rates constant 14% min to 70% max in 1977 thru 1981.
Revenues increased from 355,559 million in 1977, to 599,272 million in 1981.
GDP increased from 1,825.3 billion in 1976, to 2,789.5 billion in 1980.

REAGAN
Unemployment decreased from 9.7% in 1982, to 5.6% in 1990.
Income tax rates decreased from 12% min and 50% max in 1982, to 15% min and 33% max in 1990.
Revenues increased from 617,766 million in 1982, to 1,032,094 million in 1990.
GDP increased from 2,789.5 billion in 1980, to 5,103.8 billion in 1988.

BUSH 43
Unemployment decreased from 6.0% in 2003, to 4.6% in 2006.
Income tax rates decreased from 15% min and 39.1% max in 2001, to 10% min and 35% max in 2006.
Revenues increased from 1,991,426 million in 2001, to 2,407,254 million in 2006.
GDP increased from 9,817.0 billion in 2000 to 14208.7 billion in 2008.

Why can't you ... post the Jan. 2009 unemployment rate as the true record for Bush? And why don't you include Clinton's numbers in there?

Likely b/c Clinton makes the rest look like chumps, and you know it.

Press Release"for immediate release"November 15, 2005
Contact: Christina Kasica, 617-423-2148, ext. 119
(cell phone 617-966-0554)
Thanksgiving 2005 Report:

No Correlation Between Bush Tax Cuts
and Job Creation
Rate of Job Growth at Historic Low After 4 Years of Tax Cuts; Quality of Jobs Poor

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT HERE: Nothing to Be Thankful For (PDF, 2.53 MB).

BOSTON"As outrage in Congress stalls the Bush administration's attempts this Thanksgiving season to extend tax cuts that will primarily benefit the wealthy, a new study examines the administration's claim that tax cuts create jobs"and finds it without merit.

Evidence shows that, historically, changes in tax rates have no discernible effect on employment. Moreover, during the Bush administration, job creation since 2003 has fallen millions of jobs short of the administration's promises, and is significantly below what would normally be expected even without extraordinary economic stimulus.

"Contrary to what President Bush and his tax policymakers are saying, tax cuts do not automatically create jobs. Tax cuts are just one of many things that can affect job growth," said Liz Stanton, director of research at United for a Fair Economy (UFE) and a co-author of the report.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Why can't you ... post the Jan. 2009 unemployment rate as the true record for Bush? And why don't you include Clinton's numbers in there?

Likely b/c Clinton makes the rest look like chumps, and you know it.

The negative effects of Clinton's tax increases began in Clinton's last full year, 2000, and were passed on to Bush to handle in 2001, 2002, 2003. Bush's 2003 tax cut benefits began to occur in 2004.

The 2008, and January 2009 unemployment rate is the result of Bush and the Democrat Congress failing to rectify the Fanny&Freddy&Ginny mortgage loan debacle back in 2006. Until that debacle is finally rectified, unemployment will continue to increase.