Trickle Down

If you know one thing about the Republicans, it's their mantra.  Lowering taxes, especially on the wealthy, stimulates the economy and is the best way to make the economy grow.  They've been saying it for decades now and everything they do is towards that end.

So what happens if it's not true?

This is from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, the research arm of the Congress that provide facts and evidence to everyone in Congress:

The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.

However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income disparities.

Ouch.  You see, that directly contradicts the Republican mantra.  So what did the Republicans do when they heard about this report?  They buried it.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that Senate Republicans applied pressure to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) in September, successfully persuading it to withdraw a report finding that lowering marginal tax rates for the wealthiest Americans had no effect on economic growth or job creation.

"The pressure applied to the research service comes amid a broader Republican effort to raise questions about research and statistics that were once trusted as nonpartisan and apolitical," the Times reported. Democrats in Congress, however, have resurfaced the report and published it in full.

Climate change?  Deny and obfuscate.  Evolution?  Deny and confuse.  Abstinence only education doesn't work?  Deny and moralize.  Economic and tax policy completely full of crap?  Deny and bury.

That's the real Republican mantra.

If you're a Christian, doesn't this offend you?  Should you be voting for liars?

For everyone else, tell me again why anyone should vote for these asshats.