Wednesday 9 October 2013

In Historically Unprecedented Move, Congressional Research Service Finding Is Squelched

Republicans moved to silence a Congressional Research Service scientific report that showed Supply Side economics is little more than a counter-factual narrative that leads to deepening income inequality and has little effect on economic growth.

According to the CRS paper:
Throughout the late-1940s and 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was typically above 90%; today it is 35%. Additionally, the top capital gains tax rate was 25% in the 1950s and 1960s, 35% in the 1970s; today it is 15%. The real GDP growth rate averaged 4.2% and real per capita GDP increased annually by 2.4% in the 1950s. In the 2000s, the average real GDP growth rate was 1.7% and real per capita GDP increased annually by less than 1%. There is not conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth. Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.
The paper was published in the lead up to the 2012 election, even though it was mentioned by the New York Times, the headline was so muted, and the article slanted by finishing off with a talking point the author had made a $5000 contribution to Democratic political causes. No reader, going by the article alone could accurately assess the nature of the article, or its veracity. This slimy trick could be applied to the discovery of a cure for cancer using stem cells of the patient by claiming the researcher eats babies for lunch. [Ed. Watch out researchers your big pharma competitors might actually try that].


If you are having to tighten your belt, and to do so, you have to punch a new hole in it, it's not just you. If your doctor is telling you that you have to eat more, but you're left with month at the end of your money, it's not just you. You are one of millions who have been swindled, not just out of any hope of prosperity, but out of any hope of even a comfortable standard of living.

If you have three of those 10,000,000 new jobs Rick Perry has bragged about the solution is not to get a 4th one. your only getting 6 hours of sleep a week as it is. What needs to change is the minimum wage. it must raise to a living wage, California has started the process, and from January 2016, Californian workers cannot be paid less than $10/hour. This is how it starts, workers will migrate to California and other states offering living wage levels. States sticking with the "I got mine, f*ck the rest of you" minimum wage rates, will find it harder to attract worker. So Texas will once again see net migration depopulating the state. Her only hope in the near future is Wendy Davis becoming Governor. But even if Wendy's Campaign does not take her into the the Governor's mansion, she will raise issues, and mobilize a Texan population that is turning blue not only from demographic trends but also from the strangle-hold of  theocratic anarcho-capitalist* aristocratic governance that has blighted the state for nearly 20 years. Texas becoming a blue state is inevitable on current trends. Republicans in Texas know this and it is why they a so keen to gerrymander the states electoral boundaries and laws, especially the winner -takes-all law.


* Anarcho-capitalism refers to the concept that governments should not regulate industry, which is fine until your unregulated fertilizer plant explodes or Wall Street tanks your economy by gambling your money and a mega tonne of money it doesn't have on risky stock market trades in junk markets like junk bonds and underwater mortgages.

See also
   BusinessInsider.com
   ThinkProgress.org

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