I like to post excellent Daily Kos diaries at rec.gambling.poker, so the diaries can reach a wider audience. I seldom post diaries at Daily Kos, because the whole trusted user system is nothing but a system for repressive Stalinist censorship, in my opinion.
RGP is an unmoderated usenet newsgroup. Anyone can post there. No one can moderate you. I like the freedom.
When I post a diary, I like to prefix my own analysis as an introduction. Here is my introduction to bondad's econmic talkling points diary. This is not a metadiary, but a diary about a diary. Enjoy.
Here is a great, great diary by bonddad at Daily Kos. The Democrats are truly blessed when it comes to economics experts. The Republicans? Not so much.
At Daily Kos, there are two diarists in particular who have economic expertise -- bonddad and Jerome a Paris. I would seriously like you conservatives to point out to me any ordinary posters, or, for that matter front page posters, on any conservative blog, who even begin to match the economic expertise of bonddad and Jerome. You guys just don't have the firepower.
On top of that, the Democrats have Paul Krugman, arguably the most respected and famous economist in the world today, partially because he has the ultimate platform from which to dispense his opinions -- the editorial page of the New York Times.
Yes, Krugman is shrill, he acknowledges that. We lovingly call him "the shrill one". The point is, the Republicans have no one remotely comparable to Krugman. The closest thing the Republicans have is the "economists" at the Cato Institute. I used quote marks because these guys may have academic credentials, but they have zero credibility as scientists, because they are not looking for the truth. They think they already know the truth.
The Cato Institute is dedicated to promulgating the libertarian economic philosophy, nothing more. They cherry pick data and produce analyses to reach preordained conclusions. This is not economics. This is not science. This is pure propaganda and disinformation.
The Republicans have become very adept at using talking points and slogans to drive home a point by repeating it over and over again. The Democrats would rather just tell the truth and have an adult discussion. Unfortunately, this creates the impression among the public that the Democrats are in disarray and have no message.
True enough. The Democrats do not all march to the same drummer. We have genuine differences, and we discuss and argue about our differences. As Will Rogers said --
I do not belong to an organized political party. I am a Democrat.
With regard to the economy, the Republicans lie over and over. Yes, the economy is doing pretty well overall. But there are some troubling signs, and the Republicans either lie or misrepresent what is happening. But the Republicans keep telling the same lies over and over, so eventually the public believes the Republican lies.
bonddad argues that the Democrats should emulate the Republicans in repeating the same talking points over and over, but that we should tell the truth.
One of the Republican lies is that the economy is generating a lot of new jobs. Bullshit. Job growth is extremely weak. The following are only approximate figures off the top of my head. Some of you idiots accuse me of not being able to do anything but copy and paste. So I won't do any Googling at all.
The Republicans brag about their strong record of job growth. Nonsense. Since 2003, the economy has created about 5 million new jobs. Sounds impressive, huh? That's about 1.7 million new jobs per year. However, during the eight years of the first Clinton Administration, the economy created about 22 million new jobs. That is about 2.7 million new jobs per year. Got that? The Republicans are bragging about creating 1.7 new jobs per year. Under the first Clinton Administration, the economy created 2.7 million new jobs per year FOR EIGHT YEARS. So what the fuck are the Republicans bragging about?
With regard to the annual growth rate of GDP, the Republicans brag about the fact that GDP grew at a rate of 3.5%/year for the last 12 months. Pretty impressive, huh?
Except that, during the first Clinton Administration, the economy grew at a rate of 3.6%/year for the entire eight year period.
This puts the lie to the Republican claim that Bush's tax cuts are responsible for the current healthy GDP growth rate. With the higher Clinton tax rates, the economy grew at a greater sustained rate over an eight year period. So how can the Republicans possibly claim that Bush's tax cuts produced the current healthy GDP growth rate?
This also gives the lie to the Republican claim that cutting taxes results in faster economic growth. It just doesn't. According to the Keynesian economic model, cutting taxes SHOULD increase the GDP growth rate, but that effect is very small or non-existent and can't be measured.
Want further proof? Clinton raised the tax rates from those under Reagan, right? So clearly the economy should have grown more slowly under Clinton than under Reagan. Except it didn't. As I mentioned, the sustained GDP growth rate for eight years under Clinton was 3.6%/year. For the entire eight years of the Reagan Presidency, with lower tax rates, the GDP growth rate was 3.5%/year.
What happened here? The eight years of the Reagan and Clinton Presidencies are the closest thing we will ever get to running the same experiment twice. The data clearly do not indicate that raising taxes lowers the GDP growth rate.
Starting to get the picture? The Republican message on the economy is nothing but lies, obfuscations, and smokescreens.
Or let's take the myth that cutting taxes actually increases tax revenues. This is discredited nonsense from supply side economics, but the Republicans are still pushing the lie.
Look, the Bush tax cuts were retroactive for all of 2001, at least I think that is correct. With the total tax revenues for 2000 as a base, let's see what happened. Total income tax revenues fell from 2000 to 2001. Not surprising, since the economy was in a recession for most of 2001. But that recession ended in November, 2001. Please do not argue with this. Google it. But total income tax revenues also declined from 2001 to 2002. They also declined from 2002 to 2003. From 2003 to 2004, total income tax revenues stayed about the same. Finally, from 2004 to 2005, total income tax revenues made a healthy jump. But here is the key point. Even though the total income tax revenues increased from 2004 to 2005, the total income tax revenues in 2005 were still below the income tax revenues in 2000.
Got that? It is nonsense to claim Bush's tax cuts caused income tax revenues to increase. They still haven't gotten back to 2000 levels. And the 2005 economy is much larger than the 2000 economy. So what is all this nonsense about cutting taxes increasing tax revenues?
That's what it is, nonsense. If the Clinton tax rates were still in effect total income tax revenues in 2005 would have been $300 billion higher than they actually were.
Sure. If you cut the tax rate, the economy will still keep growing, so eventually the tax revenues will start increasing, as they did from 2004 to 2005. The key is how long does it take to even get back to the pre-tax cut revenues. Answer -- a long time, and by that time the economy is much larger. The tax cuts clearly were not responsible for the increase in tax revenues from 2004 to 2005. The much larger economy is responsible for that.
I have deliberately not used any the actual figures for tax revenues for these years, because most peoples' eyes glaze over when you start throwing tax revenue statistics around. I have provided these numbers in previous posts, and you can easily verify that everything I am saying is correct with Google.
Anyway, back to bonddad's diary. Although the economy has been humming along, although corporate profits have increased at double digit rates for ten straight quarters, the ordinary working stiff isn't benefitting from this prosperity at all. In fact, the ordinary working stiff is having trouble just keeping up with the mild inflation rates. This needs to be emphasized over and over. The Republican "prosperity" is not helping the working class. Not surprising, since Republican economic policies are designed to benefit the wealthy, not working class Americans.
Here is bonddad's diary --
http://www.dailykos.com/...