Republican claims about the economy are based on ideology largely generated by people who were not trained in economics. Maybe presenting just a few hard facts will be helpful.
1. As a percentage of GDP, taxes are 20 points lower here than in most developed countries.
2. Taxes on corporate income in Organization for Economic C0-Operation and Development countries was 3.5% in 2008. They were 1.8% in the US.
3. The US experienced its best recent growth rate in the 1950s when tax rates were at a record high.
4. Under George W. Bush, taxes were at a record low level. Yet there were no job gains and very little growth. Those rates are still in place and should be working miracles.
These are simple facts, and conservatives should be asked to deal with them.
Today we lack investigative reporters and media fact-checkers, so it is hard to combat
a narrative that is so unrelated to economic realities.
A second problem is that so many Democrats have given up on combatting the REpublican narrative. Some play to the base by saying President Barack Obama has not said enough about the needs of the blacks and poor. Had he talked about those themes, his popularity would be even lower and the Republicans would have been hot to cut even more from programs that help the poor and disadvantaged. I suspect
Obama grasps this.
The most important reason we cannot have a reasonable discussion about economic policy is that the nation is experiencing something far worse than a massive, prolongued panic attack. Many think the nation has lost its way and faces a grim future. They are panicked about their own prospects and those of their children, and they have a lot of anger that has to be directed somewhere. The uneasiness began as the middle class lost ground, got worse with 9/11, and broke out into a full-scale panic with the Bush financial and economic crisis .
Scholars call this a revitalization crisis. People need emotional security above all so they have repaired to simplistic theories offered by the GOP and corporate America. In this case, they doubled down on the very policies that produced our present economic distress.
It also helps fearful people to vent their anger against the African American president, his race, Hispanic immigrants, gays, liberals, and Muslims.
In other situations like this, people have developed authoritarian attitudes and supported Social Darwinian notions about the poor deserving their fates. Sometimes extreme nationalism and even militarism become part of a revitalization movement such as the Tea Party or the various forms of Christian Dominionism that are becoming manifest in leaders like Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Sarah Palin.
There is no point in offering complete counter arguments in an atmosphere in which people have turned against reason and science, be it physical science or economics. The best approach for progressives is to join Obama in focussing on unfairness and occcasionally offering facts that shatter the Republican economic narrative.
We and Obama should not talk about class--that is our American forbidden subject-- and we should avoid talk about being class warriors for workers. Instead, we should be pointing to the breakdown of super committee negotiations to demonstrate how the Republicans have become the class warriors for the rich.