“Fantasy economics only works in a fantasy world. It doesn't work in reality. -- Michele Bachmann
Michele Bachmann has a long record of being an idiot, but she got this one right.
I doubt the former Republican Congresswoman, who made a brief unsuccessful bid for the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2012, meant it in regard to her party’s long-time dream of massive tax cuts for the rich.
Funny how it worked out that way.
Republicans in the House and Senate are rushing to approve a tax bill that most experts say is slanted heavily to the benefit of the rich and corporations. It of course is built on the disproved theory of trickle-down economics that the GOP has clung to as its economic gospel.
But the most convincing argument against the plan is simply reality: The reality of wealth inequality.
This is where real word fact meets economic fiction. The best of plans – which this one isn’t – can maybe work in a vacuum, but we don’t live in a vacuum. We live in a country where a large amount of its wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small percentage of people – something the Right is all too willing to ignore and even exacerbate in driving its pro-rich, anti-poor agenda.
***
“We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. But we can’t have both.” -- Louis Brandeis
Spending drives the economy.
If tax cuts aren’t being spent then the economy doesn’t grown, and the Republican myth is that giving the bulk of these cuts to the rich and corporations will unleash a wave of better wages and more jobs.
It won’t.
That’s because companies aren’t going to hire more people if they aren’t producing and selling more product, and if the bulk of the tax breaks are going to the rich, instead of the poor and middle class who are more likely to spend any extra money in their paychecks, a significant amount of new product isn’t going to be bought.
If our wealth was more evenly distributed more people would be out there spending money on things like televisions and vacations right now. However, it’s not, so the best way to increase spending to stimulate the economy is to concentrate the tax benefits on the poor and middle class, which the GOP plan doesn’t do.
The fantasy of trickle-down is refuted by the reality that we have a lot of people who aren’t in a position to spend much past the everyday essentials and aren’t going to benefit by tax cuts to the rich and corporations. Any tax cuts that aren’t geared to mainly benefit them aren’t going to grow the economy significantly.
***
“Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor. -- Thomas Jefferson
The GOP tax plan is estimated to add a trillion or more dollars to our deficit. Are we ready to put aside the myth that the Republicans are deficit hawks?
One thing that isn’t a myth is the Republicans’ dislike for so-called entitlement and social safety net programs. They’re already talking about needing to make changes in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and social programs due to our large debt, which they’re increasing with their tax cuts for the rich and corporations.
Talk about ass-backwards.
Addressing debt has to be done by either increasing revenues, cutting expenses or, more likely, a combination of the two. However, the reality of wealth inequality highlights the damage from cuts to programs that benefit the poor as well as the heartlessness of those who promote them.
With so many people having so little these programs become even more vital than they would in a fantasy world where the money is distributed much more evenly. We just have too many people who need them to survive.
We should always look for ways to improve them and make them more efficient, but that’s not what the Republicans want to do. They simply want to start slashing.
The GOP has always enjoyed demonizing the poor, mainly to try to grow support for cutting social safety net programs for people they like to describe as “takers.”
Again, the unlevel playing field in his country makes these programs vital. If done right they’re a hand up, not a hand out. With the staggering gap between the very poor and the very rich, no country worth a damn would be looking to do less for those with so little.
***
“Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another. -- Plato
The Bible says that “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” It has to be that way with taxes.
It’s true, the very wealthy pay more in total money than the poor and middle class when it comes to taxes, and in a perfect world maybe we’d all pay the same percentage. But we don’t live in a perfect world.
What we do live in is a country with massive wealth inequality, and this dictates that the greater burden has to be carried by the rich simply because the poor and middle class can’t afford to be crushed by a more balanced distribution of tax payments.
It’s not all a one-way street for the rich here. Many of them are the business owners who profit from purchases by the poor and middle class, something that would be significantly hindered if these people were gouged for tax bills they couldn’t afford.
It takes a certain amount of money to run a country. You can debate how much, but you don’t know reality if you argue that a disproportionate amount of the total revenue doesn’t have to come from the rich for our country to survive economically.
***
“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all.” -- Plutarch
Wealth inequality is a term progressives like to throw out, sometimes followed by statistics backing up its existence.
Most importantly, it’s not just that you have a lot of money and I don’t (not that I’m happy about that). It’s really the cornerstone on which public and economic policy should be built.
That’s because it’s reality. A reality the Republican Party conveniently ignores as it pushes its policy positions, but one that Democrats have to keep re-enforcing in their hopefully understandable and intelligent messaging.
Fact may be stranger than fiction at times, but economic fiction like the Republican tax plan isn’t just strange.
It’s also a bald-faced lie.
You can read all my blog posts at Musings of a Nobody
Please share and subscribe by email if you like it.