The thing that should be generally understood, in the conservative declarations that cutting taxes on wealthy Americans will lead to economic boom times, is that it is categorically a lie. It is not a disputed viewpoint or an alternative economic theory; it was once, but after 40 years of rigorous real-world conservative experimenting, all of it at steep national expense, it has been repeatedly demonstrated, in the real world using real states and economies as the lab rats, to be a false proposition. It simply isn't true.
The notion, whether you want to call it voodoo economics or trickle-down or whatever other flattering-or-not name it has been given, has been debunked. The results have been perfectly clear, each time. The wealthy keep more money. Wages for everyone else stagnate. Budget deficits soar. Public services are not merely slashed, but gutted. It was tried in Kansas, a conservative wonderland where thought leaders like Sam Brownback had full rein; the state is now in the throes of an ongoing budget crisis to which no solution has yet been found. It was tried in Oklahoma, where some public schools are now open only four days a week instead of five because districts no longer have the cash for that fifth day.
You can add North Carolina to the list as well. It was not long ago that North Carolina was considered the Not-Insane Carolina, a bulwark against its bizarre southern counterpart. And then Republicans got themselves enough votes to try the Great Conservative Experiment themselves, and golly gee who could have foreseen the surprising result: a massive deficit and jack-all to show for it.
But as Henry drove through the conservative, rural county he’s called home all his life, he had trouble seeing many benefits of the tax cut. Business was good, but it wasn’t good enough that he could give his 20 workers significant raises.
And there were growing worries that the lost tax revenue — estimated at $3.5 billion this year alone — was beginning to significantly hurt core public services such as schools.
Indeed, the best the North Carolina architects of the plan can muster in defense is that well, it may not have led to any identifiable, meaningful growth of the sort that every last crook involved vowed would happen, but at least it hasn't yet collapsed the state economy to the extent seen in your Kansases or your Oklahomas, unless you count the public school system, which no legislator in North Carolina gives a damn about to begin with.
Again, the thing to take away from all of these attempts is very simple: the experiment has been tried, over and over, for decades. It did not work. At all. The results of tax cuts for the rich have never spurred the sort of growth proponents claim; they have reliably led to budget shortfalls; they have reliably led to reduced government services; they have reliably led to wealthy Americans hoarding more money, rather than spending that money.
It was tried by Ronald Reagan Himself, Blessed Be His Name, and if the Young People Today can no longer afford homes, or retirements, or even children then you can blame the Gipper and his phalanx of trickle-downers for a good chunk of why? There are few jobs that support such grand plans these days. You don't get to retire. You don't get a minimum wage that is indexed to the basic expenses of life, as those expenses rise each decade. You don't get anything except what "trickles down" onto your head by corporate bosses sitting, at this point, on mountains of do-nothing cash so large that they cannot possibly manage to spend it, even as they try.
It is a lie. It is not an experiment, at this point; it is a lie. The data is in. The men appearing on the television sets promising boom times as a result of tax cuts for wealthy Americans know full well they are lying. They aren't stupid. They aren't ignorant. They are lying. They are rich themselves, and they are lying to you.
The same conservative advocates have held the grand experiment for 40 years now, and tax cuts to the wealthy Do Not Lead To The Things They Claim. This is where other, actual economists abandon the pretense and accept the results of these monumentally expensive public experiments. But there are other think-tankers who will not give up the ghost, and the simple reason is because they continue to collect checks from the fabulously wealthy people who use their faux-intellectual veneer to demand still more tax cuts in still more venues. It is a grift. It is a con. If someone tells you that cutting taxes on the fabulously wealthy will lead to boom times in America, that person is provably a liar. You should not listen to them. You should consider, if all else fails, tar and feathers.