It not only worked but there are plenty of people that still believe this.
A month ago there was a LTE in the Dallas Morning News that made the bald faced contention that whenever the tax rates have been cut federal revenues from taxes have gone up.
Plenty of people wrote in to point out that that is nonsense and that all these huge deficits didn’t just happen—they happened because tax revenues went down sharply and spending remained the same or was increased.
But seriously folks—fuck basic arithmetic. And don’t you dare look at the insanely swollen defense budget. It’s not the tax reductions that have led to trillions in national debt its all those damn entitlements.
Forget that Bill Clinton balanced the budget by the end of his 2nd term and that Bush Jr. squandered that historic opportunity with another set of insane tax cuts that did nothing for anyone but the top earners. I remember it well. I was one those top earners at the time and I absolutely didn’t need tax relief. So, I biught a car.
This nonsense about supply side economics sold because that’s what the greedy rich wanted to believe. The people that wanted to get rich believed it to because when they became rich they wanted to pay low taxes—not give up the wealth tbey’d never have paying higher marginal tax rates in a rational and fair progressive tax system.
Now, as the article notes, the Republicans aren’t even trying to say that the 2017 and 2025 tax cuts will pay for themselves. The billionaires and the ultra successful corporations just want to pay lower taxes. And if that means that the federal government remains chronically underfunded and Medicaid/Medicare/Sociial Security have to be worked over with a hatchet…well… who gives a shit?
Problem is they’re probably going to kill the golden goose this time— the bond market is showing signs that it’s not going to absorb this latest tax reform (as they like to call it). Some of our largest creditors are showing signs that they’re just not gonna buy the treasury bills anymore and that’s gonna make things really inflationary and could lead to a dollar that goes into one of those hyperinflation spirals. You really can’t avoid the arithmetic forever.
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