supply side economics ...... Blue Voodoo

[GURPS]

Blue Voodoo
The Democrats embrace trickle-down economics


Approximately 99.44 percent of the time, it is a safe assumption that when you disagree with Thomas Sowell, you are wrong. But on the issue of the “trickle-down” theory of economics, Professor Sowell is in fact wrong to claim that “trickle-down” is a nonexistent theory, absent from “even the most voluminous and learned histories of economic theories.” Trickle-down is there — just not where its critics are looking for it.


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Professor Sowell is correct that trickle-down functions in our current discourse mainly as a caricature of certain conservative, supply-side, and/or free-market economic ideas, mostly pertaining to taxes: “Repeatedly, over the years,” he writes,

the arguments of the proponents and opponents of tax rate reductions have been arguments about two fundamentally different things. Proponents of tax rate cuts base their arguments on anticipated changes in behavior by investors in response to reduced income tax rates. Opponents of tax cuts attribute to the proponents a desire to see higher income taxpayers have more after-tax income, so that their prosperity will somehow “trickle down” to others, which opponents of tax cuts deny will happen. One side is talking about behavioral changes that can change the total output of the economy, while the other side is talking about changing the direction of existing after-tax income flows among people of differing income levels at existing levels of output. These have been arguments about very different things, and the two arguments have largely gone past each other untouched.​

What sort of “behavioral changes” do the tax-cutters expect? In Andrew Mellon’s day, tax cuts were intended to lure wealthy investors out of tax-free government securities, which Mellon had proposed abolishing, into more-productive private-sector investments, which he believed would raise overall economic output. As Professor Sowell points out, the aggregate reported income of those earning $300,000 a year or more in 1916, back when three hundred grand meant something, was cut in half by 1918, and it probably was not because Scrooge McMoneybags actually was earning less: The consensus is that the very rich shifted their investments into tax-free securities as taxes went up and tax shelters became more attractive. Most of a century later, billionaire presidential candidate Ross Perot would be criticized for keeping his copious loot in tax-free munis. The more things change . . .

this should be good

 

[tommyjo]

Here is the qualification of your source:

Kevin D. Williamson is National Review’s roving correspondent. His Exchequer blog covers debt, deficits, and the intersection of finance and politics. He is the author of The End Is Near and It’s Going To Be Awesome: How Going Broke Will Leave America Richer, Happier, and More Secure, The Dependency Agenda, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism, and contributed chapters to The New Leviathan: The State Vs. the Individual in the 21st Century and Future Tense: Lessons of Culture in an Age of Upheaval. When he is not sounding the alarm about Fiscal Armageddon, he is the theater critic at The New Criterion.

Williamson began his journalism career at the Bombay-based Indian Express Newspaper Group and spent 15 years in the newspaper business in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Colorado. He served as editor-in-chief of three newspapers and was the founding editor of Philadelphia’s Bulletin. He is a regulator commentator on Fox News, CNBC, MSNBC, and NPR. His work has appeared in the New York Post, the New York Daily News, Commentary, Academic Questions, and other publications. He is a native of Lubbock, Texas, and lives in New York City

In other words, he has zero experience, expertise or credibility on the topic. The fact the he references The Heritage Foundation on the first page only solidifies that this is an individual not worthy of reading and whose conclusions or commentary is not worthy of consideration. Like most of your posts.

 

[GURPS]

what is wrong with the Heritage Foundation ....

 

[SamSpade]

Here is the qualification of your source.

And I don't give a rat's ass about that - when someone cites *DATA*, you can assail the methodology or their history of lacking credible evidence.
If someone quotes evidence or anecdotal information, you can challenge its truth or show it has been discredited.

But when someone makes an argument about something, it has no relevance - either dispute what they SAY or don't.
It's a childish take on debate to attack the messenger rather than the message.

What, specifically, did the author say that you take issue with?

 

[b23hqb]

And I don't give a rat's ass about that - when someone cites *DATA*, you can assail the methodology or their history of lacking credible evidence.
If someone quotes evidence or anecdotal information, you can challenge its truth or show it has been discredited.

But when someone makes an argument about something, it has no relevance - either dispute what they SAY or don't.
It's a childish take on debate to attack the messenger rather than the message.

What, specifically, did the author say that you take issue with?

Everything that has to do with tax cuts for anybody that actually pays taxes.

 

[GURPS]

It's a childish take on debate to attack the messenger rather than the message.

What, specifically, did the author say that you take issue with?

that is what progressives do when the disagree, you hate brown people and you are racist, you hate gays, women ....


Nazi
Homophobe
Klan Member


you are a christian