This scheme is so mind-boggling even Republicans have stopped lying about it

[justaprogressive]

[excerp]
Forty-four years ago, the Reagan administration — after winning the White House because they cut a criminal, treasonous deal with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to hold the American hostages until after the 1980 election — decided to take a second massive chance at deceiving the American voters.

Today’s rightwing media machine didn’t exist at the time; there was no Fox “News,” no 1,500 rightwing radio stations, no rightwing bloggers and podcasters getting millions from Russia and neofascist foundations, no rightwing billionaire owners of social media and the nation’s biggest newspapers and TV networks, so the risk of simply and blatantly lying to the public was far greater than today.

But in 1981 Ronald Reagan and the GOP decided — after 48 continuous years of Americans embracing both the New Deal’s programs and it’s top 90%-74% income tax bracket for the morbidly rich — that the risk was worth it. After all, if their bet paid off the rewards (that would come as future campaign donations) would be in the hundreds of billions.

So, they rolled out one of the most audacious lies, the biggest defiance of simple math and common sense, in the lifetime of most Americans: “Tax cuts pay for themselves and, as a bonus, increase prosperity for average working people.”

At the time, everybody knew it was a lie.

https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/this-schtick-is-so-mind-boggling-even-the-gop-has-stopped-lying-about-it/

[eppur_se_muova]

1. The "Laffer Curve" was well named*. GOP abuse of it defies logic and common sense.

When the USSR began allowing some private businesses, people proved they were willing to work disproportionately hard to keep just a little bit of their own productivity/wealth, showing that the Laffer Curve should really reach a maximum return on taxation on the high side of 50%, at absolute minimum.

According to The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, estimates of revenue-maximizing income tax rates have varied widely, with a mid-range of around 70%.[4] The shape of the Laffer curve may also differ between different global economies.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

* In show biz, a "laffer" refers to a comedy.

[Starfury]

3. Even Laffer had his limits

I can't find it off hand, but there was a tv interview with Laffer sometime after the TCJA was enacted. Even back then, he suggested that the tax cutting craze had gone way past his ideal tax "sweet" spot.

[Midnight Writer]

2. Trump gave Laffer the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Along with Rush Limbaugh.

MAGA supports liars, cranks, bigots, and malicious character assassins.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Ah, yes, the old 'trickle down' scam.

[usonian]

5. Trickle down has accelerated into golden showers.

Appropriate double-entendre.

[lastlib]

8. Always said "trickle down" was really "piss on" economics.

And guess who got "pissed on" the most? You/We know the answer.

[usonian]

11. The theory has been soundly disproven.

https://apnews.com/article/nobel-economics-prize-db3bfe55ac17dd22cf82f1dd637bfa94

“We have, as a country, failed to deliver in recent decades on what we were previously very good at, which was sharing prosperity,’' Johnson said.

[UpInArms]

6. The trickle down theory

I always called it the

Pee on me … or

Peon me

[OMGWTF]

7. Even George HW Bush called it "voodoo economics" when he was vying for Reagan to be the nominee.

Of course, he quickly got on board once he was selected as VP.

[Iamscrewed]

9. Long game

Make them poor, let them get sick, make them mad at anything and everyone, divide and defeat and subjugate. This is nothing new, people need to wake up to the lessons recorded in history.

[Picaro]

12. I just thinking about this yesterday

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.