The Failure Of “Trickle Down”, and The Generation That Understands This

[The Derp]

We're not talking about growth rates.

Growth rates are intrinsic to the conversation because you are making the claim that growth will happen if the wealthy are given a tax cut. That's what you are claiming when you say that tax cuts increase revenue. The theory you are pushing is that the wealthy will take the tax cut money they got and spend it in the economy. Only, that doesn't happen. As we saw in the Bush Tax Cuts, when the rate for the wealthy was cut from 39.6% to 35%, the wealthy increased their savings, not their consumption. So that undermines your argument that cutting taxes for the wealthy leads to increased spending by the wealthy.

 

[The Derp]

Tax cuts DO NOT enjoy a multiplier greater than 1. Check with Barro and Niskanen.

Absolutely correct. Tax cuts do not pay for themselves. Never have, never will. They just repealed trickle-down tax cuts in Kansas. Tax cuts Conservatives were preening would be "the red state model". Those Brownback Tax Cuts, that Arthur Laffer even pitched in the Sunflower State, erased a surplus, led to job and gdp growth below the national average, and produced record deficits that led to at least 3 credit downgrades, a raiding of the highway fund, and cuts to state colleges which forced the Board of Regents to raise tuition costs for students.

Tax cuts are the worst. I think the right-wing only supports them because they're two syllables, seven letters, and they can spell it.

 

[JBond]

.
It has become a regular habit for some media contributors to blame millennials for the death of many businesses and other profitable institutions. This blame focuses on millennials because they refuse to spend there limited incomes to benefit the billionaires and other corporate fat cats.

The American people have listened to conservatives tout the benefits of Reagan’s snake oil known as “Trickle Down” for the last four decades. Reliable numbers charting the success of Reagan’s snake oil have proven consistently, that during these years, the wealthiest top 0.1% (that’s one tenth of one percent) have flourished beyond all expectations.

Unfortunately, those same reliable numbers prove the bottom 90%, and especially the lowest half of American families haven’t fared well, at all.

But, in the years when Reagan first started selling his snake oil, in younger, baby boomer families, both spouses began working, so the negative impact of his trickle-down-snake-oil was slow to be noticed by the masses. The generation that fought in WWII and produced the baby-boomers were already established financially, so they too were also slow to notice as their buying power decreased.

The WWII generation did have one advantage (if you can call it that) over the baby boomers they bore. The WWII generation lived through the Great Depression. Their families were forced to learn to make do with less, appreciate the value of money, and live within their limited means.

This was not the case with the “boomers”. As conservative policies slowly began to strangle wages, destroy unions, and create an environment hostile to working people, easy credit became available to provide the money needed by the boomers to buy the trappings of middle class, which were rapidly becoming more and more expensive.

Living expenses, whether for necessities or luxuries, increased at a rate much more quickly than incomes. The bubble burst in the middle of 2008, the final year of Dubya’s tax-cuts-for-the-very-rich, and borrow-money-for-two-needless-wars administration.

During the initial months of the Great Republican Recession, countless baby boomers lost their jobs, homes, cars, life savings, retirement accounts, etc. The following years of slow economic recovery resulting from the congressional Republicans many efforts to make Obama a one-term-president, saw economic conditions so bad, many of these boomers would never recover.

All this financial tragedy had little effect on the wealthiest top 0.1%, but it was a lesson to the millennial generation. Like their grandparents during the Great Depression, they watched while their parents [boomers] struggled financially. Savings ran out, as did long-term unemployment benefits, and eventually, the income from part-time jobs was barely enough to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.

This generation-wide experience forced most millennials to develop a financial mindset that is currently being blamed for the dying retail industry, the slowing restaurant business, the bind being felt by automakers, unimpressive sales of new homes, and the loss of many jobs.

But blaming all this on millennials is Bullsh!t.

Unlike the suckers who believe in Reagan’s snake oil, these young people refuse to spend their meager incomes on the billionaires' over-priced crap. The same over-priced crap their boomer parents went deeply into debt to own, so as to live the middle class lifestyle, which was beyond the financial means of most.

No, the blame for the economic catastrophe of Reagan’s snake oil falls squarely on the suckers in the baby boomer generation. For four decades, they happily handed the vast majority of the wealth to the top 0.1%, in the mistaken belief the billionaires’ massive profits from ever-rising prices, substantial Republican tax cuts, the outsourcing these tax cuts helped finance, and the stagnant wages enjoyed by low and middle income families would finally be trickled down upon them.

That ain’t happened yet, and millennials know it never will. They understand they must live for the moment, and the few enjoyable experiences they are able to afford. Fu*k the businesses that are dying. The millennials are not to blame for the CEO baby boomers who were too stupid to understand Reagan’s snake oil would eventually cause their worlds to come crashing down around them.

Millennials can read the handwriting on the wall. They know Reagan’s “Trickle Down” snake oil is a scam to keep wealth moving upward, and always has been. They can also understand that, until the stupid, conservative baby boomers die out, there is little they can do to help themselves. The stupid members of the boomer generation still have too much power. “Trickle Down” will continue, for now.

'Psychologically scarred' millennials are killing dozens of industries — and it's their parents' fault

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View attachment 131176


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Obviously written by a child...

 

[JBond]

So you have "Narratives" to compensate for your lack of data....

Don't see a lot of that.....You must be one of them Recidivist Supply Side Voting Imbeciles I've been reading about....

Wow, not many quislings admit they read propaganda. Good for you!

The data is historic record, there is plenty of it. For starters, a record-setting 97 consecutive months of economic growth. That's nearly an entire decade and it follows a period of recession as miserable as anything since the Great Depression, aka: The Carter Malaise.

Do you have ANYTHING to back up the claim of "97 months"? Cause, even before seeing it, I'm calling TOTAL BULLSHIT on it....

and it follows a period of recession as miserable as anything since the Great Depression, aka: The Carter Malaise

​

What are you, 4? You're not even close....

Graphing the Recession’s Impact

It's a matter of public record. At the time, it was the longest period of peacetime prosperity in American history. It came on the heels of the Carter Malaise where we had rampant inflation, double-digit inflation... skyrocketing interest rates, peaking at around 21% prime. You literally couldn't afford to take out a home loan. People were suffering across America and that's why Carter lost in a landslide. I didn't read about it in an op-ed from Bloomberg, I lived through it.

Tha gas lines were fun, at least on the days when the government allowed you to buy gas.

 

[The Derp]

Tax cuts DO NOT enjoy a multiplier greater than 1. Check with Barro and Niskanen.

Here's an anlysis by Mark Zandi, who was McCain's Economic Adviser during the 2008 campaign, and who works for Moody's Analytics. The only tax cut that produce an economic multiplier greater than 1 are across-the-board tax cuts, and that multiplier is barely dollar-for-dollar. The chart on Page 5 (Table 4) breaks down how much of a multiplier each fiscal stimulus type is. The best multiplier? Food Stamps.

 

[IcebergSlim]

We're not talking about growth rates.

Growth rates are intrinsic to the conversation because you are making the claim that growth will happen if the wealthy are given a tax cut. That's what you are claiming when you say that tax cuts increase revenue. The theory you are pushing is that the wealthy will take the tax cut money they got and spend it in the economy. Only, that doesn't happen. As we saw in the Bush Tax Cuts, when the rate for the wealthy was cut from 39.6% to 35%, the wealthy increased their savings, not their consumption. So that undermines your argument that cutting taxes for the wealthy leads to increased spending by the wealthy.

Actually, I'm limiting myself to the growth rate of Federal income tax revenues....as you say, it's simple math.....if outlays are growing at X and revenues at X-a, you will fall behind. Both Supply Side regimes grew spending at rates close to 8% per year....while reducing revenues. The resulting deficits were predictable.

 

[The Derp]

Now you're jumping to an example of a STATE which has a myriad of mitigating circumstances involved which do not apply nationally.

LOL! Here's what Mitch McConnell said about the Brownback Tax Cuts in 2012:

“This is exactly the sort of thing we (Republicans) want to do here, in Washington, but can’t, at least for now.”​

*Exactly* is the word he used. So you cna try and make excuses for why the tax cuts didn't work this time. But it's always going to result in that, just as we saw.

As for Reagan, what you fail to recognize are all the time Reagan raised taxes, the Fed lowered interest rates, and Congress increased spending. You talk about how much revenue grew, but do you bother to say how much spending grew? Let's check:

Outlays
1981: $678.2
1989: $1,143.7
$1,143.7 - $678.2 = $465.5
$465.5/$678.2 = 69% growth of spending.

What about revenues? Well, those grew below spending:

Receipts
1981: $599.3
1989: $991.1
$991.1 - $599.3 = $391.8
$391.8/$599.3 = 65% growth in revenues.

Also, let's not forget about Reagan's deficits and debt.

Deficit 1981: $79B
Deficit 1989: $152.6B
Deficit growth of 93%

And the debt:

Debt, January 1981: $998B
Debt, January 1989: $2,857T
Debt growth of 186%

Increasing spending DOES NOT increase tax revenues.

The data from 1981-1989 would seem to contradict that point. Reagan grew spending by more than he grew revenues.

 

[IcebergSlim]

Tax cuts DO NOT enjoy a multiplier greater than 1. Check with Barro and Niskanen.

Here's an anlysis by Mark Zandi, who was McCain's Economic Adviser during the 2008 campaign, and who works for Moody's Analytics. The only tax cut that produce an economic multiplier greater than 1 are across-the-board tax cuts, and that multiplier is barely dollar-for-dollar. The chart on Page 5 (Table 4) breaks down how much of a multiplier each fiscal stimulus type is. The best multiplier? Food Stamps.

I believe that William Niskanen concluded that tax cuts generated multipliers in the range of .25 to .50.....

 

[The Derp]

/---- You're either too stupid to understand or too partisan to to admit you're wrong.

The only way your ideology works is if it's in a controlled environment where you set the parameters. In other words, theory. So your beliefs work in theory, but the reality is that they don't.

 

[Boss]

But so far, every time in modern history, when we lower the top marginal tax rates, it results in more tax revenue.

Except that it doesn't. And we have the real-life example of Kansas as the proof it doesn't.

When did Kansas become a nation?

 

[The Derp]

It was still greater than 1980 and lower than the tax rates then.

Was it? What was the % of GDP of revenues in 1980 vs. today? Of course revenues in 2017 would be bigger than revenues in 1980...the economy has grown in the last 37 years.

You still haven't moved anywhere because you neglected to tell people what is the revenue between 2004 and 2008.

You mean the Bush Mortgage Bubble years? I would think you would want to avoid those years. Bush tied his tax cuts to the mortgage bubble while campaigning in 2004. By the way, don't you blame liberals, Barney Frank, Clinton, and Democrats in general for the mortgage bubble? So if you are blaming them for the bubble, you must also give them credit for the economic growth from that bubble. Which would mean it wasn't the tax cuts that led to revenue growth, it was the bubble. Unless you want to do as Bush did and tie the bubble to the tax cuts. Do you? Because you can't have it both ways. I mean, I guess you could, but you'd be pretty shitty to do that.

BTW - Bush lost net 841,000 private sector jobs from 2001-4, and lost net 460,000 private sector jobs from 2001-2009. So Bush left with fewer people employed than when he started.

 

[The Derp]

When did Kansas become a nation?

When Conservatives dubbed the Brownback Tax Cuts as "real-life red state model" and "real live experiment" that it "is exactly the sort of thing we (Republicans) want to do here, in Washington, but can’t, at least for now.” Even Arthur Laffer was flown in to pitch trickle-down across the state.

So if trickle-down didn't work in Kansas, why would it magically work nationally?

 

[Boss]

As for Reagan, what you fail to recognize are all the time Reagan raised taxes, the Fed lowered interest rates, and Congress increased spending. You talk about how much revenue grew, but do you bother to say how much spending grew?

Reagan didn't raise taxes. What you are calling "raising taxes" was a part of the Reagan tax plan which broadened the tax base. After dropping the top marginal tax rates and generating new investment capital which created thousands of new jobs, Reagan came back with a bill that broadened the tax base to include many of the new taxpayers.

What the Fed did and how much spending we did, has not a damn thing to do with tax revenues generated by top marginal tax rate cuts. You continue to try and muddy the waters with obfuscation and diversion. This has been going on since 1983.

 

[Boss]

When did Kansas become a nation?

When Conservatives dubbed the Brownback Tax Cuts as "real-life red state model" and "real live experiment" that it "is exactly the sort of thing we (Republicans) want to do here, in Washington, but can’t, at least for now.” Even Arthur Laffer was flown in to pitch trickle-down across the state.

So if trickle-down didn't work in Kansas, why would it magically work nationally?

Because Kansas isn't a nation. They lost thousands of jobs in the state and industries relocated so when they finally did lower tax rates it was too late, the wage earners no longer existed... doesn't matter how much you tax non-existent people.

 

[Boss]

So you have "Narratives" to compensate for your lack of data....

Don't see a lot of that.....You must be one of them Recidivist Supply Side Voting Imbeciles I've been reading about....

Wow, not many quislings admit they read propaganda. Good for you!

The data is historic record, there is plenty of it. For starters, a record-setting 97 consecutive months of economic growth. That's nearly an entire decade and it follows a period of recession as miserable as anything since the Great Depression, aka: The Carter Malaise.

Do you have ANYTHING to back up the claim of "97 months"? Cause, even before seeing it, I'm calling TOTAL BULLSHIT on it....

and it follows a period of recession as miserable as anything since the Great Depression, aka: The Carter Malaise

​

What are you, 4? You're not even close....

Graphing the Recession’s Impact

It's a matter of public record. At the time, it was the longest period of peacetime prosperity in American history. It came on the heels of the Carter Malaise where we had rampant inflation, double-digit inflation... skyrocketing interest rates, peaking at around 21% prime. You literally couldn't afford to take out a home loan. People were suffering across America and that's why Carter lost in a landslide. I didn't read about it in an op-ed from Bloomberg, I lived through it.

Tha gas lines were fun, at least on the days when the government allowed you to buy gas.

Uhm... Gas rationing was way before Reagan.

 

[The Derp]

Reagan didn't raise taxes. What you are calling "raising taxes" was a part of the Reagan tax plan which broadened the tax base

Just curious, what tax plan was that? Because it wasn't the tax plan that was passed in 1981. Those tax increases, which did happen beginning in 1982, didn't broaden the tax base at all. In fact, the tax base was narrowed as more people didn't pay income taxes because their taxes were cut! Isn't that what you all complain about today endlessly? How the wealthy pay an unfair tax burden? Why do you think that is? Not because the tax base was broadened, but because the base was narrowed. If what you said was true, then the burden the wealthy pay would be lower, not higher.

And did it unleash spending? Nope. What grew Reagan's economy were two things: housing and defense spending. One of those two things would result in an economic collapse, recession, and the largest taxpayer-funded bailout of all time (S&L Scandal)...until the one Bush had to do in 2008.

After dropping the top marginal tax rates and generating new investment capital which created thousands of new jobs, Reagan came back with a bill that broadened the tax base to include many of the new taxpayers.

Bullshit. Reagan's tax cut was signed into law August 1981. From August 1981 - December 1982, the unemployment rate would grow from 7.4% all the way up to 10.8%. That's with the Reagan Tax Cuts in effect for 12 months, and having been signed into law for 18 months. So what grew the economy beginning in 1983? Two things; the Fed's newly-reduced interest rates and Congress increasing spending. As we saw in the data, Reagan grew spending by more than he grew revenues. That would mean that spending, not tax cuts, were what was driving the growth!

 

[The Derp]

Because Kansas isn't a nation. They lost thousands of jobs in the state and industries relocated so when they finally did lower tax rates it was too late, the wage earners no longer existed... doesn't matter how much you tax non-existent people.

No, that's not true at all. Kansas job creation and GDP growth rate post-Brownback Tax Cuts were worse than pre-Brownback Tax Cuts. So again, what's the difference? Why does your principle not apply to a state, but does nationally? That makes no sense. It shouldn't matter where the tax cut happens, you are the one claiming cutting taxes for the rich leads to increased growth. You didn't say nationally. What Brownback did in Kansas was billed as the model for what Conservatives wanted to do nationally. McConnell even said so. So if tax cuts didn't work on a state level, why would they work on a national level? Wouldn't the same principle apply? What's the difference between cutting state income taxes and cutting federal income taxes? You haven't articulated that.

 

[The Derp]

Uhm... Gas rationing was way before Reagan.

And had nothing to do with domestic policy. Gas rationing happened because of our support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

 

[The Derp]

They lost thousands of jobs in the state and industries relocated so when they finally did lower tax rates it was too late

Bullshit and nonsense. Prior to the Brownback Tax Cuts, Kansas had one of the best GDP and job growth rates in the nation. After the Brownback tax cuts, Kansas lagged the United States as a whole in GDP growth and job creation.

 

[IcebergSlim]

Reagan didn't raise taxes. What you are calling "raising taxes" was a part of the Reagan tax plan which broadened the tax base

Just curious, what tax plan was that? Because it wasn't the tax plan that was passed in 1981. Those tax increases, which did happen beginning in 1982, didn't broaden the tax base at all. In fact, the tax base was narrowed as more people didn't pay income taxes because their taxes were cut! Isn't that what you all complain about today endlessly? How the wealthy pay an unfair tax burden? Why do you think that is? Not because the tax base was broadened, but because the base was narrowed. If what you said was true, then the burden the wealthy pay would be lower, not higher.

And did it unleash spending? Nope. What grew Reagan's economy were two things: housing and defense spending. One of those two things would result in an economic collapse, recession, and the largest taxpayer-funded bailout of all time (S&L Scandal)...until the one Bush had to do in 2008.

After dropping the top marginal tax rates and generating new investment capital which created thousands of new jobs, Reagan came back with a bill that broadened the tax base to include many of the new taxpayers.

Bullshit. Reagan's tax cut was signed into law August 1981. From August 1981 - December 1982, the unemployment rate would grow from 7.4% all the way up to 10.8%. That's with the Reagan Tax Cuts in effect for 12 months, and having been signed into law for 18 months. So what grew the economy beginning in 1983? Two things; the Fed's newly-reduced interest rates and Congress increasing spending. As we saw in the data, Reagan grew spending by more than he grew revenues. That would mean that spending, not tax cuts, were what was driving the growth!

Dude,

Are you laboring under the delusion that facts have ANY effect on The Myth?