I thought I’d take a bit of a break from busting the myth of Ron Paul, and address something I haven’t seen much (or anything) about this week on Daily Kos. On Tuesday, Paul Krugman pointed out in his blog at the New York Times that the Republicans are prepared to hold the economy hostage to the shrub’s tax cuts to the super-wealthy — even as we’re suffering a recession that is not likely to go away before the year is out.
If this Times report is at all right, Republicans will hold any attempt to help the economy now hostage to yet another try at making the Bush tax cuts permanent — thereby, among other things, crippling future possibilities for health care reform. I suspected that’s what would happen, but thought that maybe, just maybe, the GOP would be sufficiently scared by the prospect of a nasty recession in an election year that it would back off. Guess not.
Krugman provides a convenient graph for our perusal. Updating his entry the other day, he goes on to say:
Rereading this, I think I could have been clearer. The only way anything useful will get done by way of stimulus in the next few months is if both parties agree not to demand anything that would tie the hands of the next president and Congress — that means no long-term spending plans from the Dems, no long-term tax cuts from the GOP. And it seems that the Republicans are already making it clear that they won’t play it that way; they’re trying to hold any help for the economy hostage to their agenda, which is exactly what happened 7 years ago.
It’s important to know what’s going on here, so we may have a better grasp of the implications. As Krugman pointed out in his blog entry from yesterday:
Overall, the graph suggests that yes, Virginia, cutting taxes reduces revenue. But it also tells us that stuff happens: the stock bubble inflated revenues in the late 90s, the collapse of that bubble hit revenues thereafter, then the housing bubble did its thing, and so on.
Most of us know that the lie of reduced taxes increasing government revenue is just that: a lie. There is absolutely no evidence to support such a notion. Which is why the GOP’s attempt to hold the economy hostage to the shrub’s tax cuts for the super-wealthy is so very dangerous. Given that we are in a recession, it is sheer lunacy to tie the hands of the government by preventing it from increasing revenue. But that’s what the Republican Party is all about these days.
P.S.
Here are a couple if eye-opening pieces courtesy of The Nation.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=270622
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=271003
Tomorrow: Busting the Myth of Ron Paul, Part Three.
