Voodoo economics has America spiked, and if you like the anemic Bush economy, you'll love what John McCain has in store. Make no mistake, a vote for John McCain is a vote to borrow massive amounts of money from China in the form of cheap goods in order to finance a massive increase in consumption by the top 1%.
Sound familiar? That's right, it's more supply-side snake oil, more of the same Bush Economics.
Is this really the best way to invest trillions of dollars and the future of America? Fannie, Freddi, Bear Stearns and every leading economic indicator of the last 30 years answer a resounding "NO!" That's a heck of a pig in need of a mountain of lipstick.
Obama's program on the other hand, maintains budget neutrality or improves the budget, while investing in the future of the nation. All of the evidence shows that there is essentially no return on the massive giveaways we're lavishing on the super wealthy and corporate giants. At a certain point, facts replace supply side-fantasy. There are much higher national returns to be had by investing in pre-k and science education, retirement security, renewable energy sources. We don't need more tax cuts for the rich, we need solutions for America, and we can do it giving tax cuts to the 95% of the country that actually works for a living.
When Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization," he was making an argument that seems to have been silenced in America since the days of Ronald Reagan. It's time for America to respect and take an active role in investing in civilization again. Thanks to right-wing anti-tax zelotry, "Government is the problem", is an all-consuming fig-leaf for the disastrous effects aristocratic, deadbeat conservatism. We are paying the price now, and if John McCain is allowed to take office, his tax plans will drive America's economy even deeper and more quickly towards disaster.
"No Taxes" has become a political football on a playing field populated with concepts like the "Laffer Curve" and "Starve the Beast". On a panel hosted by the Center for American Progress and the Economic Policy institute on Friday, Michael Ettlinger, John Irons, and Jeffrey Frankel argued that the right-wing economic arguments are "snake oil" and that progressive taxation is the medicine which will better address the economic disaster apparent after two massive, failed, supply-side experiments. Moreover, investments in pre-k and science education, transportation infrastructure and renewable energy offer much higher returns than any tax cuts recorded or imagined.
Bottom line, it's put up and shut up time for supply siders like John McCain: we've put up with their disastrous policies for decades and too many businesses and American dreams have been shut up as a result. There's no evidence that tax cuts are what America wants, and ample evidence that it isn't.
By nearly every measure, investment growth, GDP, household incomes, wage levels, employment, budget deficits and debt, the Clinton era of progressive taxation and balanced budgets far outperformed the profligacy of Reagan/Bush economics.
Obama's budget plan includes spending reductions including the end of the the Iraq war and domestic spending cuts. It has provisions for revenue increases by ending the Bush tax cuts, sheltering activities and abusive tax evasion. Meanwhile, it provides permanent middle income tax relief. Obama has the appropriate set of responses to the current state of the economy and the paradox of current iniquity. It's embarassing that the right heralded as some kind of super-power effect, Ronald Reagan's reduction of the top tax rat from 28% to 20%, but now that Obama wants to return to that 20% they're projecting worldwide economic collapse. Pure insanity.
The most damaging taxes in the system now are those on the very lowest income levels. The current tax levels put a tax on the top wage earners of 34% to 40%. At those levels, there is no incentive or disincentive to work for with any marginal adjustment. On the other hand, think about a low-income worker who is facing a raise. That low-income worker will face draconian reductions in state-sponsored benefits: healthcare, childcare, tax reductions should he or she rise above certain levels. The best use of our tax dollars to incentivize work is to expand the levels at which benefits phase out, or better yet, universalize them. Let workers rise through the ranks without the fear that they'll be suddenly thrown back into poverty for working harder and finding additional success.
So the next time you are confronted with voo-doo economics, smack down the argument with a simple refrain: where's your proof. Then watch the desperation spread, because the proof says that balanced budgets matter. The proof shows that progressive economics lift all ships while Reaganomics lift only yachts.
Tax the rich, incentivize middle class work, universalize benefits from healthcare to child care to education.
Vote Barack Obama. Yes. We. Can!