Things For Which I Do Not Need a Study to Confirm That Which is Obvious . . .

From the NO SHIT SHERLOCK? files...

According to a new report by the Congressional Research Service, cutting taxes for the wealthiest does not cause economic growth, despite constant conservative claims that it will. Instead, tax cuts for the rich merely exacerbate income inequality, CRS found:

Throughout the late-1940s and 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was typically above 90%; today it is 35%. Additionally, the top capital gains tax rate was 25% in the 1950s and 1960s, 35% in the 1970s; today it is 15%. The real GDP growth rate averaged 4.2% and real per capita GDP increased annually by 2.4% in the 1950s. In the 2000s, the average real GDP growth rate was 1.7% and real per capita GDP increased annually by less than 1%. There is not conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth. Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.

GDP growth, business investment, and a host of other economic indicators were all stronger during the 1990s, after taxes were raised on the rich, than during the supply-side eras of Presidents George W. Bush and Reagan.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/09/17/857861/study-tax-cuts-rich-no-growth/


These studies are fine and do confirm what anyone who has been paying attention and objectively monitoring this stuff for years could confirm.  The problem is not that it has been definitively proven that supply-side/trickle down economics has been an abject failure.  The problem is that the conservative movement has turned into a dangerous cult of believers who not only steadfastly refuse to believe all of these studies and the expert evidence which completely exposes their school of economic thought as the fraud that it is, but they keep doubling down on that fraud over and over and over again and forcing that fraud upon the American people.

If the media in this country weren't so contaminated by it's corporate heritance, perhaps the truth of what a raw deal the average American has been getting these past 35 years compared to how fabulous things have gotten for the wealthiest elites just might resonate a bit more, and the anger which should emanate from the masses knowing that truth, might cause the citizenry to more forcefully demand change.

The media in this country is in dire need of a thorough purging and a restoration of The Fairness Doctrine is a damn good place to start.


----TFG