Critics of tax cuts as economy-stimulators never, ever take note of the effect of Fed policy.
Soon upon taking office, Ronald Reagan got Congress to pass his legendary income tax cuts. The economy promptly went into a tailspin -- one which the Democrats predictably blamed on the same cuts they'd just agreed to.
Never mentioned was the fact that Fed Chairman Volcker (my hero) was reducing the money supply severely to wring out the double-digit inflation of the Carter years. A recession was not only inevitable, it was planned. Reagan understood (our only president to hold an economics degree) and allowed Volcker to continue because he understood that inflation would kill us.
As long as we have a monetary system that allows for the printing or the destruction of money at will, tax cuts cannot be the sole deciding factor in the course the economy will take. Republicans seem clueless and Democrats, of course, remain dishonest in this discussion.
If the money supply remains stable, marginal income tax rate cuts and reductions in taxes on capital will always and everywhere spur economic growth.
Marketwatch is so in the tank for Obama and the democrats. Anybody who takes their investment advise seriously will end up on food stamps.
The major factor in the economic boom of the 90’s was the computer revolution. Every other factor, including the economic machinations of the government were swamped by a tidal wave of economic productivity.
Supply-Side works if the government cuts spending.
"clearly had nothing to do?" -- soft and squishy analyses against a supposed hard target.
Unless and until any of these so-called "economics experts" can describe the difference between "supply/demand" and "quantity supplied/quantity demanded" they are just paper tigers.
But also the number of politicians and posters, here and elsewhere, also is close to zero.
*sigh* I remind myself how economically ignorant we are.
It’s time to bury the tax and spend, leftwing rag, Market Watch.
Classic WTF journalism!
Vomit. Can’t wait until someone at Heritage or AEI takes this man to pieces.
What a bunch of idiots.
Clinton also created the largest mostly permanent tax increases in American history to date, and introduced the taxing of Social Security Benefits (even though Big Brother keeps reminding us that Social Security income alone is inadequate to live on) Thank you First Rapist. I tried putting ice on it, I still get less than I used to.
And that it also made the Contract with America inevitable is also never mentioned.
If the Federal government spends money by the billions$ 24/7 and grabs control of all the means of useful production in the country (look up 'fascism,') NO FREAKIN' ECONOMIC SYSTEM (other than cognitive dissonance) CAN EVER WORK!
D'UH!!
Seldom do people mention the dot com bust or real estate bust when blaming George Bush for slow growth. These disasters had nothing to do with supply side economics. But we do know that trickle down economics does not work, Send massive amounts of money to Washington and hope it “trickles” back to job creating programs.
Tax rates don't mean anything when you wipe out all the hundreds of ways not to pay taxes, and that is what the 86 bill did!!!!
It effectually shut down the home/apartment building market that the wealthy used to convert all their taxable income to long term capitol gains, same for aircraft, machinery, etc. and anything depreciable.
Lower taxes leads to more savings which leads to more investment which leads to more productive expenditure which may or may not lead to more demand for labor.The more productive expenditure could lead to more demand for capital goods instead, which might hold down increases in demand for labor.
So one cannot directly link lower taxes to job creation. It helps but does not cause.
Nilly Clinton spent our Cold War winnings and the bounty of the most productive years of the baby boomers and left us penniless.
Naturally, he’s a hero to the left.
The author totally ignores the invention of the Internet and networking and the resulting revolution in productivity to drive economic growth. Tax policy in the 90’s had little to do with economic growth.
False. The GOPe hates supply side economics along with all the other big government politicians.
How is it that the majority of us here are eons smarter than the wizards of smart that get printed in popular media. Or maybe people like Howard Gold are just disingenuous, and know they are lying.
Mr Gold ignores the capital gains and dividend rate cuts that just coincidentally occurred just before the boom of the late 90s. He also ignores that in the immediate aftermath of the Clinton tax increases, we were seeing modest at best growth. I remember specifically we were sitting around 2.3% GDP growth immediately before his reelection. The boom came after that as the Internet took off, Real Estate started going into its bubble, and Y2K drove IT spending....and after the Congress forced a balanced budget plan and lower investment taxes. I am sure none of those had any impact. It was the higher taxes on personal rates.
Also, under Bush, we had a sustained period of strong growth and extremely low unemployment in the years following his tax cut. I am sure that is a coincidence, too. It is also a coincidence that our economy has slowed to a dull murmur with a death rattle since the moment Obama was to become President and was hanging a variety of higher tax rates over our heads. All coincidences to this jackass, Howard Gold.
You forgot the barf alert....
The article conveniently ignores that the boom of the 1990’s was caused by the explosion of e commerce with its wave of worldwide innovation centered here. No one in government caused the boom. It occured completely independently of govnernment actions. But Clinton and Algore repeatedly tried to take credit for it though they had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
In totally unrelated news 2 + 2 is no longer = 4.
I’m still waiting for these leftards to explain how trickle-down doesn’t work but stimulus spending does.