Exactly - and why thinking people on the left can't see the obvious correlations really frustrates me. If you line up a list that ranks the countries on this planet by their level of economic freedom and lowest tax burdens, there is almost a direct one-to-one correlation with a list that ranks countries by highest standard of living and lowest poverty rates.
Just look at Ireland. Almost immediately after instituting true free market reforms and massive tax relief it has become one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and their poverty rate is dropping exactly as you'd expect.
Or to go even further back, just look at the controlled scienific experiments of East and West Germany, or North and South Korea. What wonders the benevolence of "the state" has wrought...