Free Republic

In August 30th, 2001 article from Business Today reads, "In the rat race to make more money, the rich pulled further ahead of the poor and middle classes in the Bay State through the 1990's, a study of income inequality released yesterday shows." What's news about that? Doesn't that stand to reason mathematically? "The income gap between rich and poor increased across the country even as the nation's economy blasted upward on the strength of technology and worker productivity, The Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth reported."

Mass. Inc., said the number of Bay State households making less than 25 grand a year climbed to nearly 31% in 1999 from about 26% in 1989. The study ranked Massachusetts ninth in the country in terms of income inequality, with the wealthiest 10% of households earning an average 11 1/2 times as much as those in the bottom 10%.

Now, these are Democrats running Massachusetts, where we're supposed to be equal, have big hearts and compassion. They're supposed to give the money away that they're taking from the poor in the first place. This is the state of the Kennedy clan. Yet the income gap between rich and poor grows in the state that is arguably the liberal Mecca of this country.

The study ranked Massachusetts ninth in the country in terms of income inequality. How can this be? "That means the income gap has grown since 1979 when the wealthiest earned about nine times as much as the poorest," according to study author Andrew Sum of Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies. Keep your eye on this Andrew Sum guy. This guy's got guts. This guy is honest. "We still call ourselves the commonwealth of the Massachusetts, but the wealth is not as commonly distributed as it used to be."

So, we now know that the economy of Bill Clinton increased the disparities between the rich and poor in Massachusetts - and across the nation. The boom years of the 90's increased the annual income adjusted for inflation for the top 10% of workers in Massachusetts. All other workers in the state saw their inflation-adjusted incomes decrease, except for the bottom 10% which saw a 1.4% increase.

Andrew Sum also said that all of this differs from the 1980's, when the average income of all workers in Massachusetts actually, rose. So what do we learn from this? We learn that Rush is right - and we learn that Reagan was right. Supply-side economics - derisively called "the trickle-down theory" - works. Everybody does better when tax rates are lowered. All income groups went up. We've demonstrated this over and over. I've written about it in both books. I've spoken exhaustively about it behind this, the golden EIB microphone.

Again: everybody did better in the 1980's. It's so frustrating to have to go back and re-teach this stuff. But you have to do it because the liberals are lying about it every day. They're rewriting history every day. Therefore, let it be shouted from the mountaintops that - with Bill Clinton's tax increase on the rich in the 1990's - the income gap between rich and poor grew, whereas in the 1980's, with tax cuts across-the-board for everybody, the average income of all workers in the state of Massachusetts (and I dare say the entire country) went up.