Under Ronald Reagan, tax cuts for the wealthy did not stimulate the economy. Under Dubya, their effects are no better. They only help the affluent amass more money, which does not, by any stretch of the asinine imagination, ‘trickle-down.’

The money that the wealthy get from tax cuts is not invested in the things needed to jumpstart an ailing economy. Wealthy individuals don’t raise wages, improve workers’ benefits, or (gasp!) share any profits made in the market. Instead, they sit on their cash for personal gain, buying new houses, yachts, fur coats, diamonds and a few extra grams of cocaine.

So why does Bush want more tax cuts?

Reason 1: ‘More money for me!’ The crusades of the Reagan and Bush administrations are nothing more than attempts to allow the income bracket they and their friends occupy to get more money. What these detached and minimalist presidents failed (and still fail) to understand, however, is that Americans as a whole already pay the lowest taxes compared to gross domestic product than the rest of the modern industrialized world. In 2002, the United States paid 26.3 percent of its GDP to taxes, while in 1999, Canadians paid 38.2 percent, the French 45.8 percent and the Swedes 52.2 percent of their GDPs to taxes.

Reason 2: ‘Starve the Beast.’ As Reagan’s Budget Director David Stockman explained in the ’80s, the best way to ensure that there will be no social spending or return to the days of the New Deal or Great Society is to wreck the federal budget into a miserable deficit so that there is no money to spend on Social Security, Medicare or any future federal programs. If we have no money, then those damn liberals can’t give any to the lazy poor or dangerous minorities!

If Bush really wanted to stimulate the economy, he would put money in the hands of people who need to spend it – the lower and working classes of America. By giving more money to people who need car repairs, food or healthcare, domestic trade will increase and thus improve the economy. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this all out.

But then again, we don’t have anyone with half a working brain cell sitting in the oval office these days, do we?

Published on September 16, 2003 at 12:00 pm