On Economic Arrogance -

On Economic Arrogance -
According to press reports, the Trump administration is basing its budget projections on the assumption
that the U. S. economy will grow very rapidly over the next decade — in fact, almost twice as fast as independent institutions like the Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve expect.
But Bill Clinton, who raised taxes on the rich, amid confident predictions from the right
that this would cause an economic disaster, presided over even faster growth.
This wouldn’t be unprecedented: the U. S. economy grew at a 3.4 percent rate during the Reagan years, 3.7 percent under Bill Clinton.
Never mind whether slashing taxes on billionaires while giving scammers
and polluters the freedom to scam and pollute is good for the economy as a whole; it’s clearly good for billionaires, scammers, and polluters.
Kansas, dominated by conservative true believers, implemented sharp tax cuts with the promise
that these cuts would jump-start rapid growth; they didn’t, and caused a budget crisis instead.
Furthermore, two Obama policies that the right totally hated – the 2013 hike in tax rates on the rich,
and the 2014 implementation of the Affordable Care Act – produced no slowdown at all in job creation.