Yeah, the 'superstition' Sanders economics is 'barely a step above' is called 'supply-side economics'. AKA 'fairy dust economics', the core economics theory of the GOP since Reagan.
Quote:The economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote, "Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows."[
Quote:They are barely a step above superstition, and they merit consideration for only one reason: / Our union teacher miseducation of the last 20 years. dummy down
Quote:January 3, 2007, George W. Bush wrote an article claiming "It is also a fact that our tax cuts have fueled robust economic growth and record revenues."[76] Andrew Samwick, who was Chief Economist on Bush's Council of Economic Advisers from 2003 to 2004 responded to the claim:
You are smart people. You know that the tax cuts have not fueled record revenues. You know what it takes to establish causality. You know that the first order effect of cutting taxes is to lower tax revenues. We all agree that the ultimate reduction in tax revenues can be less than this first order effect, because lower tax rates encourage greater economic activity and thus expand the tax base. No thoughtful person believes that this possible offset more than compensated for the first effect for these tax cuts. Not a single one.[77]
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that extending the Bush tax cuts of 2001–2003 beyond their 2010 expiration would increase deficits by $1.8 trillion over the following decade.[78] The CBO also completed a study in 2005 analyzing a hypothetical 10% income tax cut and concluded that under various scenarios there would be minimal offsets to the loss of revenue. In other words, deficits would increase by nearly the same amount as the tax cut in the first five years, with limited feedback revenue thereafter.[79]
Occasionally a politician claims that tax cuts increase government revenue (for example Mitch McConnell in July 2010[80]) However, critics have countered that the Laffer Curve reflects the hypothesis that only cutting tax rates to the right of peak economic performance rate will increase revenues, and that cutting tax rates to the left of the peak rate will decrease revenues. They therefore argue that the increase in the deficit from the tax cuts (see above paragraph) shows that the past tax rates were to the left of the peak rate.[80]
The paradigm of a tax system which rewards investment over consumption was accepted across the political spectrum, and no plan not rooted in supply-side economic theories has been advanced in the United States since 1982 (with the exception of the Clinton tax increases of 1993) which had any serious chance of passage into law.
In 1986, a tax overhaul, described by Mundell as "the completion of the supply-side revolution" was drafted. It included increases in payroll taxes, decreases in top marginal rates, and increases in capital gains taxes. Combined with the mortgage interest deduction and the regressive effects of state taxation, it produces closer to a flat-tax effect.
Proponents, such as Mundell and Laffer, point to the dramatic rise in the stock market as a sign that the tax overhaul was effective, although they note that the hike in capital gains may be more trouble than it was worth.
Cutting marginal tax rates can also be perceived as primarily beneficial to the wealthy, which commentators such as Paul Krugman see as politically rather than economically motivated.[81]
The specific set of foolish ideas that has laid claim to the name "supply side economics" is a crank doctrine that would have had little influence if it did not appeal to the prejudices of editors and wealthy men.[82]
The economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote, "Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows."[83]
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