I wrote this when Molly was still alive. I miss you Molly, even though I didn’t agree with you a lot of the time.
Molly Ivins is usually one of left’s less hateful columnists. So I was surprised at this astonishingly nasty little comment:
The $70 billion tax cut is part of a continuing right-wing fantasy going back to the Laffer Curve. Of course, clinging to demonstrably false economic precepts is understandable when you benefit from them, but at some point reality does intervene.
Pretty obvious who’s fantasizing once you understand the Laffer Curve.
She fails to wrap her brain around this fact: if taxes are raised too high, the government will collect less money. This is easy to understand and is the point of the Laffer Curve.
As a nationally syndicated columnist, Ivins sits at the center of a liberal hive with a large audience happily buzzing around her, but which doesn’t know squat about basic economics, Arthur Laffer’s curve, or its demonstrated success historically.
She is dangerously ignorant because of her influence.
The fact is that the rich and successful have always found ways to avoid paying taxes when they’re confiscatory. The higher the tax rate the greater the incentive to use weaknesses and loopholes in the tax code or to quietly, simply cheat – an added risk of doing business.
Reasonable taxes, however, are willingly paid by companies and their owners.
President Bush knows this and has lowered taxes, resulting in the good economy we have at present.
But he has had to fight liberals every step of the way who, under the influence of clueless queen bees such as Ivins, clamor for ever higher taxes and more government.
I ask you to support the president on this, and encourage him to stay the course.
Our goal is low taxes and a stable non-inflating dollar. In history, this has always resulted in prosperity and will do so again today.
Let Molly Ivins and her readers find something else to hiss about.
Grimgold
Is this post a joke?
Nobody with an ounce of sense still believes the Laffer Curve hoax, perpetrated on a gullible American public by Ronald Reagan, his wingnut ideological progeny, and the idle rich who are the only ones who stand to benefit from this myth. Bart, why are you letting this Grimgold person sully your blog with his/her reactionary claptrap? I just don’t see what place there is in Bartland for someone who rails against liberals, praises “the good economy we have at present,” and urges us to “support the president [sic] on this, and encourage him to stay the course.” Ugh. I think I just threw up in my mouth.
The simple fact is that if you cut taxes, you reduce the amount of revenue the government collects. Period. It’s been proven time and time again in the real world and in all credible economic analysis, most notably by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. To argue otherwise is to elevate fantasy above reality.
Hey grimgold, why don’t you go back to the Free Republic or whatever cave you crawled out of?
Comment by Harry Vellum — August 22, 2007 @ 12:34 am
Grimmy.
They don’t even teach the Laffer Curve as valid today at Stanford and that’s where it started out.
Ronald Reagan is dead and so is Supply Side – Trickle Down economics.
–Volt-
Comment by Volt — August 22, 2007 @ 5:08 pm
“President Bush knows this and has lowered taxes, resulting in the good economy we have at present.
But he has had to fight liberals every step of the way who, under the influence of clueless queen bees such as Ivins, clamor for ever higher taxes and more government.”
OMFG!
This has to be a joke.,right?
Obviously Grimgold does not read Bartcop.com.
Point being that,The bullshit propagated by the republicans is based on belief and the apparent gullibility of the public in order to defend their tactics in sustaining a lifestyle
built on the backs of middle class and minimum wage earner.
If You dont love this country enough to pay for all the rights and priveledges this country
brings,then why not move to another country?
I’m sure They would love to have you.
Comment by Rainlander — August 22, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
Grimmy posts here at Bart’s request. So far he’s the only conservative to take up Bart’s offer of a regular column. He makes this offer every time a monkey tries to school him.
The idea that the government makes more money when taxes are low, and less when they are high, is so ludicrous as to be… well, ludicrous. The proof of the pudding is in the eating: Reagan cut taxes on the rich and the country went so far into debt that the red-ink supply was endangered. Clinton raised taxes on the rich and managed to stop deficit spending.
Take THAT, Laffer curve. What a laff.
Comment by Peregrin — August 23, 2007 @ 12:27 am
OK, I’m going to apologize to Grimgold for my ad hominem. Sorry, Grimgold…I was unnecessarily rough on you. In the future, I will avoid getting personal in my comments. However, I will not hesitate to point out when you’re wrong, which seems to be most of the time. Cheers!
Comment by Harry Vellum — August 23, 2007 @ 7:45 am
OK, I’m going to apologize to Grimgold for my ad hominem. Sorry, Grimgold…I was unnecessarily rough on you. In the future, I will avoid getting personal in my comments. However, I will not hesitate to point out when you’re wrong, which seems to be most of the time. Cheers!
Comment by Harry Vellum — August 23, 2007 @ 7:46 am
Harry, I also get too rough. To the rest of you I think I’ll now go into a corner and lick my wounds.
G
Comment by grimgold — August 24, 2007 @ 10:06 am