The Great Tax Con Job

Thom Hartmann is one of my favorite talk show hosts because he's incredibly knowledgeable about the economy and has details on how and why the Republicans have screwed the whole country while making themselves rich. He also happens to be a good writer, too. I knew he had several books out but I haven't bought any, fortunately I did sign up for his newsletter where I got this article from Thom called The Great Tax Con Job:

Novelist Larry Beinhart was the first to bring this to my attention. He looked over the history of tax cuts and economic bubbles, and found a clear relationship between the two. High top marginal tax rates (generally well above 60%) on rich people actually stabilize the economy, prevent economic bubbles from forming, prevent economic crashes, and lead to steady and sustained economic growth (and steady and sustained wage growth for working people).

On the other hand, when top marginal rates drop below 50 percent, the opposite happens. As Beinhart noted in a November 17, 2008 post on the Huffington Post, the massive Republican tax cuts of the 1920s (from 73% to 25%) led directly to the Roaring '20s stock market bubble, temporary boom, and then the crash and Republican Great Depression of 1929.

Rates on the very rich went back up into the 70-90% range from the 1930s to the 1980s. As a result, the economy grew steadily; for the first time in the history of our nation we went 50 years without a crash or major bank failure; and working people's wages increased enough to produce the strongest middle class this nation has ever seen.

Then came Reaganomics.

Isn't that great? Where else are we going to get this kind of precise info? The major media will never cover it, I'm just glad Thom is out there fighting the good fight. Follow the link above for much more of this, it's a long article and he has more where that came from.

I might have to buy one of his books someday. Wonder if any are available for Kindles?

Too bad he is completely wrong about atheists and makes all the same mistakes most theists do. No one is perfect, I guess.