Exposing the Conservative Lie About Taxes and Job Creation July 24, 2013 By Allen Clifton 9 Comments Facebook Share on Tumblr paul-ryan2All these years Republicans have continued to perpetuate this myth that tax cuts would create jobs. Never more so than after President Obama was elected. They warned of the “dire consequences” tax hikes would have on our fragile economy. Well, let’s look at some of the facts, shall we? Heading into this past December the talk was all about “the fiscal cliff” and its “impending devastating impact” on our economy if a deal couldn’t be reached. The biggest obstacle to any deal was of course President Obama insisting on tax hikes for the top 1-2%. He and fellow Democrats wanted to keep the tax cuts for the bottom 98% of Americans, while rolling tax rates back to late-90′s levels on families making $250,000 or more per year. You remember the 90′s, right? When we had historic economic growth, record low unemployment and a balanced budget. Anyway, a compromise was reached and the threshold for tax hikes was set at $450,000. While not exactly what most Democrats wanted, it still signaled a tax hike on the very rich—though Republicans still continued to warn of the “dire” consequences these tax hikes would have on our economy and creating jobs. Unlike Republicans, the actual numbers don’t lie. January-June 2012 jobs reports before tax hikes: ◾January: 243,000 ◾February: 227,000 ◾March: 120,000 ◾April: 115,000 ◾May: 69,000 ◾June: 80,000 For a grand total, through 6 months of 2012 (before tax hikes), of 854,000 private sector jobs created. Now let’s take a look at 2013, after those “job killing tax hikes” were passed: ◾January: 157,000 ◾February: 236,000 ◾March: 138,000 ◾April: 165,000 ◾May: 175,000 ◾June: 195,000 For a grand total, through 6 months of 2013 (after tax hikes), of 1,066,000 private sector jobs created. For the mathematically challenged, that’s an increase of 212,000 more jobs created this year than last year at the same point. Not only that, the month to month comparisons of job creation were higher in every single month but January. But–but, tax hikes destroy jobs, right? Well, if by “destroy” Republicans mean create nearly a quarter million more, then they would be absolutely right. And these are numbers based on initial reports, I didn’t dig into the revised reports which actually probably added another 10o,000-200,000 jobs to the total created this year. So while it makes for great rhetoric and political talking points for Republicans to perpetuate this ridiculous lie that “tax cuts destroy jobs”—reality just doesn’t ever support this. In fact, the decade we had before taxes went up on the richest among us, we experienced the worst recession since the Great Depression—which cost our economy over 12 million jobs. Not only that, these tax cuts led to a massive growth in our deficits and our national debt. Tax cuts which President Bush, and the Heritage Foundation, promised would balance our budget in 10 years. Despite all these indisputable facts, Republicans still cling to, and perpetuate, these myths. Heck, our economy continues to add jobs every month and they still try and tell the American people that “Obamacare” is costing American jobs. So, according to these Republicans, tax hikes kill jobs and “Obamacare” kills jobs—yet we continue to create more and more jobs. A total of 7.2 million in the last 3 years to be exact. Sometimes I just have to ask myself, “I wonder what reality is like in whatever alternative universe it is where Republicans seem to live?” Because they sure don’t seem to live in the same reality as the rest of us.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 09:21:19 +0000
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