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Nonpartisan Tax Report Removed After Republican Protest
eldavojohn writes "On September 14th a report titled 'Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945' (PDF) penned by the Library of Congress' nonpartisan Congressional Research Service was released to little fanfare. However, the following conclusion of the report has since roiled the GOP enough to have the report removed from the Library of Congress: 'The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income disparities.' From the New York Times article: 'The pressure applied to the research service comes amid a broader Republican effort to raise questions about research and statistics that were once trusted as nonpartisan and apolitical.' It appears to no longer be found on the Library of Congress' website."
It's the PDF link in the summary...
Oddly, Attila the Hun was very liberal for his day, and could be considered liberal even today. Among the very progressive (for the times) things he enforced:
- It was fairly typical for him to take a city and then kill all of the political leadership, but not punish the populous. He then would let it be known that he knew who had commanded the opposition, and that the fight was now over with their disposal. Of course if anyone then tried to resume the fight he was incredibly brutal in retaliation. The idea of punishing the people responsible for war rather than the common man is something we still struggle with nowadays.
- Having been a near-slave himself early in life he abolished the idea of being born into slavery. The only people who were slaves were the people who were conquered.
- With the exception of the inherited emperorship (which was always going to go to whichever of his many children proved the most able), governmental positions were almost all by merit rather than political connection. This was virtually unheard of anywhere in the world at the time.
- Religious freedom was enforced all across the empire (because the largest in history it should be noted). In fact he seems to have enjoyed religious debate, and the most scholarly work comparing and contrasting religion of the time all came out of his capital where he brought diverse religious leaders together and invited them to debate before the court.
Most of this is from "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" (a great read): http://www.amazon.com/Genghis-Khan-Making-Modern-World/dp/0609809644
Other pieces from the traveling museum exhibit that it seems will next be in Chicago in Feb (I saw it in San Jose): http://fieldmuseum.org/about/genghis-khan-invades-chicago
OTOH, we do need to consider that the paper did have real problems. For example, there are almost no dynamics considered. Very few of the variables are lagged. That was one of the Republican complaints.
And it misses some important economic issues such as the declining value of labor versus capital (one would expect owners of capital to do relatively well in a global market with extremely cheap labor available and for that capital to move to foreign locations) and the burden of regulation (which has considerable effect on hiring people and creating new businesses, both which would favor those who own established, working capital). In other words, there are two big, contrary effects which might mask any economic benefit from cutting taxes for the highest income bracket.
As to the article being pulled, it was allegedly done at the behest of Senate Republicans who are a minority in the Senate. Why didn't Democrats block that? In fact, who actually asked for and sequestered the report? Doesn't seem to be a Republican thing to ask for stuff that might run counter to their agenda, but maybe the people who requested it thought they could bury anything inconvenient.
But tax cuts for the rich does have a higher return in terms of contributions to the GOP.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Government research agencies were operating under extreme pressure from ultra left wing political interests to generate only the results they wanted, or risk losing their jobs.
It is hard to believe how much projection there is on the extreme right. If you retargeted GOP words back on themselves, then they may well be more accurate. After-all, if you look at recent history:
+ The GOP are about big government. (Reagan, Bush & Bush)
+ They are fiscally irresponsible. (Reagan failed to balance the budget, but wasn't completely nuts. George W's own treasury secretary resigned because of his attitude towards money.)
+ They are obstructionist, but accuse Dems of not working across the table. (They will ask for the moon and more -- e.g., Debt ceiling, Eric Holder, the list is endless)
+ They believe Dems are engaging in voter fraud, and then aggressively engage in their own voter suppression campaign.
+ They believe they have the "truth" and others are just biased. (The kicker for me is that O'Reilly believes he's an independent, and his show is a "Spin Free Zone"
+ They believe their freedoms are restricted when they cannot restrict the freedoms of others. (The social conservative influence.)
There is a lot to respect about the historical GOP, but recently, they have become irresponsible. + They are disliked by about 70-80% of the rest of the world
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right