We the People call Jonathan Chait to testify to the danger of “Crackpot Economics and the Fleecing of America.”
Chait: ”..American politics has been hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing extremists, some of them ideological zealots, others merely greedy, a few..possibly insane. The scope of their triumph is breathtaking Over the course of the last three decades {1980 -}, they have moved from the right-wing fringe to the commanding heights of the national agenda. Notions that would have been laughed at a generation ago – that cutting taxes for the very rich is the best response to any and every economic circumstance, or that it is perfectly appropriate to turn the most rapacious and self-interested elements of the business lobby into an arm of the federal government are now so pervasive..”
”The result has been a slow-motion disaster. Income inequality has approached levels normally associated with Third World oligarchies, not healthy Western democracies. The federal government has grown so encrusted with business lobbyists that it can no longer meet th great public challenges of our time.”
Chait: ”..supply-side economics is not merely an economic program. It’s a totalistic ideology. The core principle is that economic performance hinges almost entirely on how much incentive investors and entrepreneurs have to attain more wealth, and this incentive in turn hinges almost entirely on their tax rate..cutting taxes – especially those of the rich..is always a good idea.”…..
”..supply-side economics offered Republicans a potential very appealing way to win votes..The GOP would be transformed into the party of Santa Claus, with Democrats..stuck playing the Grinch..Kristol breezily confessed..”political effectiveness was the priority, not he accounting deficiencies of government.”…
Chait: ”Over the past thirty-five years..the ascent of the supply-siders – American business has grown both vastly more politically powerful and vastly rapacious in the way it wields that power. The rise of the business lobby has distorted – and finally, corrupted – the Republican Party and the conservative movement.””….
”..the whole purpose of the business lobby changed..developed what can only be called a class consciousness. As Edsall wrote..”The dominant theme in the political strategy of business became a shared interest in the defeat of such bills as consumer protection and labor law reform, and in the enactment of favorable tax, regulatory and antitrust legislation.”
Chait: ”At the outset of Clinton’s first term, the giants of the business lobby..all favored universal health care…business turned sharply against this reform..because conservatives demanded it. Republicans, for both partisan and ideological reasons, wanted to kill health care reform..”
Chait: ”..the K Street Project..Republicans gave these lobbyists extraordinary deference in shaping legislation. Republicans demanded total loyalty from K Street in return. The business lobby and the GOP would no longer be separate parties with overlapping interests but partners in an ironclad alliance.”
Chait: ”As Norquist sees it, Reaganism means, above all else, cutting taxes, especially for business and wealthy individuals..Norquist has described himself..as a “Market-Leninist.” In Leninist fashion, he sees politics as a Manichean struggle between..”our time” and “their time.”
Chait: ”Niskanen found..the premise of the “starve the beast” strategy was wrong..It was backwards. Since 1981, tax cuts tended to spur higher levels of spending, while tax hikes tended to produce lower spending.”
Chait: ”..dishonesty has become integral to the Republican economic agenda..the GOP, and the conservative movement, have embraced an economic agenda far out of step with the majority of the voting public. Republicans..can’t win office or get their plans enacted into law..without fundamentally misleading the public. Lying has become a systemic necessity.”…..
Chait: ”..studied every recorded vote in the House and Senate from 1970 to 2003 and found..Republicans have moved sharply to the right while Democrats have scarcely moved left at all.”……
Chait: ”The right’s great triumph has been to take ideas once correctly considered absurd and make them seem normal. The perverse happenings..in Washington are the result of an asymmetrical fight between a moderate party and a radical one, between one party that clings to the social mores that once prevailed in the capital and another party that pushed them aside.”
[note: the above discussion consists of excerpts from Jonathan Chait’s “The Big Con. Crackpot Economics and the Fleecing of America.” As always on this site – we invite YOU to engage in truthful research from mainstream. acknowledged real historians and experts; to consult unspun statistics from the Census Bureau, the IRS, GAO, CBO for REAL numbers behind why Chait could say these things. Compare what existed in American law, government, society, business mores and culture. Above all: find the 1945-1979 and then, the post-1980. distribution of wealth in America; the tax burdens. Find the difference between the 1933-1979 “Roosevelt Revolution” and the 1980-2024 “Reagan Revolution.” Which era better reflected the Constitution”s Preamble: ”We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare…[create this government].”
With a straight face, tell us how cutting the taxes of the most privileged persons works “to promote the general Welfare.” Explain why the national debt ballooned from $1 trillion before Reagan took office, to now a reported $34 trillion. The supply-side Reagan-Bush II-Trump tax cuts blew up the national debt. The bloated national debt is now over $600 billion a year itself. $600 billion that will NOT be used to “promote the general Welfare.” ]
With Justice For All 