And yet! It’s still “class warfare,” said Paul Ryan Sunday. He went on: It “may make for really good politics, but it makes for rotten economics. We don’t need a system that seeks to divide people. We don’t need a system that seeks to prey on people’s fear, envy, and anxiety. We need a system that creates jobs and innovation, and removes these barriers for entrepreneurs to go out and rehire people. I’m afraid these kinds of tax increases don’t work.”
Is he stupid, a liar, or something even more malevolent, a morally diseased ogre who secretly believes with his delirious mentor Ms. Rosenbaum that the rich deserve every handout government can offer them? First of all, he is (sadly) wrong with his first sentence. What Obama is trying to do here has unfortunately not made for good politics for the last 30 years in this country. But it has happened once or twice—well, once—and when it did, it made for quite good economics. Under what recent president was the economy strongest? Bill Clinton. Under what recent president were tax rates the highest? Bill Clinton. I don’t claim direct cause and effect. A hundred factors affect economic performance. But I certainly and emphatically claim that recent history disproves Ryan’s last sentence to such an extent that he can’t possibly be taken seriously.
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