Re: The Seven Biggest Economic Lies

    Tax cuts for the rich trickle down to everyone else. Baloney.
Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both sliced taxes on the rich and
what happened? Most Americans' wages (measured by the real median
wage) began flattening under Reagan and has dropped since George W.
Bush. Trickle-down economics is a cruel joke.

How is it again that taking water from the deep end of the pool -- sloshing some of it on the pool deck -- and pouring it into the shallow end raises the level of the pool? When Government confiscates dollars to funnel into THEIR politically motivated schemes and providing livelihood to those who produce nothing, those Individuals can no longer spend/save/invest them ... taking those dollars away from THOSE recipients.

    Higher taxes on the rich would hurt the economy and slow job
growth. False. From the end of World War II until 1981, the richest
Americans faced a top marginal tax rate of 70 percent or above. Under
Dwight Eisenhower it was 91 percent. Even after all deductions and
credits, the top taxes on the very rich were far higher than they've
been since. Yet the economy grew faster during those years than it has
since. (Don't believe small businesses would be hurt by a higher
marginal tax; fewer than 2 percent of small business owners are in the
highest tax bracket.)

Same things as above, only NOW Reich introduces causality problems. Post WWI part 2 the US had capital advantages over other countries like Japan -- as those economies 'came back' that advantage waned.

    Shrinking government generates more jobs. Wrong again. It means
fewer government workers - everyone from teachers, fire fighters,
police officers, and social workers at the state and local levels to
safety inspectors and military personnel at the federal. And fewer
government contractors, who would employ fewer private-sector workers.
According to Moody's economist Mark Zandi (a campaign advisor to John
McCain), the $61 billion in spending cuts proposed by the House GOP
will cost the economy 700,000 jobs this year and next.

And yet we MORE of the same thing as above. Here Reich imagines that he is creating jobs by having 10 people pay an 11th but ignoring the loss created for each of the 10. Why not make EVERYONE a Government worker and SOLVE the unemployment woes AND the economy itself?

    Cutting the budget deficit now is more important than boosting the
economy. Untrue. With so many Americans out of work, budget cuts now
will shrink the economy. They'll increase unemployment and reduce tax
revenues. That will worsen the ratio of the debt to the total economy.
The first priority must be getting jobs and growth back by boosting
the economy. Only then, when jobs and growth are returning vigorously,
should we turn to cutting the deficit.

And yet MORE of the same thing as above. Now Reich wants those 10 people above plus a few more to pay people NOT to work.

    Medicare and Medicaid are the major drivers of budget deficits.
Wrong. Medicare and Medicaid spending is rising quickly, to be sure.
But that's because the nation's health-care costs are rising so fast.
One of the best ways of slowing these costs is to use Medicare and
Medicaid's bargaining power over drug companies and hospitals to
reduce costs, and to move from a fee-for-service system to a fee-for-
healthy outcomes system. And since Medicare has far lower
administrative costs than private health insurers, we should make
Medicare available to everyone.

Health care costs are rising precisely BECAUSE of Medicaid/Medicare (and numerous other interventions into the marketplace). What incentive do bureaucrats -- spending other people's money -- have to economize? None.

    Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Don't believe it. Social
Security is solvent for the next 26 years. It could be solvent for the
next century if we raised the ceiling on income subject to the Social
Security payroll tax. That ceiling is now $106,800.

Correct. In a Ponzi scheme the dupes have a choice. With social security the dupes are forced. Raising the ceiling proves the point made by those who correctly identify this scam as largely identical to Ponzi. What is raising the ceiling but the equivalent to finding new dupes to support the others?

    It's unfair that lower-income Americans don't pay income tax.
Wrong. There's nothing unfair about it. Lower-income Americans pay out
a larger share of their paychecks in payroll taxes, sales taxes, user
fees, and tolls than everyone else.

What is actually fair is for ALL Individuals to pay the same dollar amount. Why should one Individual be forced to pay more or less for the monopoly 'service' Government? How -- exactly -- is this section a purported 'myth'?

Demagogues through history have known that big lies, repeated often
enough, start being believed - unless they're rebutted. These seven
economic whoppers are just plain wrong. Make sure you know the truth -
and spread it on.

As William Anderson observed, "Robert Reich, the former U.S. Labor Secretary and full-time crank".
Don't take his advice and continue chanting his big lies. I guess we can at least take refuge in the fact that he announced he was going to lie.

Regard$,
--MJ

The art of politics, under democracy, is simply the art of ringing it. Two branches reveal themselves. There is the art of the demagogue, and there is the art of what may be called, by a shot-gun marriage of Latin and Greek, the demaslave. They are complementary, and both of them are degrading to their practitioners. The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. The demaslave is one who listens to what these idiots have to say and then pretends that he believes it himself. -- H.L. Mencken