- Joined
- Nov 18, 2016
- Messages
- 37,551
- Reaction score
- 17,001
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Liberal
"Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, caused quite a stir this week when he discussed his "Plan to Rescue America" at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The plan calls for taxing the income of over half of Americans who do not pay taxes now and sunsetting all federal legislation after five years, which would likely include popular programs like Medicare and Social Security...
Whether McConnell will admit it or not, Scott is just giving voice to the ideas of conservative populism in America. Since the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980, Republican politicians, including McConnell himself, have argued conservatism can be more empowering to working- and middle-class Americans than Democratic policies that focus on expanding the size of government and the social safety net.
They have claimed economic policies skewed toward helping the wealthy and curtailing the size of government programs somehow help average Americans. And Scott, though proposing a less conventional set of economic policies than his conservative predecessors, appears to be trying to do just that. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimate, Scott's proposal asks families making $54,000 or less to pay more than 80% of the tax increase, while also potentially reducing the size of government support for social programs.
The problem is that Republican economic policies, historically speaking, have not fulfilled the promise to empower the average American. Since Ronald Reagan's administration, conservatives have pushed for supply-side tax cuts, government deregulation and a contracted social safety net. Their policies have skewed toward the wealthy, giving the most direct benefits to affluent Americans and corporations, all the while promising those benefits would "trickle down" to the rest of the population."
www.cnn.com
Trickle down economics does not work. This has been definitively shown by economists with careful study over the last few decades. The "Laffer Curve" is nowhere near where the tax cuts for the rich have come to over the last few decades. There is no trickle down. But the folks who lobby the likes of McConnell and Rick Scott want their taxes cut further. So these politicians use several tactics to do this:
1) Exploit cultural issues to get their taxes cut even further- "cut the taxes to my multinational corporations and billionaire sponsors further and I will protect your (obsolete manufacturing/mining jobs, guns, Bibles, abortion bans, pickup trucks, keep those brown people out, etc...).
2) Say they want to cut taxes but just cut taxes to the 1% permanently. To get that passed, they will cut taxes to the working class only temporarily like with Trump's last plan to get their votes, and then later, with such a "Plan to Rescue America" actually INCREASE taxes to those voters after the next election cycle when no one remembers anymore, and then take away their social security and healthcare to boot. All the massive tax cuts and subsidies to the large corporations and billionaires remain however, of course.
And these guys keep voting for them. Unbelievable and very sad how much these poor saps in the Trump base get their ignorance and prejudice exploited. When are they going to wake up and realize they are just getting played and these guys do not really have their interests at heart?
Whether McConnell will admit it or not, Scott is just giving voice to the ideas of conservative populism in America. Since the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980, Republican politicians, including McConnell himself, have argued conservatism can be more empowering to working- and middle-class Americans than Democratic policies that focus on expanding the size of government and the social safety net.
They have claimed economic policies skewed toward helping the wealthy and curtailing the size of government programs somehow help average Americans. And Scott, though proposing a less conventional set of economic policies than his conservative predecessors, appears to be trying to do just that. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimate, Scott's proposal asks families making $54,000 or less to pay more than 80% of the tax increase, while also potentially reducing the size of government support for social programs.
The problem is that Republican economic policies, historically speaking, have not fulfilled the promise to empower the average American. Since Ronald Reagan's administration, conservatives have pushed for supply-side tax cuts, government deregulation and a contracted social safety net. Their policies have skewed toward the wealthy, giving the most direct benefits to affluent Americans and corporations, all the while promising those benefits would "trickle down" to the rest of the population."
Opinion: Rick Scott's 'Plan to Rescue America' will do anything but that | CNN
Julian Zelizer writes that Sen. Rick Scott's 'Plan to Rescue America' adheres to the misleading idea of conservative populism, which claims that economic policies skewed toward helping the wealthy and curtailing the size of government programs somehow help average Americans.
Trickle down economics does not work. This has been definitively shown by economists with careful study over the last few decades. The "Laffer Curve" is nowhere near where the tax cuts for the rich have come to over the last few decades. There is no trickle down. But the folks who lobby the likes of McConnell and Rick Scott want their taxes cut further. So these politicians use several tactics to do this:
1) Exploit cultural issues to get their taxes cut even further- "cut the taxes to my multinational corporations and billionaire sponsors further and I will protect your (obsolete manufacturing/mining jobs, guns, Bibles, abortion bans, pickup trucks, keep those brown people out, etc...).
2) Say they want to cut taxes but just cut taxes to the 1% permanently. To get that passed, they will cut taxes to the working class only temporarily like with Trump's last plan to get their votes, and then later, with such a "Plan to Rescue America" actually INCREASE taxes to those voters after the next election cycle when no one remembers anymore, and then take away their social security and healthcare to boot. All the massive tax cuts and subsidies to the large corporations and billionaires remain however, of course.
And these guys keep voting for them. Unbelievable and very sad how much these poor saps in the Trump base get their ignorance and prejudice exploited. When are they going to wake up and realize they are just getting played and these guys do not really have their interests at heart?
Last edited:
