A Response to Megan McArdle, Again (by cactus)

by cactusMegan McArdle responds to a post I wrote:So Obama doesn't count since he is not really a Democrat. But Bill Clinton was. But Richard Nixon--the bloke who implemented price controls and massively expanded Social Security and Medicare--was absolutely a Republican. Jimmy Carter, who deregulated like mad: absolutely a Democrat.What are these policies that neatly define Democrats to exclude only the ones who occur to have crappy growth? On what metric does Barack Obama register as beyond to the right than Bill Clinton? Because from what I remember of the 1990s, I exhausted most of the decade listening to my genuinely left-wing friends weep that he had betrayed them. Remember Edelman's resigning in protest of welfare reform?I thought it was unnecessary at this point to explain the single thing I've pointed out time and again differentiates Republicans from Democrats. I think the first time was here. (I tend not to break out JFK from LBJ, otherwise Nixon from Ford since JFK and Ford only served a short time, but the post that is attached is symbolic of behavior, not performance.) The difference is the tax burden - that is, the percentage of people's income that gets collected in taxes. Not the trivial rate - the quantity people in fact pay alienated by the quantity they make. And there is a difference, a big difference. As an example: George Herbert Walker Bush famously raised trivial rates. It might have cost him an election. But GHW Bush also quietly lowered the tax burden. He did it through the people he appointed to the IRS, through the degree of compliance he sought, through the way his IRS interpreted existing rules and regulations and through how the body of tax rules and regulations distorted while he was in office. Going back to 1952 at least, every Democrat, every single one, has greater than before the tax burden. Every single Republican raised lowered [h/t Bruce Webb] them. The information in the attached post is from the IRS and goes back only to 1952, but single can wander over to the BEA's NIPA Table 2.1 and compute the tax burden ourselves with National Income information going back to 1929, and whaddaya know, the rule also works for Hoover, FDR, and Truman. Just hardly for Truman... but then he is the exemption on performance too, right? Now, I doubt you could find a single person on the right of the supporting range who would tell you that taxes do not affect economic growth. They all believe taxes affect growth. Of course, the story they tell is that cutting taxes produces faster economic growth. The fact is, however, the Presidents who cut tax burdens tended to produce slower economic growth than those who raised taxes. (I've discussed why in a number of previous posts, and I do not feel like rehashing otherwise looking for those posts now. I also note this is not just true of Presidents. My fellow Angry Bear, Spencer, once pointed out that there are a lot of people out there who appear to think we had all be better off if the country was Alabama than if it was Massachussetts.) Unfortunately, tax burden data, like any previous bit of real world data, fluctuates somewhat from day to year, consequently its really going to be a while before we know what direction they are really headed over O's administration. As in, some years. And most of us are impatient. So we had like to have some most important indicators, consequently to speak, of what Obama is going to do, of where he is going to fall on the single R v. D divide that really matters. And right now, he is behaving like the folks who have cut tax burdens in the past. He's also chatting like them. His bail-out is the same to GW's, and when he talks about taxes, it doesn't sound like Clinton, it sounds like GW. So its reasonable to wonder whether he is going to stick to the R v. D rule. And the after that test coming up is healthcare; a D would be putting his supporting capital on the public alternative right now. An R wouldn't. What's it gonna be, we'll almost immediately see.More below the fold.Now, in Megan's post, she refers to "Cactus and his happy band of madmen." I am not sure the happy band of madmen over at this time truly have a leader, much less that I am the single (Dan is the official grand poobah in charge of the blog, after all!!) but I am guessing you aren't a part of that happy band of madmen if any of the following apply to you:

You do not believe that since 1929 at least, every single D has greater than before the tax burden and every single R has decreased the tax burden, in spite of the fact that the information shows precisely this, and in spite of the fact that it fits the caricature of Ds and Rs to a T, consequently to speak.

You do not believe that since 1929, Ds have usually outperformed Rs when it comes to real economic growth, in spite of the fact that the information shows precisely this.

You do not believe that administrations that cut the tax burden have also usually been the administrations that grew additional rapidly, in spite of 1. and 2.

You do not believe that the tax burden could possibly have anything to do with growth. If you do believe these things, if you believe what the information shows , I am sorry to say but you're single of us, single of the happy band of madmen. On the previous hand, if you fit these rules, there are a whole lot of folks out there, Megan McArdle included, who would consider you sane.
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