Some Economic Points that the Left Never Seems to Grasp

1) No civilization has ever taxed and consumed its way to prosperity.............2) Keynesian economics has never been successful (not in Europe, not in the U.S. under Hoover, FDR, Bush Jr., Obama, etc., and not in Japan where they have literally wasted close to two decades on the shit) and the multiplier theory is ludicrous (in WW2, for example, as the government sector grew the private sector shrank).............3) There is a consistent INVERSE correlation between the top marginal tax rate and the amount of revenue that the government collects (From 1921 to 1925, for example, the top federal income tax rate was dropped on four separate occasions; from 77% to 58% to 50% to 46% to 25% and, according to a 1982 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the total amount of taxes paid by folks making over $100,000 a year actually skyrocketed by 86% - from 1921 to 1926 - and their share of the total income tax burden also went up precipitously; 81% - from 28.1% of the total income tax burden to 50.9% of it).............4) People and their money are mobile and if you tax the folks too much THEY WILL LEAVE and 85% of zero is zero.............5) Government regulation disproportionately harms the little guy in that small businesses pay more per employee for compliance, are discouraged from entry by massive licensing fees, and never get a seat at the negotiating table when the regulations are crafted (Philip Morris practically wrote the tobacco bill).............6) Government regulation literally kills people; the FDA, CAFE standards on cars, etc..............7) Wartime and catastrophe prosperity is a myth (yes, the GDP does go up but it is mainly the government sector and the end result is one of misallocation of funds; the seen versus the unseen as Bastiat informed us).............8) For the first 150 years of this country, the government did virtually NOTHING in response to economic downturns (and, yes, there were more than a few) and in each instance the economy rebounded and in most instances rapidly. It was only when the government interfered through wage and price controls, draconian tax increases, massive deficit spending, make-work projects, bailouts (through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation), restrictive tariffs, unit banking laws, etc., etc. that the downturns started to linger (I refer you to the exceptional work of UCLA economists, Harold Cole and Lee Ohanian).............9) The minimum wage law, while we can clearly debate its effects on the economy (a slight increasing of it probably doesn't do much but a huge increase would), is a serious obstacle to younger, unskilled workers and if $7.25 is too large a hurdle to overcome, how in the hell are they going to clear $10.10?............10) Make-work (such as Jerry digging holes and wd filling them up again) doesn't do anything for the economy. Yes, you're giving people money and they're probably spending it, but you're a) literally creating nothing, b) misallocating funds that could have been spent more appropriately, and c) impoverishing the government treasury to boot (as Henry Morgenthau eventually acknowledged in 1941).............11) When you put a tax on something, you get less of it.............12) When you subsidize something, you get more of it and jack up the cost (healthcare, education, etc.).............13) Whenever you create a third-party payer or intermediary for something, the cost of that good or service will rise and its availability will shrink.............14) The projected cost of government programs are almost always way off (the projected cost of Medicare was off by over 800%!!!!!) and any attempts to correct them are generally obliterated by politics, stupidity ("my plan for Medicare is Medicare"), bureaucratic inertia (just try and eliminate a program), turf-wars, etc..