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The Right is Wrong, and Reich is Right.

Submitted by Serephin on Sat, 09/17/2011 - 6:22pm.

Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, debunks 6 big Republican lies about The U.S. economy. Reich has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, and tears apart the bullshit of the wingnuttia in a simple, easy to understand way. Joe Bob sez check it out.

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Reich's six lies & the Ayn Rand Six Step.

Submitted by d2 on Sun, 09/18/2011 - 10:03am.

The 6 lies Reich discusses are:

  1. "Trickle-Down" tax cuts benefit everyone? With $2T of corporate savings, and a profit rate exceeding any time since before the great depression.

  2. If you shrink govt, you'll create jobs? When conservative economists are challenged to explain how layoffs of teachers/firemen/road construction/etc lead to corporate jobs, they say "Government always gets in the way." Yes, but how does that create jobs? "Government always gets in the way."
  3. Taxes on rich hurt the economy? In the Boomer years, we were investing immensely in infrastructure and education; the top rate under Eisenhower, the top marginal rate was 91%, and after deductions they paid much much more than now -- the economy grew faster then.
  4. The debt bogeyman: Long-term debt is due to medicare / Social Security? No, it's due to rising healthcare costs. Medicare is the most efficient system we have. It's margins are tiny compared to private insurance.
  5. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme? Never heard public officials say this before. Actuarial data shows 26 years of SS being fine. Beyond 26 years, the easiest direct fix is to raise the cap on income subject to SS contributions.
  6. We need to tax the poor? It's as backwards as any lie the Republicans are telling. We need to expand Earned Income Tax credit, reduce taxes on the middle and low income, increase taxes on the top brackets, and add more brackets!

Reich then says "The greatest enemy we have is mass cynicism."

And rather than belaboring what he says there, check out Common Dreams' recent article: "Atlas Mugged - The Ayn Rand Six Step", by John Atcheson. I'd wanted to call attention to it 2 weeks ago, but didn't have anything substantive to add. It'll do nicely as a comment here, though.

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