The Democrats’ Lies about the Economy

April 21, 2008
By Herman Cain

John McCain revealed some of his ideas about taxation to help sustain the economic expansion of the last six years if he is elected president.

Namely, he would make the current tax rates permanent, reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, abolish the alternative minimum tax and raise the tax exemption for dependent children from $3,500 to $7,000 per child. Of course he would have to get a stubborn Democratic-controlled Congress to support these ideas.

On the spending side, he would suspend any increases in federal discretionary spending and veto all bills with “earmarks” for special pork barrel projects.

Sen. McCain also proposed a dramatic simplification of our current tax system, although he did not reveal specific details.

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign was quick to declare McCain’s proposals an extension of the “failed” Bush economic policies, and to be fiscally irresponsible.

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign quickly criticized McCain’s proposals as a George W. Bush redo of corporate windfalls and tax cuts for the wealthy.

The Democrats will not change their talking points no matter how wrong they are. And their supporters and followers have drunk so much of the Democratic Kool-Aid that they would not dare to challenge their leaders on the validity of their accusations.

Well, I did not drink the Kool-Aid, so here is the truth.

An article in U.S. News & World Report dated Friday, April 18, 2008 reported that the current six-year economic expansion dates from November 2001 through the present time, despite some recent slowing. This was the same year George W. Bush took office as president, so how could these be failed economic policies?

The American Council for Capital Formation published a study in January 2008 entitled “Tax Reductions Contributed Significantly to Post-2001 U.S. Economic Expansion.”

The study went on to say, “Economic growth really began to accelerate in 2003 as the tax cuts ramped up. This was despite the negative shocks of the 9/11 terrorist attack, global terrorism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina and energy prices”

So, how is this fiscally irresponsible and failed economic policy? It is not.

Of course you can find some reports that downplay the economic expansion of the last six years, but they have to dig really deep to construct some irrelevant factual basis for their view. As usual, the New York Times provided that conspicuously negative and irrelevant view in David Leonhardt’s April 9 piece titled “For Many, a Boom That Wasn’t.”

Leonhardt had to compare the median family income in 2000 of $61,000 to the median family income in 2007 of $60,500 to try to support his point. What he did not tell the readers was that most of the families at the median income in 2000 had moved up to a higher level of income by the time 2007 rolled around.

The most egregious part of this consistent Democratic deception is that they never offer a better idea or plan. They just want to raise taxes and get elected by their Kool-Aid drinkers and anyone gullible enough to swallow their persistent lies about the economy.

Blind loyalty to the leaders of the Democratic Party is a person’s right, but when the leaders lead with deception and lies, the followers are just blind to the truth.

And that’s just the truth.