Organisations in the United States such as the Club for Growth and Heritage Foundation are still peddling the idea that the way to get growth in the economy is to reduce taxes on the rich. The latter will, we are told, then invest.
Excuse me, but we have now had tax reduction for the rich for years. Remember the “Bush tax cuts”? So where is the growth? Since the financial debacle we have had an anaemic economy (another result of bogus economics) with little, if any, growth. Had the tax-cut economists been right we should have full employment by now.
The real truth is that big investors and corporations will only invest and hire when they see the economy begin to grow. The whole idea of them leading is mind-bogglingly fallacious. If you want to get an economy to grow you put money into the hands of poor people. Why? Because they spend all they get and save little. Someone getting $20 million a year can’t spend it all – he saves it.
I am not an economist, but I claim some common sense. It is time that the tax-cut crowd are exposed for what they are doing – protecting the rich in return for an income.
Epicurus believed in fairness, and were he alive today he would advocate the idea of paying taxes for the benefit of all, each according to his or her ability.
I was once approached by my company accountants to put my money into an off-shore tax shelter. Aside from the fact that accountants make a bomb from doing such a thing (so he had a strong incentive to twist the spirit of the law), I thought the whole idea was in principle appalling. And I told him so. It was a matter of ethics, and remains a matter of ethics. He retired, shocked.