Evil Tax Cuts Help Everybody

William Kristol opines that Social Security reform is going nowhere in the near future, and surprisingly, that is fine with me. While the left's dishonest smear tactics may have borne fruit in the short run, the foundation of need has been poured and the seed of better returns through "ownership" has been planted. I have no doubt that the longer the idea of personal accounts is allowed to sink into the American psyche, the more it will come to be seen as not only a good idea, but the right thing to do. But I digress...

Along the way, Kristol gives a synopsis of the growth caused by Bush's "evil tax cuts for the rich."

The 2003 cuts in personal income rates, and in the tax rates on dividends and capital gains, have helped produce economic growth of better than 4 percent a year--as non-tax-cutting European economies have stagnated. Unemployment here is down to 5.1 percent, while it remains 10 percent or more in Germany and France. The Dow is up by about 24 percent since May 2003, and capital spending by business is up some 22 percent.

And tax revenues are up. As Stephen Moore has pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, the supply-side Laffer curve has worked. Federal tax receipts are up by over 15 percent so far this fiscal year--and state tax receipts are up 7.5 percent. Individual and corporate receipts are up some 30 percent in the two years since the tax cut. The budget deficit looks as if it will be down by some $60 billion this year.

The information in the second paragraph is what drives the left completely nuts and generally causes a complete intellectual meltdown. The prevailing theme of the left is that tax cuts lined the pockets of the rich and prevented our benevolent government from doing it's good work across the nation. In fact, the tax cuts and the subsequent growth realized from them have caused tax receipts to rise at levels far exceeding pre-tax cut predictions. In short, the tax cuts have generated more tax revenue, not less.

Success in the private sector is what breeds a healthy government. The progress that has been bred in both areas is what John Kerry promised to repeal were he to be elected, and what the Democratic Party will fight hard this fall to render useless.