It was only a matter of time until the Democrats' grumbling that tax cuts ruined the economy came back to haunt them. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported last week that the economy grew at an annual rate of 7.2 percent and consumer spending rose 6.6 percent (a five-year high) in the third quarter; just another example of good news for America meaning bad news for Democrats.
Putting a dent in the Democratic platform that cutting taxes never works, last quarter marked the fastest growth in the economy since 1984 when Ronald Reagan cut taxes and produced the longest period of peacetime economic growth in the history of the United States.
The left is trembling at the turnaround spurned by low interest rates and the Bush tax cuts which Al Gore sneered as a "risky scheme" in 2000. By letting American families keep more of their hard-earned money, economists say that tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 caused "Consumer and business spending [to] exceed estimates from even the most optimistic economists," USA Today reported. As President Bush said last Thursday, "We left more money in the hands of the American people, and the American people are moving this economy forward."
The nicest thing Democrats could say about this economic boom was that it wasn't enough. An advisor to former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said, "Let's see if they string four or five [quarters] together and replace those three million jobs." That's like reacting to a 50-point performance by Michael Jordan by saying, "Well I bet he can't score 50 every night!"
After spending the last 6 months forecasting a horrendous economy, the soft-on-terrorism, tough-on-raising-taxes Democrats once again have positioned themselves in contradiction to the facts. The economy was so bad, they told us, that President Bush started a war in Iraq just to detract attention from it. Add to that liberals' claims that we went to Iraq for oil, because the president hates Muslims, or America just likes to blow up civilians; but never because Saddam Hussein was a murderous tyrant. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark said at a campaign rally in New Hampshire, "tax cuts for the rich are making the American people poorer." In that statement, Clark was able to sum up the entire Democratic field. He repeated the overused and misleading slogan "tax cuts for the rich," while also drawing a conclusion that makes absolutely no sense. Somehow, Clark thinks that sending American families $600 checks causes them to have less money.
While consumer spending, 70 percent of the $10 trillion U.S. economy, has risen 6.6 percent in the last quarter because of the extra money tax cuts put in Americans' wallets, Democrats tells us that tax cuts don't work and they're "for people who don't need them." In their snooty false-intelligence, Democrats think the government should be the arbiter in determining who needs their own money. They also want Americans to believe that the rich don't pay enough taxes. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the facts fall contrary to what the Democrats want us to believe.
IRS data from 2001 shows that "tax cuts for the rich" is a misnomer as the "rich" are basically the only ones actually paying taxes. The top 1 percent of wage earners (those who earn $293,000 and above) pays about 34 percent of all federal income taxes while the bottom 50 percent (those who earn $26,000 and below) pays only about 4 percent. While the total taxes paid by the top 1 percent has fallen 3.5 percent since 2000, this is due to their total income share falling from 20.8 percent to 17.5 percent, not preferential treatment from the White House as the rich-hating Democrats suggest. The Democrats cry that the rich don't pay their fair share, but the average tax rate on the top 1 percent actually rose from 27.45 percent to 27.50 since 2000.
The Democrats tried to characterize President Bush as giving all the tax breaks to his rich friends while poor working families were left with an unbearable burden. Since those lower income families were hardly paying any taxes to begin with, how could they receive a substantial tax rebate? By definition, the benefits of a tax cut go to those who actually pay taxes. As incontrovertible as these facts are, Democrats, also by definition, could care less about the truth. Their only worry is their shameless attempt at regaining their political power.
If Democrats were as patriotic as they claim, these encouraging economic figures would draw their praise. Instead, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said, "This president still has no real plan to sustain this growth, translate it into jobs, and rebuild a strong middle class."
The clock is ticking on Democrats' blatant economic pessimism; once the lagging indicator of unemployment begins to improve, their only argument will be that France doesn't like us anymore. Democrats say that want Americans to find jobs, but just not yet. If those unemployed people found work within the next year, they would have no reason to vote for a Democrat who only belittles the economic conditions that produced that new job. On top of capitulating U.S. military power to the United Nations, Howard Dean, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, has pledged to repeal all of the tax cuts that have produced the incredible economic stimulus. His new slogan is rumored to be, "I'm going to raise your taxes and lose the war on terror!"
What has the Democrats in a tizzy is the fact that conservative economic policies are working. Cutting taxes allows the American people to keep more of their own money and encourages achievement. With that money consumers buy more products and businesses expand to create new jobs. Tax cuts don't produce deficits, out-of-control spending in Washington does.
Democrats want to raise taxes because they want to control the American people's money. They work to convince the American people that they can't make it on their own, that they need the government's help. By creating this kind of dependency on government, Democrats foster the environment for their own reelection.
Economic recovery on the eve of their hopeless attempt to win the White House is bad enough for the Democrats. They're relying on Americans to stay unemployed just to say they were right about the economy. Couple that with the obvious fact that tax cuts have produced the biggest turnaround in 19 years, and the left is beside themselves that America is on the road to victory on all fronts.
