There are three memes that are repeated ad-nauseum by liberals/ progressives that go unchallenged by the media and almost all politicians of all stripes:
1. “The rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes.”
2. “Trickle-down economics doesn’t work; only the rich benefit, lower and middle income people suffer.”
3. “Trickle-down caused the 2008 depression.”
These false premises are never challenged even though they are easily refuted. In this week’s Presidential debate, we saw Hillary Clinton trumpet all three of these lies that Trump never refuted.
The truth is that the rich pay the majority of taxes and the lower 50% pay almost nothing. “Trickle-down”, more appropriately called lower marginal tax rates, does help everyone. Simply put, a rising tide raises all boats. The accuracy of the Laffer theory has been proven during both the Kennedy and the Reagan tax cuts. The prosperity of the Clinton era was largely a result of the Reagan tax cuts.
Finally, “trickle-down” did not cause the depression of 2008. The depression was caused by the bank failures which resulted from a manipulated real estate market. In other words, corrupt Wall St, bankers caused the depression. For an accurate explanation watch The Big Short, one of few Hollywood productions that tells the truth.
These false premises can be easily refuted by anyone willing to do their own research. The big lies go unchallenged by liberals because they want big government. The media cooperate because the media is big business. Big business, Wall St., big corporations, big union and, big bureaucracy all benefit from big government. Big government, with more power to manipulate the people and the economy, is more susceptible to corruption and influence buying because power is concentrated with the few. Big business, like Trump, can use carefully crafted loopholes (unavailable to small business and individuals) to avoid paying their “fair share”.
Another phony lie is that big business, Wall St. and big corporations support just Republicans and that Democrats are for the little guy. Big business funds whoever has power. Most of the time that’s Democrats and research will prove that they get more donations from big business.
Another lie is that Republicans and big business are conservative or favor smaller government. For at least a century there has been a sweet marriage between government and crony capitalists.
What surprises some people is that these memes are not refuted by Republicans, but it is only further proof that the Republican Party is not conservative.
Image: By White House Photo Office; Originally uploaded to Wikipedia by Happyme22 – http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/
archives/photographs/large/c3241-20.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3223063
