Belief in the "Science of Voodoo Economics"

Krugman, yet again, walks his readers through the fact of failed "Reaganomics". Those who are rational will read the following and understand. The right wing crazies will look at the following and shout "get thee behind me Satan!" and make the sign of the cross...

CBPP reminds us that the Bush tax cuts totally failed to deliver, even before the financial collapse:

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And the story is even worse for believers in tax-cut magic if you include the Clinton years; some of us remember the confident predictions that the 1993 tax hike would lead to a catastrophic recession.

You might have thought that an ideology that failed so dramatically would have been to at least some extent abandoned. But noooo: belief in tax-cut magic is central to the Ryan plan, and aspiring GOP candidates like Pawlenty seem to be in a race to see who can go more overboard in supply-side faith. Oh, and if you don’t believe their claims, you don’t trust the American people.

What will it take before the GOP drops voodoo as its official religion?

The "true believers" in the Christian right know that tax cuts grow the economy. They don't want their minds cluttered with facts. They have "faith" in their leaders and simply trust them to do the hard homework and understand this complicated financial and tax stuff.

Those who aren't suckers for right wing propaganda will look at the record. They will accept facts provided by the CBPP (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities). They will examine the fact that previous recoveries, ones not tainted with the "religion" of "tax cuts cure everything". They will stretch their minds back to when Keynesian economics still had a hold on politicians' minds and they acted on those precepts to "prime the pump" and "government intervention to provide demand" when the private sector wouldn't or couldn't so that employment could be kept up and money flowing in the economy to encourage businesses to expand. Under the new "voodoo economics" it isn't money flowing in the economy that stimulates businessmen to invest and provide new products. No! It is tax cuts that hands the businessmen a pile of money. The businessman then looks at that godsend and says to himself "I dare not just sit on this gift, I better take it and run the risk of hiring and putting out product in the hope that somebody will want to buy what I'm providing". Yeah... that will work!

All through his successive tax cuts George Bush crowed about how he was "stimulating" the economy and "creating jobs". But he didn't. His was the worst of the post-WWII recoveries. The voodoo doesn't do. It is a hoax. A myth. A lie from the Republican right to get foolish voters to elect more right wing nuts to cut more and more taxes of the billionaires and millionaires.

Sadly, Obama has signed on to the Republican program of austerity (debt reduction) and tax cuts for the rich. Obama doesn't believe that if you give money to the poor and the hard working that they will spend it. He believes that if you give it to billionaires and millionaires, these are the people with the time and wits to wisely spend that money and boost the economy. Yeah... by invseting in China and shiping more jobs overseas. I do not understand why Obama, a guy raised by a single mom who was poor, thinks that his rich buddies are more likely to spend extra cash than poor folk. All I can say is that when he got his Harvard Law degree he decided to drop his connections with the past and cling to his new rich "best buddies" and be sure to everything he can to reward them.