Thursday, April 14, 2011

Trickle-down didn't work

Think trickle-down works? Think again. Let's look at the Reagan and Bush II tax cuts and see what impact they had on jobs and the economy. If their tax cuts worked, we should expect to see unemployment drop. But that's not what happened.

Reagan's first tax cut went into effect in August of 1981. At that time, unemployment was 7.2% (down 0.2% from his inauguration, and down 0.6% over the previous year). Starting the very next month, unemployment went up for the next seventeen consecutive months, peaking at a whopping 10.8% in November 1982. It didn't come back down to where it started until June 1984, almost three years after the tax cuts went into effect.

Bush II's first tax cut went into effect in May of 2001. At that time unemployment was 4.3% (up 0.1% from his inauguration - so much for the conservative claim that Bush inherited a recession, right?). Beginning the very next month, unemployment went up steadily for the next two years, topping out at 6.3% in June of 2003. It didn't ever go back down to 4.3% during his time in office, but it did reach 4.4% in October 2006, five years after the tax cut.

http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp?StartYear=1980-06&En

Cold, hard facts. The Reagan and Bush tax cuts were followed by higher unemployment, not lower unemployment.

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