Mitt's economic advisor says 'tax the rich'

[Toro]

Other than the country fell into a recession as Clinton left office and recovered after the Bush tax cuts kicked in.

Econometrics exists to dispel such logical fallacies.

i.e. you can't. You've already admitted tax rates matter. While I agree there are many factors in all of this, tax rates certainly figure in.
Bush's tax rates were perfectly sufficient to deliver rising revenue to the economy. Had the GOP Congress not decided to play Democrats and ramp spending up enormously the deficit would be very manageable.

Of course tax rates matter. But they are one of many incentives or disincentives for economic behavior. The problem that I have is that people who look at the world through a political lens elevate taxes to a far greater plain than they often are, as you did noting that the economy went into recession when Clinton left office. The corollary is that those on the left might say - guys like Chris and rdean do say, in fact - is that because Bush came to office, his policies caused the recession. That's BS too.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

September 24, 2012

Economists; Raise Taxes,
Please!​

"Economists who work for the nation's businesses have a request that sounds off-key in a US election year: Taxes should go higher.

They aren't asking Congress to raise taxes right away, but their argument in a newly released survey is that federal deficits need to be controlled, and that more revenue is part of the answer.

"The vast majority of survey respondents favors some combination of higher taxes and reduced spending to reduce the federal budget deficit," says a report from the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), which conducted the survey in August."