Taxes and unemployment

The gospel according to the republican party is, cut taxes on the rich to reduce unemployment.  And the only problem with that idea is that history as shown again and again the opposite is true.  The periods of our greatest prosperity have corresponded to the periods with the highest marginal tax rates.  And not coincidentally, the periods of high unemployment have typically followed lowering the marginal tax rate on the wealthiest Americans.

One explanation I have read is that when tax rates on the high ends of income are lowered, it tends to encourage speculation, leading to bubbles in the economy.  And we know that bubble will eventually burst and there is hell to pay.

Now the correlation between tax rates and unemployment is something you can look up yourself, but I will site a few examples, just to make the point.

In 1980, the top rate for individual taxes was  70% and unemployment was at 6% and it had been falling since 1975.  In 1981 the top tax rate for individuals was cut to 50%.  This began a series of tax cuts for individuals, corporations, and capital gains.  The unemployment rate rose, spiking at over 10% in 1983.

Yes, you can say that's all ancient history,  which is true.  But it is a pattern that has shown some consistency. 

Another day, another murder

Any murder is tragic, be it is the stranger you read about who was raped and murdered, a shopkeeper killed in an armed robbery, or a public figure who preached that murders are just an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of the constitutional right to keep and bare arms.

Still, I suspect that when making those remarks he never imagined that he would be one of those paying that price.  If he had known, would he have felt the same way?  

If you put yourself out there in the public eye then there has to be at least some awareness that the Mark David Chapmans of the world are out there.  I don't think this one of those, simply a deranged individual fixated on a celebrity.  Was it a political statement?  Was it karma?  I don't pretend to know, nor do I know the potential motive of the primary suspect.

What I suspect though, is that we may very well be headed into an era when the current political rhetoric will trigger more actions of this sort targeting both ends of the political spectrum.