Report says income tax rates don't affect growth. Republicans try to hide the evidence
by David Atkins
Another day, another example of Republicans trying to get rid of scientific evidence stating something they find inconvenient. Only this time, that evidence strikes right at the very core of their entire economic philosophy:
The Congressional Research Service has withdrawn an economic report that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth, a central tenet of conservative economic theory, after Senate Republicans raised concerns about the paper’s findings and wording.
The decision, made in late September against the advice of the agency’s economic team leadership, drew almost no notice at the time. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, cited the study a week and a half after it was withdrawn in a speech on tax policy at the National Press Club.
But it could actually draw new attention to the report, which questions the premise that lowering the top marginal tax rate stimulates economic growth and job creation.
“This has hues of a banana republic,” Mr. Schumer said. “They didn’t like a report, and instead of rebutting it, they had them take it down.”
Republicans did not say whether they had asked the research service, a nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress, to take the report out of circulation, but they were clear that they protested its tone and findings.
No doubt. Steve Benen:
And what is it that Republicans didn't like about the CRS analysis? McConnell aides offered a series of complaints, including the report's use of the phrase "Bush tax cuts."
Apparently, in Republicans' minds, to say "Bush tax cuts" is to use an inappropriate "tone."
But putting all of that aside, we simply cannot have a functioning federal system in which neutral, independent offices are ignored, pressured, and/or censored when Republicans don't like what they have to say. We've now seen this recently with the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Congressional Budget Office, and democratic norms dictate that GOP officials cut this out.
Really, just stop it. If objective truths bother you, don't blame the messenger, blame your bogus assumptions.
For what it's worth, the CRS pulled the report from its website, but Senate Democrats have liberated it, republishing the analysis on their own site.
We don't have a functioning federal system. We have one group half composed of progressives and half of centrists, up against an obstructionist group of lying, moronic connivers who believe in confidence fairies, tax cuts that magically pay for themselves, self-aware uteri, and an earth that is 6,000 years old. It's not exactly a surprise that they would scuttle an inconvenient economic report.
The system functions only insofar as the latter set isn't allowed to control the levers of government, and even then it doesn't function that well.
(h/t to Greg Sargent for the links)
.