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From Thom Hartmann's Blog... 

By: oldCADuser in FFFT | Recommend this post (3)
Sat, 03 Nov 12 7:07 PM | 72 view(s)
Boardmark this board | Food For Further Thought 		Msg. 47364 of 65535
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When The Billionaire Class Doesn't Like Facts...

by Thom Hartmann

November 2, 2012

They simply scrub them away from the view of the public. With the main debate in Washington these days centered on how much the rich should pay in taxes, the Congressional Research Service issued a report last September on the effect of upper income tax rates on economic growth. The CRS report found that low taxes on the rich did not spur economic growth - but instead fueled wealth inequality. Republicans - led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell - protested the report since it undermines their main political talking point that rich people are "job creators" who need to be coddled with low tax rates.

CRS bowed to the pressure and withdrew the report this week. However the reports author told TPM on Thursday that he had nothing to do with the decision and the he continues to stand by the finding in his report. Democratic Congressman Sander Levin released a statement in response to the scrubbing of the report saying, "It would be completely inappropriate for CRS to censor one of its analysts simply because participants in the political process found his or her conclusion in conflict with their partisan position."

Whether they're facts about taxes, climate change, healthcare - you name it - if they don't jive with the Billionaire Class - then Republicans just ignore them.

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The above is a reply to the following message:
The report Mitch McConnell doesn't want you to see
By: clo in FFFT
Sat, 03 Nov 12 3:30 PM 		Msg. 47363 of 65535

The report Mitch McConnell doesn't want you to see

By Will Femia

Fri Nov 2, 2012 9:37 PM EDT.

See earlier coverage by Steve Benen:
•When the GOP suppresses inconvenient truths
•'This has hues of a banana republic'

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/

Congressional Research Service: Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945 (pdf)

from page 9:

The scattered points, however, generally are not close to the fitted values line indicating that the
association between GDP growth and the top tax rates is not strong. Furthermore, the observed
positive association between real GDP growth and the top tax rates shown in the figure could be
coincidental or spurious because of changes to the U.S. economy over the past 65 years. The
statistical analysis using multivariate regression (reported in Table A-1) does not find that either
top tax rate has a statistically significant association with the real GDP growth rate.

These results are generally consistent with previous research on tax cuts. Some studies find that a
broad based tax rate reduction has a small to modest, positive effect on economic growth.

Other studies have found that a broad based tax reduction, such as the Bush tax cuts, has no effect on economic growth. It would be reasonable to assume that a tax rate change limited to a small
group of taxpayers at the top of the income distribution would have a negligible effect on
economic growth. 

http://www.dpcc.senate.gov/files/documents/CRSTaxesandtheEconomy%20Top%20Rates.pdf

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