Two months ago, President Obama strode into the White House East Room to tout his “Extending Middle Class Tax Cuts” agenda and, of course, thump his Republican presidential opponent, Mitt Romney. He said, “The GOP’s so-called small-business tax proposal could actually discourage firms from creating jobs or making new investments this year, while giving away tens of billions of dollars to millionaires and billionaires.”
Two weeks ago, the Congressional Research Service released a 23-page report titled “Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945.” It contains text for nine charts on savings, investment, labor productivity, growth and top tax rates, two tables — economic growth and income inequalities — and multivariate regression equations to prove it all. It says tax cuts for upper income brackets don’t lead to economic growth.
