The most important thing to keep in mind however, is that
this tax cut, my economic plan, is driven by IDEOLOGY.
That is to say, there's a method behind my madness.
At
a time when demand for goods and services is dropping, and
businesses are therefore cutting investment and laying
off hundreds of thousands of workers, it seems crazy
to give the rich a huge tax cut.
Sure,
if the economy was booming, they'd invest some of it in
new ventures. But in the current climate, with stocks crashing,
it seems clear that they will just bank it.
Sometimes
ideology calls for a leap of faith. If you
only stick to your ideology when it's easy, then what kind
of person are you? Neoclassical economics have served
us well through the boom of the last eight years. Have faith
in the INVISIBLE HAND--and everything will be fine.
Let
us reflect on some other leaders whose ideology drove their
economic policy:
In
the 50's Mao launched a new economic plan called "The
Great Leap Forward." It was 100% guided by ideology
and 0% based on economic common sense, just like my tax
cut. The plan called for industrial production to be distributed
to every village, every family even--the Maoist ideology
called for the people to be in direct control of the economy
at a local level. Peasants struggled to build even iron
foundries in their back years. The plan was a disaster and
led to millions of deaths by famines and floods which might
have been prevented under a saner economic plan.
In
the 30's, Stalin "collectivized" most of the agricultural
land in Russia. This made sense under his ideology of 100%
state control and central planning. Unfortunately, in practice
things didn't go as well as expected. Millions died of famine
through several years of crop failure.
Despite
huge set backs, these leaders stuck to their ideologies
at all costs. In the Bush II administration,
OUR guiding economic ideology is FREE MARKETS. TAXES
are antithetical to free markets and therefore should be
reduced as much as possible. Our ideology says that we must
give as much money back to individuals as possible, AND
that it doesn't matter if we give most of it back to
the richest 2%.
So
that's what we're gonna do -- enjoy the ride! And remember,
it's all about IDEOLOGY!
