Should-Read: Paul Krugman: Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies

Should-Read: Paul Krugman: Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies: “Modern conservatives have been lying about taxes pretty much from the beginning of their movement…

…Made-up sob stories about family farms broken up to pay inheritance taxes, magical claims about self-financing tax cuts, and so on go all the way back to the 1970s. But the selling of tax cuts under Trump has taken things to a whole new level…. When I set out to make a list of the bigger lies, I thought there would be six or seven, and was surprised to come up with ten. So I thought it might be useful, both for myself and for others, to put together a crib sheet….

Lie #1: America is the most highly-taxed country in the world…. Lie #2: The estate tax is destroying farmers and truckers…. Lie #3: Taxation of pass-through entities is a burden on small business…. Lie #4: Cutting profits taxes really benefits workers…. Lie #5: Repatriating overseas profits will create jobs…. Lie #6: This is not a tax cut for the rich…. Lie #7: It’s a big tax cut for the middle class…. Lie #8: It won’t increase the deficit…. Lie #9: Cutting taxes will jump-start rapid growth…. Lie #10: Tax cuts will pay for themselves….

So there we are: ten big tax-cut lies. That was pretty exhausting, actually – and as I said, I’ve probably missed a few, and/or Trump will invent some new ones. But I hope this ends up being a useful reference….”

October 14, 2017

AUTHORS:

Brad DeLong
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