That is the headline of today’s Wall St. Journal lead editorial (subs req)that cites the most recent CBO (Congressional Budget Office) Report that debunks all the claims from the redistributionist lefties like Senator “Two-Americas” Edwards and Hillary “the Bush Tax Cuts have been disasterous for working families” Clinton.
A new study by the Congressional Budget Office says the poor have been getting less poor. On average, CBO found that low-wage households with children had incomes after inflation that were more than one-third higher in 2005 than in 1991.
The CBO results don’t fit the prevailing media stereotype of the U.S. economy as a richer take all affair — which may explain why you haven’t read about them. Among all families with children, the poorest fifth had the fastest overall earnings growth over the 15 years measured. (See the nearby chart.) The poorest even had higher earnings growth than the richest 20%. The earnings of these poor households are about 80% higher today than in the early 1990s.
As for the Dobbsian claim that we will be hearing endlessly on the Democrat campaign trail that the “unfair and irresponsible Bush Tax Cuts” have been great for the “rich” but have decimated “middle class working Americans,” the class warrior wealth redistributionists on the Left will have to reconcile this claim with the empirical economic data that debunks this oft-repeated canard:
The report also rebuts the claim, fashionable in some precincts on CNN, that the middle class is losing ground. The median family with children saw an 18% rise in earnings from the early 1990s through 2005. That’s $8,500 more purchasing power after inflation. The wealthiest fifth made a 55% gain in earnings, but the key point is that every class saw significant gains in income.
So, the question I have is why the Democrats, in light of the plethora of empirical economic evidence which has demonstrated time and time again that pro-growth supply side tax cuts increase revenues to the treasury and lead to economic prosperity across the board, continue to advance the very same economically destructive high tax and spend policies that would harm their “poor” and “middle class” constituents the most?