Tuesday’s stock market decline clearly caused some anxiety among investors and those who monitor the financial markets, and leave it Fox News to step in to exploit that anxiety to advance a Republican agenda.
[Yesterday] on Your World w/Neil Cavuto, substitute host David Asman aired three segments linking [Tuesday’s] plunge in the Dow to either making George Bush’s tax cuts permanent, or cutting taxes even more. The most in-depth explanation the audience got as to how or why the two go hand-in-hand was when Asman introduced his first pro-tax cut guest, Sam Brownback (R-KS): “Tuesday’s 416 point plunge by the Dow is putting a spotlight on our economy and what it needs to keep it humming. My next guest says, even more tax cuts!”
Brownback and Asman talked about cutting taxes for a few minutes…. A few minutes later Jack Kemp came on…. He said, “Bad policies cause recessions, raising taxes doesn’t.” He said, “most Republicans today understand that lower tax rates means a bigger pie, a bigger economy, and more revenue, not less. … Lowering the rate…would add to the efficiency of our economy and keep this growth cycle going well into the next decade.”
Another few minutes later (these segments were evenly spaced throughout the hour), Edward Lazear of the Council of Economic Advisors came on. Lazear was ostensibly going to talk about the “White House reaction to stock market swings,” but that didn’t come up. Instead, Asman wondered about, “people who say tax cuts were instrumental to the strength of the economy and indeed it has helped fuel this economy and revenues coming in” who say we need to make the tax cuts permanent before Bush leaves office. Lazear said he hoped they would be made permanent before then but if not, hopefully the “next administration will, in its wisdom, see that the tax cuts were very good for the economy.”
Fox News sure is efficient, isn’t it? Within 24 hours of a stock market plunge, “Your World” has assembled multiple segments with several conservatives, all of whom — surprise, surprise — believe tax cuts are the answer to every possible problem.
I don’t suppose it’s occurred to them that Clinton raised taxes and saw the economy produce far stronger economic growth, far more job jobs, and far more stock market growth than Bush could even hope for.
It also may not have occurred to them Tuesday’s market plunge had nothing to do with U.S. tax rates. Alas, it hasn’t occurred to far-right lawmakers in Congress, either.
Consider the inanity coming from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) yesterday.
[O]n the House floor, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) blamed yesterday’s market drop — the largest since the September 11 terrorist attacks — on members of Congress supposedly “talking about…more regulation” and “undermin[ing] the President’s national security policy.”
Gohmert said, “In two months of talking about raising taxes and more regulation and [referring to Murtha] one committee chairman talking about how he’s going to undermine the President’s national security policy — two months! — we have this terrible damage to the stock market, to the economy. Unbelievable.” He added: “I just encourage my friends across the aisle, be careful. We built a great economy. Don’t blow it quite so quickly.”
I really should know better, but I just find it hard to believe how dumb a member of Congress can be, and how willing that member can be to put his idiocy on display for everyone to see.
“Unbelievable,” indeed.