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Right Wing Tries to Suppress Congressional Tax Report

 

November 7, 2012

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What action do you take if you have constantly stated an opinion as fact and then suddenly find that solid research rejects your hypothesis?


If you are the Republican leadership of Congress and if your opinion is the mantra that lowering taxes on the wealthiest Americans will help create jobs, you try to keep the research that debunks your theory out of circulation.

That’s just what happened when the Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan arm of the Library of Congress, produced a Sept. 4 study that finds no link between the top tax rates and economic growth, a key theory spread by right-wing economists and politicians.

According to the New York Times, Republicans in the U.S. Senate pressured the CRS to withdraw the report shortly after it was released. A spokesperson for Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stated that McConnell and other senators “raised concerns about the [report’s] methodology and other flaws.”  Some of their objections were that the report contained references to “Bush tax cuts,” and “tax cuts for the rich.”

The report by Thomas L. Hungerford, a specialist in public finance,  compares growth in the gross domestic product during the 1950s and 1960s when the top tax rates were as high as 35 percent, and GDP growth in the recent era, with tax rates as low as 15 percent on the wealthiest Americans. The report says:

Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.

The share of income that has gone to the top 10th of U.S. families has increased from 4 percent in 1945 to 12 percent in 2007 before falling to 9 percent due to the 2007-2009 recession.

Democrats in Congress republished the study in late September following a letter sent to the CRS by the ranking Democratic tax expert in the House, Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.). Levin stated:

I was deeply disturbed to hear that Mr. Hungerford’s report was taken down in response to political pressure from congressional Republicans who had ideological objections to the report’s factual findings and conclusions.  It would be completely inappropriate for CRS to censor one of its analysts simply because participants in the political process found his or her conclusion in conflict with their partisan position.

Writing on Forbes blog, contributor Rick Ungar states:

For almost 100 years, the Congressional Research Service has worked to assist Congress by providing well-researched and accurate data to be utilized in the creation of important public policy. It has done so when Congress was controlled by Democrats and when Congress has been under the control of Republicans.  No matter what party was in charge, the CRS has always endeavored to keep politics out of their work in the effort to provide data that would inform and advance our public policy. Apparently, solid, well researched data no longer matters—at least not when it comes to the congressional Republicans.

Says International President Edwin D. Hill:

Our union was formed by electricians whose very lives depend upon the accurate application of theory to practice. When lapses occur in that relationship, our members are subject to injury or death. If we want to fix and improve our nation’s economy and put more Americans to work, we need to have no less respect for theory that is based upon objective research, not partisan smokescreens.

 

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr user WarmSleepy