The 9 Biggest Conservative Lies About Taxes and Public Spending
Here are the things the corporate media won't tell you about the tax-cut rhetoric in Washington.
December 19, 2010 |
By
Joshua Holland
It's difficult to know where to begin deconstructing
conservative rhetoric on taxes and spending. It's such a central part of
their worldview, and yet it's a view informed by a whole slew of
falsehoods that have been repeated again and again during this year's
debates over the Bush tax cuts, public spending and the deficit. What
follows are nine of the biggest fact-free whoppers that conservatives
insist are true.
1. Cutting Taxes Leads to More Money for the Government
Conservatives can't say they oppose popular programs on ideological
grounds, and they can't admit they're happy to run up huge budget
deficits, so they've come up with the fiction that cutting taxes
actually brings in more revenues to finance the public sector.
What's especially brazen about this is that it's usually preceded by
debate-stifling phrases such as “as everyone knows,â€