Economist and former labor secretary Robert Reich offered some insight into the Republican orthodoxy Tuesday night on The Ed Show.
“They are telling big lies,” he said. “They tell those big lies over and over again. They tell them on every media outlet they possibly can … And those big lies are, again, corporations need tax cuts. The rich need tax cuts. Trickle down economics works. And nothing that Obama wants to do, and nothing that common sense dictates we do right now, is necessary.”
Corporations are currently sitting on between $1 and 2 trillion dollars, and the median net worth of families in the United States has collapsed to 1992 levels. Meanwhile, US companies face the the sixth-highest effective corporate tax rate in the world, contrary to frequent Republican claims. The idea that corporations need more money or relief from crushing taxes and regulations, Reich says, “is laughable.”
“When the middle class has enough money in their pockets to spend, that’s when business say, ‘Yes, now we have to expand, now we have to hire more people,’” Reich said. “But it’s not until the middle has enough money to spend that we get that response from the private sector. And anybody who says any differently just doesn’t know anything about the economy.”
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