# Is the conservative belief that a low tax rate on the rich is necessary to stimulate growth a fraud? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 2, 2011, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608 "2011-07-02T06:34:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/1 "2011-07-02T06:34:28Z")
I ask because of this exchange (part of it quoted below) where Ben Stein claims that there is no proof that low tax rates on the wealthy stimulate growth, and in fact high marginal tax rates on the wealthy are historically correlated with relatively high levels of economic growth, not the reverse. The notion that low taxes on the wealthy are necessary for stimulating growth is practically a cornerstone of modern conservative economic policy or belief. If this is historically untrue how has it reached the position of practically being received wisdom among conservatives? [Ben Stein: We Must Raise Taxes on Rich](http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/transcript/ben-stein-we-must-raise-taxes-rich?page=1) > [@](#): > > BEN STEIN, ECONOMIST, ACTOR & AUTHOR: We’ve got to raise taxes. There’s just no way around it. The deficit situation is so serious that while I wish we did not have to raise taxes, we just can’t cut spending enough. I wish we could. We can’t. We have to raise taxes. Mr. Obama is going to have to do it. I don’t know if the Republicans in the House will go along with it. If they don’t, there will be a genuine crisis, and I am frankly frightened about it. I’m extremely concerned about it. > > (END VIDEO CLIP) > > INGRAHAM: So is Mr. Stein in synch with the president? He joins us now from Los Angeles. And by the way, you should pick up his book, “The Little Book of Alternative Investments.” Ben, it’s great to see you. How are you? > > STEIN: I’m great. Thank you very much, Laura. It’s a very complicated book. > INGRAHAM: OK, so – well, OK, excellent. Now, I’m not going to make a Clear Eyes joke, but how do you have clear eyes and actually make that comment about Obama? I’m not going there. But I will say that if – if he confiscated the upper income earners, right, tax them at the highest rate – this is Wall Street Journal; I’m sure you read this back in April. The millionaires and billionaires, as Obama points out, and you get, you tax them at really –- what you would call confiscatory rates. It yields at about $938 billion. That’s what would come in the federal coffers. > > STEIN: That’s a lot of money. > > INGRAHAM: In a $4 trillion budget, $4 trillion, $14 trillion plus in debt, that’s a drop in a bucket. Don’t we have a spending problem, not a – not a revenue problem at this point? > > STEIN: No, $900 and some billion dollars is not a drop in the bucket. It’s a tremendous amount of money, and I am in favor of greatly raising the taxes on very wealthy people, millionaires and billionaires. I wouldn’t raise the taxes on people making $250,000 a year. > > Look, it’s a basic arithmetic thing; it’s not an ideological thing. We are spending an enormous amount of money that we’re not covering with tax revenue; we’re borrowing it. At some point we’re going to have so much debt that there’s going to be a crisis and there will have to be austerity measures here just as they were in Greece. A simpler way would be tax people who have a great deal of money, tax them more, let them help pay down the debt. Look, if a person is a millionaire or a billionaire… ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/2 "2011-07-02T06:37:52Z")
> [@astro](#): > > **Is the conservative belief that a low tax rate on the rich is necessary to stimulate growth a fraud?** A fraud or a delusion. The conservatives are so irrational that them genuinely believing just about anything is plausible. Many I suspect are simply indifferent; they don’t know or care if it’s true, they are just grasping for any talking point they can to justify lowering the taxes of the wealthy. ---
**Author:** ![markdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@markdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markdash)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/3 "2011-07-02T06:48:25Z")
How could someone say that $938b is a “drop in the bucket” when it’s almost a quarter of $4t? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/4 "2011-07-02T06:52:38Z")
> [@markdash](#): > > How could someone say that $938b is a “drop in the bucket” when it’s almost a quarter of $4t? When they are dishonest or delusional people ideologically committed to never under any circumstances admitting that taxing the rich is desirable. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/5 "2011-07-02T07:18:37Z")
I like the parts I bolded: > [@](#): > > INGRAHAM: OK, so – well, OK, excellent. Now, **I’m not going to make a Clear Eyes joke, but how do you have clear eyes and actually make that comment about Obama**? I’m not going there. But I will say that if – **if he confiscated the upper income earners, right, tax them at the highest rate** – this is Wall Street Journal; I’m sure you read this back in April. The millionaires and billionaires, as Obama points out, and you get, **you tax them at really –- what you would call confiscatory rates**. It yields at about $938 billion. That’s what would come in the federal coffers. First an implication that the interview subject is on drugs, then twice the term “confiscate” is used, as if to imply that “tax=theft”. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/6 "2011-07-02T08:18:43Z")
I think that they sincerely believe that low taxes are essential to their financial growth. I do not think that they extrapolate correctly to see how that applies to everyone all at the same time. The refutation of the economic theory that low taxes stimulates growth is about as strongly refuted as anything in economic theory. But that doesn’t change their desire to have their taxes cut. Is that fraud? No, it’s ignorance and self-interest. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/7 "2011-07-02T09:10:32Z")
Holy crap, when _Ben Stein_ is calling conservatives on their BS, you know they’ve gone insane. Has that guy been moderate on anything since Watergate? Or is it just social issues that drive him into cuckoo land? ---
**Author:** ![G-SE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f0a364/32.png) [@G-SE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G-SE)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/8 "2011-07-02T13:48:19Z")
I’m not understanding what the Ben Stein quote has to do with the OP. The OP talks about taxes on the rich affecting economic growth, while Ben Stein is talking about how best to tackle the deficit. ---
**Author:** ![Recovering\_Republican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Recovering\_Republican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recovering_Republican)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/9 "2011-07-02T14:33:54Z")
I think taxes are going to have to be raised on the wealthy, eventually. But I also think Government needs to get spending under control as well. I think Medicare and Social Security should be means tested. I think we need to replace welfare with workfare. I think we need to rethink our entire military spending and policy. There’s a whole lot we need to do. But the first thing that has to happen is we need to get our manufacturing back, because without that, we will just keep bleeding money to other countries. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/10 "2011-07-02T14:43:56Z")
The truly rich do not pay significant taxes that are subject to the marginal income rates. So something that must immediately be recognized instead is that unless you address capital gains taxes you’re really not talking about anything other than the tax rates for upper middle class professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and then other persons like successful small business men or senior level non-executive managers in corporations (or executive level in smaller corporations.) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/11 "2011-07-02T15:59:39Z")
Do Conservatives say that taxing the rich will slow growth? Honest question, because I haven’t really listened too closely to the various arguments. I know that many conservatives simply object to raising taxes on the principle that people should be able to keep their own money and that “the rich” already pay the lion’s share of income taxes. Many also claim to not want to grow the size of government, and so fight to keep taxes low (although they sure do a damn good job of growing the size of government when they’re in power). Additionally, I hear the argument that many people in the higher tax rates are small business owners, and so the income tax directly affects those businesses. I never fully understood that argument, so if one of our resident conservatives would explain that, it would help. At any rate, I see three arguments for conservatives to fight against a tax increase, and only one of them is what the OP is talking about. How much of Conservative Thought is centered on that one point? ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Jocko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncle_jocko/32/2932_2.png) [@Uncle\_Jocko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Jocko)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/12 "2011-07-02T16:09:51Z")
Well, when the phrase “tax increases” is automatically preceded by the term “job-killing” – which seems to be the mantra among GOP lawmakers at the present time – I think conservatives are making the argument that _ **ANY** _ increase in the tax rate will cost jobs and, therefore, slow the economy. I don’t buy the argument, but that does indeed seem to be the currently emphasized talking point from the right. Let me also add … Ben Stein is calling for higher taxes? The world has gone topsy-turvy … ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/13 "2011-07-02T16:15:12Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > I think taxes are going to have to be raised on the wealthy, eventually. > > But I also think Government needs to get spending under control as well. I think Medicare and Social Security should be means tested. I think we need to replace welfare with workfare. I think we need to rethink our entire military spending and policy. There’s a whole lot we need to do. > > But the first thing that has to happen is we need to get our manufacturing back, because without that, we will just keep bleeding money to other countries. [nitpick] Social Security has zero impact on the national debt [/nitpick] That said I agree it should be means tested. FWIW my brother and I brought this idea up over dinner to my mom and dad a few years ago. While my mom and dad are not “rich” they did quite well for themselves. The vehemence with which they responded to my brother and I was shocking. That was THEIR money! They paid into the system and they wanted their money back! I really cannot overstate how strongly they expressed that view. Nevermind that they are taking out far more than they ever put in. Nevermind that doing so would screw my brother and I when SS is due to be underfunded almost exactly (as is predicted) around the time we are to get it. So, while I agree with you good luck with that. As for manufacturing jobs (or just jobs in general) I think higher taxes is _exactly_ the way to get that to happen. History has shown us that when taxes are low rich people mostly save the money. They do not think as long as they have more money they will open new factories. However, when taxes are higher a rich person can think, “Well, I can give the money to the government or take this money and invest it in upgrading factories so it won’t be taxed.” See the [chart on this page](http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/28/256605/chart-lower-taxes-on-the-rich-dont-lead-to-job-growth/). ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/14 "2011-07-02T16:17:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Do Conservatives say that taxing the rich will slow growth? Honest question, because I haven’t really listened too closely to the various arguments. Yep…they do. > [@](#): > > The GOP justification for its position — even with income inequality at its worst level since the 1920s — is that raising taxes on the rich will destroy jobs. “What some are suggesting is that we take this money from people who would invest in our economy and create jobs and give it to the government. The fact is you can’t tax the very people that we expect to invest in the economy and create jobs,” said Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH). > > SOURCE: [http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/28/256605/chart-lower-taxes-on-the-rich-dont-lead-to-job-growth/](http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/28/256605/chart-lower-taxes-on-the-rich-dont-lead-to-job-growth/) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/15 "2011-07-02T16:30:43Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Yep…they do. Thanks. I’m not sure your chart tell us very much, though. For instance, when the top tax rate was 90%, how many people actually paid that rate? I can’t imagine anyone who was rich enough to be taxed at that rate not finding some loophole or other to avoid that tax rate. And don’t be confused by the idea of “saving” money. Few, if any, rich people save money in the sense that it is not invested somewhere. They may not directly open a factory, but they invest in business that do. I think a better analysis would show what percent of the overall tax burden was paid by people making “X” income, in constant dollars. If we set “x” at $250,000 (in 2011 dollars), what would we see? Gotta run right now, but I’ll try to see if I can dig up that data later on this afternoon. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/16 "2011-07-02T16:44:42Z")
Serious question: in hearing all the talking heads talking about this for years now, it seems that everyone agrees that we need a more vibrant economy and more jobs. So my question is, won’t increasing taxes on the people who will be creating those jobs (so they have less money to spend and invest) slow the very thing that everyone says is the only thing that will save us? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/17 "2011-07-02T17:04:35Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Thanks. > > I’m not sure your chart tell us very much, though. For instance, when the top tax rate was 90%, how many people actually paid that rate? I can’t imagine anyone who was rich enough to be taxed at that rate not finding some loophole or other to avoid that tax rate. > > And don’t be confused by the idea of “saving” money. Few, if any, rich people save money in the sense that it is not invested somewhere. They may not directly open a factory, but they invest in business that do. > > I think a better analysis would show what percent of the overall tax burden was paid by people making “X” income, in constant dollars. If we set “x” at $250,000 (in 2011 dollars), what would we see? > > Gotta run right now, but I’ll try to see if I can dig up that data later on this afternoon. The portion of total receipts paid by the top 1% has gone up pretty consistently for generations now, but it was lower than it is now when the top marginal rate was 90%. There is no loop hole required to avoid that rate though. I don’t get why people talk about loop holes, a loop hole sort of implies you’ve savvily gamed the system to avoid something. All you need to do is make sure your compensation is classified as capital gains instead of earned income. Easy as can be. That’s not a loop hole, the way it works now the marginal rates refer to earned income. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/18 "2011-07-02T17:29:35Z")
Generally it is very settled economics that any tax introduces inefficiency into a market. I buy apples for $1.50, sell them for $1.75. Tax is levied on apples of $0.05 per, so the customer pays me $1.80 for an apple that I only was selling for $1.75, and I remit the $0.05 to the government. This causes fewer trades in apples to occur because there are some people who are willing to buy an apple at $1.75 but not at $1.80. While not as simplistic, income taxes and payroll taxes do have this same effect on labor markets. Income tax is harder to talk about because of the mass of tax credits, deductions, and such, but let’s try to use an example just as simplistic as the apple example. I’m a laborer, I am fine selling my labor for $50,000 a year. However the tax man is going to take $7500 out, so despite my customer (employer) buying my services for $50,000 I only go home with $42500. I’m actually okay with that though, and find $42500 net to be just fine. Let’s assume 5 other employees of the exact same situation, all fine with taking home $42500 net. The company is thus spending $300,000 a year on those 6 employees, and those 6 employees are collectively taking home $255,000 a year. If you didn’t catch it, that means there is enough money in the difference between those two price points that if there was no income tax the employer could just pay us all $42500 and have a 7th person on payroll, and we’d all still be taking home the same amount of money. So while not as immediately obvious as the apples example, you can see how income tax affects the labor market. (Obviously the above is just an example, it ignores things like the payroll taxes that both employers and employee pay amongst other things.) Now, that is really just talking about payrolls and the labor market. So a high income tax rate will mean that as a company grows and needs to hire more people, it will be able to higher a fewer number of people than it otherwise would, because a high tax rate will cause the “gross pay” for a highly qualified professional like a chemical engineer to go up significantly so that that individual will still enjoy a large net income. It will mean that a chemical company despite growth in revenue and a desire to expand production will be unable to hire say, 500 chemical engineers with its budgeted money for new hires but instead will only be able to hire 350. So directly, the high income tax can limit job growth, but will it limit growth of the overall economy? It can, because if I want to hire 500 chemical engineers for expansion and can only afford 350 because of the effects of high income tax on the labor market, I cannot expand operations as significantly as I would like, so that retards my operational growth as well as my growth in employees. That is just the black and white of it, though. Public policy isn’t completely married to those concerns. Maybe there is a valid reason to put an inefficiency on the market, namely there are collective operations that must be paid for on a societal level and taxes are the only way to fund them. Recognizing that there is a dead weight loss to a tax isn’t the same as saying all taxes are the bad, you have to have some government and some services and if you accept that then you accept there must be taxes and that means you must be willing to retard growth to a degree. At the same time, while this is more of a debated issue, there is some evidence to support the argument that certain tax schemes, while not escaping the fact of creating inefficiency can cause gains in other areas that might offset the inefficiency directly caused by the tax. As a strongly pro-business Republican I can tell you that I think the impact of income taxes is less important to business growth than may be presumed. For one. while the income tax will limit the number of new people a burgeoning business can hire versus a situation with no income tax at all, the impact isn’t typically going to be as large as in my example above. What I feel is far more important is regulatory climate and creating situations in which businesses want to do business. Several of the states that have seen business booms in the last 20 years at the expense of other states are states that have created a pro-business regulatory climate. I think that is far more important than anything related to taxes. Corporate income taxes are a totally different beast altogether, and I will say that evaluating their impact is somewhat different because most corporations will intentionally depress their taxable income by making large capital investments so on some level a corporate income tax can be good for investors and the company. Mainly because it’s generally better for a corporation to reinvest its money than it is for them to stockpile it in huge piles of cash. Things do vary from industry to industry though. Technology companies are typically very low-intensity companies in terms of capital expenditure but are high in revenue. So while Microsoft has been made fun of for some of its costly acquisitions, it must be noted that Microsoft has always had the problem of “cash looking for a home.” They take the approach of paying out dividends and buying other companies in an attempt to diversify. Other technology companies have sometimes stockpiled large amounts of cash, and I question it when it goes too far–what value does that give the investor? So sometimes disincentivizing that sort of behavior isn’t always a bad thing. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/19 "2011-07-02T17:38:28Z")
I believe Mr. Stein put it best when he said. > [@](#): > > Look, it’s a basic arithmetic thing; it’s not an ideological thing. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608/20 "2011-07-02T17:59:32Z")
Basing decisions on facts like “basic arithmetic” rather than right wing dogma is an ideological thing though. “We make our own reality” - that, not arithmetic is what the Right is about. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-conservative-belief-that-a-low-tax-rate-on-the-rich-is-necessary-to-stimulate-growth-a-fraud/587608.md?page=2)