A Lost Decade for U.S. Economy, Workers

Common Dreams.org posted an article by The Washington Post, written on Jan. 2 which is titled "Aughts Were a Lost Decade for U.S. Economy, Workers" | CommonDreams.org

Someone in the alleged "liberal media" finally reported on something that I've been pointing to, repeatedly, for years:
The economic expansion after Bush's tax cuts was the worst all around performance of all post WWII expansions.

How is it that conservatives are allowed to repeat things, over and over again, that are demonstrably false, without being challenged?
How many times have we heard conservatives present tax cuts as a magical cure for everything from cancer to hoarseness?

Here's the key point of the article:

"There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well."

This article made some brief news the day it was published but I haven't heard any mention of it since. And even this article doesn't point out the connection between the massive Bush tax cuts and the failure to produce a robust economy. Not only did those tax cuts fail to produce the robust economy the supply-siders promised, but they also contributed to the huge deficits that we are facing. Don't you think that's important news, especially considering that the Republicans base their whole ideological belief system on the idea of the infallibility of tax cuts?

You would expect not to hear a peep about this from the right wing pontificators like Rush Limbag, but what about the rest of the media? What about the "Fair And Balanced" Network, Fox News?
Why haven't I heard Chris Wallace asking any loud mouthed Republican supply-sider to explain what happened?
Wait! I know the answer!
Because Chris Wallace is a very biased conservative who only reports the news that his audience wants to hear, in order to make it fit with what they have already decided the truth is.
And that truth is exactly what their right wing heroes (like Limbag, Hannity and Beck) and their emotional biases tell them it is.

By contrast, the tax rates under Clinton corresponded with the longest, most consistently high and sustained post WWII economic expansion, even though conservatives said his tax hike would cause a recession.
Am I saying that the Clinton and Bush tax rates caused their contemporaneous economic performances?
No. If I did that I would be committing the fallacy of correlation = causation. Notice that I used the word corresponded, not caused. I would have to present more evidence than a mere correlation in order to make that claim. However, right-wing tax-cut fanatics commit that fallacy every time they say things like

"tax cuts always make the economy grow!".

Well, you can only make the claim that, eventually, after a tax cut, the economy always grows, so far.
Because the economy, so far, after recessions, always grows, eventually, whether taxes are cut, raised or left alone. So you can say the same thing about tax hikes. Allow me:

"Tax hikes will always make the economy grow!"...eventually.

Just as tax cuts are always followed by recessions, eventually.
So why aren't they saying "Tax cuts always cause recessions"?

The truth is supply-siders are hard pressed to produce any evidence whatsoever that tax cuts produce extra economic growth.* I first heard this some years ago from an economist who was being interviewed on the radio. This economist had a lot of credibility with me because she supported some of the conservatives' claims and refuted some liberal claims.
But when asked if she agreed with Bush's claims that his tax cuts were responsible for a supposed great growth in the economy, she replied that she couldn't find any evidence for this and that the economy was actually performing below par in almost every area for that stage in the recovery.**
She went on to say that when she studied tax rates she didn't find any evidence of tax rates helping or hurting economic performance. (I have since found strong evidence that supports her findings.) The interviewer didn't ask her to explain why, like I would have, but I would say that it is because all the other economic factors far outweigh any effects that tax rates might have.

Let's not forget that we had economic booms in the 40's and 50's with a top marginal tax rate of 91%!
And you know how conservatives like to brag about the boom that followed Kennedy's tax cuts in the sixties? Yeah, he cut the top marginal rate from 91% to 70% during a recession, and the recession ended like it always does, and it was followed by a boom. That's right, we had a boom with a top marginal tax rate of 70%!

So while I wouldn't say that Clinton's tax rates caused the economic performance of the 90's, I would say that it didn't hurt it. Plus, it did produce a record surplus.

Another thing that the conservatives have loved to point to during the last several years is the lowered tax rate in Ireland and the subsequent "Irish economic miracle".
"They cut their tax rates and it caused the economic boom!" they would assert as a matter of fact while neglecting to control for all the other variables in the economy.

Well guess what? The Irish tax rates were almost identical to the Clinton era tax rates. Except that the top marginal rate was slightly higher and the bottom rate was lower.
So with evidence much less flimsy than what the Republicans offer for tax cuts, the Dems could claim that the Clinton era tax rates found the Laffer Curve.

*I'm talking about personal income taxes here.
** Including job growth, capital investment and GDP growth.