Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

longest period of economic growth in American history. Also, bolstered by the U.S, most of
the world experienced an economic boom.
It's taken as gospel by conservatives that everyone will work harder when they're paying
a 33 percent marginal tax rate than when they are paying a 39.6 percent rate. I heard Rush
Limbaugh make a point that attempted to illustrate their logic. He said that if we taxed people
at a 100 percent marginal rate, the government would get no revenue because no one would
work. And, for once, I had to agree with him. I think the marginal tax rate should be somewhere
between zero and 100 percent.
Bush made a point that I didn't find quite as compelling in his acceptance speech at
the 2000 Republican convention, the same speech in which he lied about the army divisions
not being ready for duty. He said, "On principle, no one in America should have to pay more
than a third of their income to the federal government."
The crowd went nuts.
It struck me as odd that there would exist on principle such a specific number for the
optimum top marginal rate. And that this principle would somehow apply to every economic
circumstance. I also thought it was lucky for Bush that this specific number was one third,
rather than a messier or more complicated fraction. What if the Heritage Foundation had determined
that the perfect top marginal rate was something slightly smaller than one third?
Would Bush have gotten as rousing a cheer if he had said, "On principle, no one in America
should have to pay more than nine twenty-ninths of their income to the federal government!"?
Or worse, what if the optimum marginal rate were an irrational number, which cannot
be expressed as a fraction?' How many digits beyond the decimal point would Bush have
been willing to go?
No. I think the one third was actually kind of arbitrary. Also, I think people were
cheering—not because of the principle of the thing—but because of the extra money they
knew they'd be getting if Bush won.
Someone who seems to buy heavily into the supply-side ethos is my friend Bill
O'Reilly. On his January 14, 2003, Factor, O'Reilly explained, in his typically modest way,
how an increase in income taxes would cause him to fire several of his employees. The explanation
came in his Talking Points Memo segment of the show.
As far as the economy is concerned, "Points" continues to believe that putting
more money back into the hands of Americans who earn it will help private enter-