Even fiscal conservatives agree: Bush tax cuts were 'good for nothing.'

Myths and misinformation from both parties perpetuate the belief that the tax cuts helped. They didn't.

Over on the Fiscal Times, check out two recent columns on the Bush tax cuts written by experts considered to be fiscal conservatives.

Today Bruce Bartlett says the Bush tax cuts “had little positive impact” on the economy:

The truth is that there is virtually no evidence in support of the Bush tax cuts as an economic elixir. To the extent that they had any positive effect on growth, it was very, very modest. Their main effect was simply to reduce the government’s revenue, thereby increasing the budget deficit, which all Republicans claim to abhor.

And a couple days ago (also from the Fiscal Times), the Tax Foundation’s Gerald Prante and Bill Ahern wrote about “five myths about the Bush tax cuts” (a slightly different set of “five myths” from Bill Gale’s Washington Post piece–so that makes at least ten now!), pointing out that the myths abound from both parties and even on a bipartisan basis in terms of the worst ones! This is yet another reason why the Bush tax cuts, and continuing them as the new (but really just “reheated”) Obama tax cuts would be bad for our country: these myths and misinformation would be perpetuated along with these far-from-wonderful tax cuts.

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