The Congressional Research Service has withdrawn an economic report that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth after Senate Republicans — including the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell — raised a litany of concerns with the paper’s findings and wording. The decision, made in late September against the advice of the agency’s economic team leadership, drew almost no notice at the time.
Those on the Right often have a very different view of the truth. Don’t like it? Find it inconvenient? No worries, you can probably change it into something more agreeable. If that’s not possible, you can probably make it disappear altogether. Hey, it’s what Mitch McConnell did when the Congressional Research Service had the temerity to release a report that concluded that 60 years of reduced tax rates did not boost the economy. Concentrate the wealth at the top of the economic food chain? Without a doubt. Boost the economy and overall prosperity? Not so much.
The report was no small development. After all, as David Leonhardt noted when it was published, the CRS analysis undermines a “defining economic policy” of modern Republican thought. Indeed, the entire Romney/Ryan economic plan is predicated on the assumption that supply-side theory works, and here was the CRS saying it doesn’t.
And so McConnell pitched a hissy fit sufficient to disappear the report. Inconvenient truth gone. Don’t you wish all of life’s painful realities could be made to vanish with such ease?
That’s the beautiful thing about being a Republican, eh?
Thomas Hungerford, the CRS researcher who produced the report, told HuffPost that he stands by it. “Basically, the decision to take it down, I think The New York Times article basically got it right, that it was pressure from the Senate minority to take it down,” Hungerford said. “CRS reports go through many layers of review before they’re issued and as far as the tone and the conclusions go, people who specifically look at the writing and the tone said it was okay. So it’s not going to be that and as I can tell you outright, I stand by the report and the analysis in the report.”
Hungerford said that he had never experienced suppression like this before….
CRS, which is essentially Congress’ think tank, is actually the gold standard when it comes to nonpartisan reporting…and that’s saying a lot in Washington, where ordering cocktails can be a partisan act. All the CRS researchers care about is truth and providing Congress with the most accurate information available. Unfortunately, the truth very often doesn’t fit a narrow political agenda, which would account for why Sen. McConnell had his panties in a wad.
When we elect people who despise any truth that happens not to mesh with their political agenda, we’re well on our way to becoming an idiocracy…and we deserve it. If we can’t see our way clear to elect people who recognize and acknowledge truth for what it is, it won’t be long before the greatness we claim for ourselves, the “American Exceptionalism” that Republicans love to flog, becomes a running joke beyond our borders.
By the way, Sen. McConnell may have disappeared the report, but not before Democrats liberated it. You can read it here.
