Thread by @fawfulfan

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches The problem is that Republican economic theory doesn't acknowledge wages *need* to grow.

Their thinking is, if you cut taxes on the rich, they invest and produce more, supply rises, and purchasing power rises with it so the poor are no longer poor with the same amount of money.

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches In practice, that hasn't worked. Several core living expenses, like food, health care, housing, and education, have either extreme price inelasticity or suffer market distortion when the economy is overcapitalized. So purchasing power hasn't gone up with supply like GOP promised.

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches The solution is not — like first Reagan, then Bush, and now Trump is doing — to just keep slashing rates on the rich and hope the flood of capital produces cheap abundance in every industry so people can afford everything without the govt.

3 times we tried it. 3 times it failed.

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches The solution is to identify which specific industries are not allocating the social optimum of goods and services — from housing in California to health care and education in Texas — ask why that market isn't working, and figure out a targeted public policy solution for each.

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches In some industries, the answer might be to just properly enforce antitrust. In others, like labor markets, we ought to do away with laws that have artificially restricted collective bargaining. In others, like health care and education, subsidies and price controls are needed.

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches What we MUST do away with, however, is the reflexive stance the GOP has held since Reagan, that the state is singlehandedly responsible for every market failure in every industry and that more and cheaper private capital is the antidote to everything.

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches I'm not necessarily saying that a tax cut and capital stimulus approach is wrong in every industry and in every economic scenario. Of course it isn't. But the burden of proof should be on its proponents just like it is on advocates of regulation and higher taxes.

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches And I'm also saying that blindly cutting taxes and boosting capital spending has its own dangerous consequences.

When wealth is too concentrated, monopolies form, rent seeking starts, and the political power of billionaires starts dictating public policy and market decisions.

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches Amazon is a key example. Low regs and taxes let one corporation grow so big that when they open a new HQ, they can force cities to hold a "contest" to cut the most taxes, starving localities of funds for schools, infrastructure, police, and fire.

How's that a functioning market?

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches When Jeff Bezos says he's going to spend the enormous capital that our tax code has let him retain on space travel, while people in his own city can't afford rent or health care, that should tell you in a nutshell why supply side stimulus isn't working like Republicans said.

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches Here's the problem.

Yeah, we're producing a lot of stuff, and yeah, most people can get a job producing all that stuff if they want to.

But Republicans have lost sight of the fact that the end goal is supposed to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches How do you have the right to life without affordable health care and housing?

How do you have the right to the pursuit of happiness without affordable education and child care?

And do you really have liberty when there are only 3 large employers and no right to bargain?

@tcddoyle @Amyloukingery @WhstleBritches Republicanism is an ideology that trusts private, unelected billionaires to invest in the people's needs.

That's why I'm not a Republican. That's why I'm not impressed that GDP and unemployment are still doing well under Trump.

Because Trump has missed the point of government.