Clinton actually lowered the tax rate for the richest.

He became President in 1993

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

It looks like an increase, until you notice it went from 80,000 to 200,000.   Clinton actually made a stealthy tax cut.

Edit:

Just in case you don't understand how this is a tax cut.... tax rates are gradual.

Bill Gates pays as much taxes on his first $20,000 as I do.

By raising the tax rate by $120,000  he saved people a LOT of money... outside of the "ungodly" wealthy.

Also as squirrel mentioned... it really wasn't that big a factor compaired to the bubbles we had.

More jabber?

Businesses always run to maximize profit.  Taxing individuals at that business, be it the wealthy at the top or the poor janitor at the bottom, has absolutely no effect on the amount of labor needed to maximize profit.  All that matters in maximizing profit is benefit verse cost, its that simple.  More taxes on the income of the wealthy is not considered in such a cost because it has no bearing on market demand for the good or service the company produces. 

Lets say we don't tax the wealthy and there is a demand for 100,000 Kia Rio cars.  You could tax the wealthy 90% of their income, but there will still be a demand for 100,000 KIA Rios so the company that makes them will still have to employ the same amount of workers to meet demand. 

You don't seem to be very smart, so I'm suprised you made it through several rounds of layoffs. That being said, companies are laying workers off simply because it is in their best financial intrests to do so.  If you gave the wealthy a tax cut, heck if you gave them a ton of money on top of that, businesses with unnecessary workers will still lay people off.  This should have become painfully obvious as businesses continue to let go of unnecessary workers even during Bush and Obama tax cuts.

While you're wrong, and companies can and will readily cut employees in the face of higher costs and use "productivity gains" to get a very similar quantity of work done by fewer people. In fact, one of the arguments used to push forward healthcare reform was that companies were cutting jobs due to the increased cost of health insurance; and I don't think companies would be willing to cut individuals for health insurance increases and not for tax increases. Anyways, I'll assume that you're strictly talking about increasing income taxes and we will ignore corporate taxes for a moment.

There are two distinct groups that this will target, high income earners in large corporations and small business owners. High income earners in large corporations will have the composition of their income change in ways that lowers their taxable income while maintaining their quality of life; quite often this will be increased stock options or discounted stock prices which change income to capital gains. Small business owners will (most likely) just switch the income they pay themself to dividends the company pays and (once again) pay capital gains rather than income tax.

Increased health insurance costs have an effect on the profitibility of the work force, as the total cost of a worker increases.  Increased tax on wealthy invidividuals has no effect on the profiitibility of the workforce, as their cost stays the same.  Since the cost and production of employees stays the same, there will not be a net change in number of employers needed to maximize profits.

This has been shown to be true time and time again.  It should be obvious to any layman that your economic ideology is flawed as America's economy is the worst it has been in 60 years while taxes are the lowest they have been in 60 years.

Except... taxes aren't the lowest they have been in 60 years? 

They aren't even the lowest they've been in the last 20 years?   They're the lowest they've ever been since 1993.

They were at their lowest in 88-89.   Then taxes started going up... and so did the unemployment rate.

Up until the dot.com and housing bubbles... which is the only time really that unemployment has gone down when government spending has gone up.

When we had two huge artifical bubbles that later blew up in our faces.

During World War II, taxpayers with incomes over $1 million faced a top rate of 94 percent.

Economc Act of 1981, Reagan brought the top tax bracket down to 50 percent.

Tax Reform Act of 1986, Reagan brought the top statutory tax rate down from 50 percent to 28 percent.

http://www.ustreas.gov/education/fact-sheets/taxes/ustax.shtml

Right and?

The Top Tax Bracket right now is like... 35%.  So you know.  Your wrong.

If this is some arguement about the Reagan economy... it was actually one of the stronger economys of the last few decades with the only issue being the wasteful spending against communists.

Look at that big jump in real GDP between 1988-1990.

Higher then even anything Clinton go during the bubbles.

I always learn something interesting reading Kasz talk about economics, and as a lover of science I respect a man with a wealth of references, graphs and hard numbers.

Question for you kasz, what do you read to stay up on economics? Any particular websites or magazines? Also, for somebody wanting to learn a bit more about economics (I have a rudimentary understanding) what books would you recomend? Since you went to school for psychology, clearly you've been reading something to buff up on economics.

And though this is a bit late, in response to your reply several pages back about how psychology was a waste, it's interesting to hear your take on that. I was just reading an article in Harpers a month or two ago talking about that very thing. I think they called it "The dodo bird effect" or something of that nature, It was a reference to an alice in wonderland quote where the dodo bird states "We have all won, and all deserve prizes". It states essentially that any kind of therapy will work as long as the therapist and the patient think it will work, kind of a bizarre placebo effect that requires both patient and therapist to believe they are using a cure. Did they teach that at all in your classes? Apparently it was an old study from the 30s or 40s that had come up with the findings. I would be confused and demotivated if my professor said "It doesn't really matter what you do, just be convincing and have faith...now on to gestahlt psychology!".

No, they don't actually teach that in classes.  It's just something i figured out and discovered based on research I looked at.  

After I was confused when my proffessors uniform answer was "they all work."

As for what kind of Economics stuff I read, honestly I read everything from Krugman to the Cato institute when it comes to articles and books... it was just mostly various economics books.

I used to run a shipping and receiving department at a community college bookstore...

Half the time you'd be slammed, the other half of the time.   When I wasn't busy i'd read the Economic textbooks and economic/buisness trademagazines I could get from the library along with an English novel here or there.

Once you have a good foundation all the numbers are just there to look at.

A lot of the times with things like why the GDP grew already broken down in things like stores increasing invetory etc.

Everything I posted was just stuff I got from google after deciding to compare them.   It let me look at the data and post the information.

Not that taxes high or low are a be all end all solution... but level of taxes seems to be a "valve" on economic growth and unemployment.

The lower taxes are, the more profit likely investors are going to make and therefore makes more people likely to invest, which in turn makes unemployment lower.

You can't even read a graph.  GDP didn't improve in those years, and from this weird graph you googled "electricity use" went up in those years.

I'm starting to think that you are just messing with me, saying stupid stuff just to make me upset.