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Mitt Romney's Strategist: We'd Have Won, Except for That Pesky 47%

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Kragar11/28/2012 4:00:00 pm PST

GOP Senator’s Crazy Reasoning: Raising Taxes On The Rich Would Hit The Poor ‘The Hardest’

Cloaking his predilection for the rich as concern for the less fortunate, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) argued Wednesday that raising taxes on the wealthy would primarily hurt the poor. Lee’s comments came on former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s (R) radio show as the two discussed the looming fiscal showdown in Congress.

“The reason we worry about raising taxes on anyone – even raising taxes on the rich,” Lee argued, is “that will hit the poorest among us the hardest.” Lest listeners get the wrong idea, the Utah Senator insisted, “it’s not that we’re looking out for the rich.”

This prospect, frequently repeated by conservatives, that raising taxes on the wealthy will decimate the economy and destroy job creation (and thus hurt the poor) is simply not supported by empirical evidence. As these three graphs show, the nation’s best GDP growth and job creation rate in the last 60 years actually occurred when the top marginal income tax rate was between 75 and 80 percent. The worst period for both measurements occurred when the top rate was 35 percent, as it stands today. In fact, job growth and gross domestic product has little, if any, correlation to the tax rate on wealthy Americans.