2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Printed in Des Moines Register: Our caucus: Debaters agree on one thing -- Sanders [View all]dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)If you're speaking of growth as measured by GDP, it's a statistic which has almost nothing to do with the well-being of citizens.
We had a once in a lifetime tech boom as we (a few of us actually) built out the internet, Clinton went along with Republicans to deregulate the financial industry creating a massive bubble economy that famously and disastrously burst, and the average non-tech worker didn't fare so well in those times. Clinton's full embrace of globalization and NAFTA helped corporate profits at the expense of U.S. workers. Greenspan called Clinton the best Republican president of recent times, or some such.
Directly to the point of this discussion, the low top tax rate allowed profit to be extracted rather than reinvested. Workers' lives were ruined, the ownership class made out like bandits, massive private fortunes were accrued which are now used to buy politicians and manipulate public opinion against such ideas as returning to a high marginal tax rate, which would incentivize reinvesting in the company rather than building vast wealth for a few.