I find the current economy doing pretty well, minus the sub-prime mortgages part, but other than that its pretty good.

Unlike the late 1990s where we had a boon based on the dot-coms, this boon seems to have been rallied by the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Those tax cuts lowered the top rates and thus gave a ‘tax cut to the rich’ and gave us a 95.6% employment rate.

Yet during that time revenues to the government have increased faster than ever in modern history. Granted the Republican congress, who historially has been fiscially responsible, actually spent it faster than it came in.

A Keyneian economist would probably note that all the expenditures by the government right now (alot of pork-barrel spending, war spending, entitlement spending), futher stimulates the economy.

So my question is, why raise taxes if it only slows the economy, reduces revenue to the government, and increases unemployment?

Are all those issues less important than the notion of ’sticking it to the rich’?