Here's a Retort and also a Guide

IF YOU BROWSE The internet enough, you're more than likely to find arguments like:

-The rich take too much of the wealth pie.

-The percentage of "good" jobs is decreasing, so is, therefore, the quality of life in the middle class-- good being defined by the CEPR as: 

• Make at least $18.50 an hour, or $37,000 annually (the median hourly pay in 2010, which means that in 2010, exactly half of all employees made more and half made less than $18.50 an hour).
• Get any employer-sponsored health plan, no matter how paltry, for which the employer pays some portion, no matter how small, of the premium.
• Have an employer-sponsored pension or retirement plan.

    -Romney's tax plan = A rise in taxes for the middle class according to that one Tax Policy Center study.

  Today I ran into all three of these arguments in a single post, and I decided to go ahead and refute them outright. I post it here as well so that A) you can become educated in how to refute such ignorant remarks, B) to hear your criticisms and C) so that if/when it gets deleted by the post's left-wing author, my essay can remain in existence in safety.

Enjoy.

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I’m afraid that your assessment of the studies is fundamentally flawed. There is no “wealth pie”– for this implies the amount of wealth in the world is fixed, when in fact wealth can be created. The process of taking the world’s natural resources and making them more useful for society as a whole is wealth creation, and it happens constantly.

It’s true that of the wealth we create on a daily basis the top 5% get a disproportionally large amount. It’s true that these exceedingly rich people are only getting richer, and it’s also true that the gap between them and the bottom 5% is rising. But that doesn’t mean that anyone is falling- no one is getting poorer. The “rich” simply get richer faster than the “poor” get richer.

The increases in wealth from the richest in society are ultimately to the benefit of all of society’s members. We know from experience that the ultra-rich are exceedingly charitable, and in this way wealth trickles down from the top to the bottom. Furthermore, for the most part, the very reason these people become wealthier is because they provide products that are superior and cheaper to what previously existed, which results in an improved quality of life for people of all income levels.

You say you’d like me to be the judge regarding your data? How about I explain what it actually means:

Nothing.

You’re looking at percentages of jobs acquired by the population, which takes into account more factors than you or I have time to discuss. You’ve shown a correlation- that over time the percentage of jobs held which are “good” decreases- but haven’t the slightest ounce of evidence to prove that anything in particular caused that change. Therefore, you can’t even verify it’s an undesirable thing to occur.

Consider for example that between the time periods of 1980 and 2010 far more young people have chosen to apply for college instead of going directly to a line of work. The jobs people apply for in college are going to be part-time, and therefore less likely to be “good.” College students will likely retain these “bad” jobs for a long portion of their college career, whereas people who enter the workforce immediately would find a “good” job more quickly.

I’m not saying I can verify that college explains the statistics you’ve presented, but it is reasonable to assume that it contributes, even though the increase in education has been beneficial for society in numerous ways (and detrimental only in that it’s been producing more liberals.).

In response to your criticism of Romney’s tax plan, I will take a jab at the “highly reputable” Tax Policy Center. Romney has never proposed raising taxes for anyone, and a closer look reveals: “The study, filling in the gaps, assumed that he would have to eliminate various tax breaks like mortgage-interest deductions that would result in a net tax increase for 95 percent of taxpayers.”

It’s not what Romney *is* going to do- it’s what the “non-partisan” Tax Policy Center *assumes* he *must* do in order for his plan to “work out revenue-neutral.” I would argue that they underestimate the effects of the Laffer Curve in their assumption- tax revenues would rise through tax cuts due to an increase in economic growth- and seeing as it’s impossible to determine exactly how it would come into effect, the study’s ability to throw out exact numbers like “a raise of $546″ is as wrong as it is utterly absurd.

I’m not contesting your sources (for the most part), but your interpretation is irreparably misconstrued.