Mythbusters - Remember 2008 When GOP "Hearted" Ireland's Low Tax Policies? DOH!!!

Remember how John McCain and virtually every Republican hailed Ireland as a great example of policies that work? As late as January of this year, Ireland's tax policies were being hailed as a better alternative to the Recovery Act:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_01/016642.php

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REPUBLICANS HEART IRISH TAX RATES.... While pushing back against the economic stimulus plan, Republicans have, of course, been demanding more tax cuts. But what kind of tax cuts are we talking about? Republican Policy Committee Chairman John Ensign, the fourth-ranking Republican in the chamber, argued yesterday:

"You know, we have the second highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. Microsoft, which is a great American company, has zero exports from the United States. They have a lot of exports from Ireland, because, guess what, Ireland has a 12.5 percent corporate tax rate; we have a 35 percent corporate tax rate."

Are we back to this again? John McCain relied on this talking point quite a bit last year. In the first presidential debate, the Republican nominee said: "Right now, the United States of American business pays the second-highest business taxes in the world, 35 percent. Ireland pays 11 percent. Now, if you're a business person, and you can locate any place in the world, then, obviously, if you go to the country where it's 11 percent tax versus 35 percent, you're going to be able to create jobs, increase your business, make more investment, et cetera."

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Well, how has that all worked out? The U.S. unemployment rate has grown to 9.7 percent, but its rate of growth has slowed significantly. However, what about Ireland, the Republican tax utopia? How are things with them? Funny you ask:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ipzZ-ZVFuBCVK810-PpiBUogE45wD9AEGT2G1

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Spain leads European nations with nearly one in five workers without a job — and an unemployment rate of 18.5 percent — as the collapse of a housing boom and a slowing tourist industry cut jobs among two of the country's biggest employers.

Younger Spanish workers are worst affected, with nearly four in ten out of work — or 38.4 percent of under 25-year-olds in the work force.

For euro-zone nations, Ireland follows Spain with unemployment of 12.5 percent, while France has a 9.8 percent rate. Germany posted unemployment of 7.7 percent, according to International Labor Organization standards — one of the lowest increases in the jobless rate over the past year, up from 7.2 percent in July 2009. Germany's own measure of unemployment, which tends to count more people as jobless, stands at 8.3 percent.

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Shoot, if we only followed the advice of Republicans and adopted Ireland's tax policy instead of a stimulus plan.

Once most American businesses take all their deductions they owe far less than the top corporate tax rate. Matter of fact, a large percentage of U.S. businesses pay NO federal taxes at all. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/aug2008/ctax-a15.shtml

The GOP really can't have it both ways. They can't hail Ireland as a tax utopia, but when reality hits the fan, then rely on the VAT. Well, of course they can, but lets just keep the running total on GOP hypocrisy.