Furthermore, when Bush pushed through massive tax cuts (mostly benefitting the wealthy), a questionably irresponsible move during a two-front war, the MSM remained lambent, giddy, following the Fed and the rest of the government into sheer folly.

Um, and it was about 2008, given public sentiment regarding both wars (and the collapse of the Global economy) that the MSM realized that, maybe, it was time to change its tune.

Having shifted to being shamelessly pro-Obama (at least for awhile), the MSM hasn’t appeared to learn anything. Likewise, the “taxes bad, free markets good” nitwits. Travel a few hours east, to the hub of wingnuttia and you get this:

“This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

“More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

“The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

“Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

“Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

“City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won’t pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.”

This is your future, folks, as you maintain that taxation stifles growth and prosperity. In fact, that contention seems to be contradicted by reality.

At 26.1 percent, the U.S. pays less tax than any other industrialized nation but Japan (25.8 percent). Sweden is at 50.2 percent, the UK is at 35.8 percent and Spain is at 35.5 percent.

Interestingly enough, all three of those countries had higher growth — average per capita growth — between 1995 and 2005: 2.5, 2.4 and 3.1 percent, respectively, compared to 2.1 percent in the US and a dismal 1 percent in Japan.

Ah, but our corporate tax rate is the highest in the world, you say.

Wrong again. While the nominal tax rate is 35 percent for corporations (and among the highest rates for industrialized nations), after loopholes, the real tax rate is 18 percent — one of the lowest in the world.

It’s not the tax rate that is inhibiting investment in the US, it’s the fact that we’ve become a crappy country to live in. In 30 years, we’ve fallen from No. 1 to No. 13.

Of the 12 above us, all offer universal healthcare, childcare and workforce housing (along with awesome mass-transportation). No sweating about medical bills, how the kids will be taken care of or if you’ll end up paying six grand for a DUI charge.

It’s not taxes that depress economic growth (my investments in Vesta, a Swedish company — with it’s country’s 50 percent tax rate — which makes most of the world’s wind turbines, have grown 110 percent since my initial investment), it is, as has been stated on these pages, a lack of adequate infrastructure: healthcare, childcare, affordable housing, mass transportation, broadband (free and not capped at 20 mbps but available at 80 mbps) and a good quality of life, across all socio-economic levels.

If your Cato Institute numbers contradict my own, I’d love to see them. In the meantime, remind me how well Colorado Springs is doing and how well it is to be there right now.

I expect to hear crickets.