Ayn Rand acolyte Rep. Paul Ryan tells a whopper about ‘economic mobility’

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In a speech before the conservative Heritage Foundation on Wednesday, Republican budget guru and Ayn Rand acolyte Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin (who looks just like Eddie Munster) rejected the notion that wealthier Americans should pay higher taxes to sustain or broaden a social safety net for poor and middle class workers and retirees, i.e., the social contract of the New Deal.

Instead, Ryan argued, policy should be geared toward allowing high earners to grow the economy, i.e., the failed and entirely discredited faith based supply-side "trickle down" GOP economics that has been destroying this country for the past 30 years.

Ryan argued that "trickle down" economics facilitates upward mobility for the working class. Hold on there, Ayn Rand. CHART OF THE DAY: Paul Ryan Wrong About Upwardly Mobile America | TPMDC:

“We are an upwardly mobile society with a lot of income movement between income groups,” he argued. “Telling Americans that they’re stuck in their current station in life, that they’re a victim of circumstances beyond their control, and that the government’s role is to help them cope with it — that’s not who we are, that’s not what we do.”

[This is a strawman argument. No one says this to my knowledge.]

That is what they do in class-riven Europe, he said, where “Top-heavy welfare states have replaced the traditional aristocracies, and masses of the long-term unemployed are locked into the new lower class. The United States was destined to break out of this bleak history.”

[Class-riven European societies long predate the "welfare states" of post-war Europe. His cause and effect argument is like comparing Herman Cain's "apples and oranges."]

Turns out that is — not true. [You're shocked, I'm sure.]

There is a lot of data available on this issue, but the clearest chart comes courtesy of the Economic Mobility Project, which looked at the correlation between parent and child income in various countries. Turns out in America, you’re more likely to stay rich if born rich, and stay poor if born poor, than you are in most European countries.

“Most studies find that, in America, about half of the advantages of having a parent with a high income are passed on to the next generation,” their report concludes. “This means that one of the biggest predictors of an American child’s future economic success — the identity and characteristics of his or her parents — is predetermined and outside that child’s control. To be sure, the apple can fall far from the tree and often does in individual cases, but relative to other factors, the tree dominates the picture. These findings are more striking when put in comparative context. There is little available evidence that the United States has more relative mobility than other advanced nations. If anything, the data seem to suggest the opposite.”

You can read their entire report below.

Economic Mobility