EVIDENCE AGAINST 2 3 MAJOR TENETS OF ECONOMIC CONSERVATISM

(1) Conservatives always say that higher taxes reduce or eliminate job growth but California is a counter-example:

David Cay Johnston: State’s job growth defies predictions after tax increases
By David Cay Johnston
Special to The Bee
Published: Sunday, Jul. 20, 2014 - 12:00 am
Last Modified: Sunday, Jul. 20, 2014 - 3:08 pm

Dire predictions about jobs being destroyed spread across California in 2012 as voters debated whether to enact the sales and, for those near the top of the income ladder, stiff income tax increases in Proposition 30. Million-dollar-plus earners face a 3 percentage-point increase on each additional dollar.
“It hurts small business and kills jobs,” warned the Sacramento Taxpayers Association, the National Federation of Independent Business/California, and Joel Fox, president of the Small Business Action Committee.
So what happened after voters approved the tax increases, which took effect at the start of 2013?
Last year California added 410,418 jobs, an increase of 2.8 percent over 2012, significantly better than the 1.8 percent national increase in jobs.
California is home to 12 percent of Americans, but last year it accounted for 17.5 percent of new jobs, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.

(2) Conservatives always say the cutting taxes will promote revenue growth & jobs but Kansas is a great counter-example:

Conservatives Have Free Reign In Kansas. It’s Failing.
Oliver Willis on May 07, 2014
THE DAILY BANTER

Brownback and his buddies have enacted all manner of conservative economic policy in the state. Cutting taxes, etcetera. What is the result? Guess.

Citing a sluggish recovery from the recession, risk inherent in the governor’s tax plan and uncertainty over the Legislature’s ability to keep cutting spending, one of the nation’s two major debt rating agencies downgraded Kansas’ credit rating Thursday.
Moody’s Investors Service dropped Kansas from its second-highest bond rating, Aa1, to its third highest, Aa2. The Kansas Department of Transportation also took the same downgrade.

As Businesweek explained, “the immediate effect has been to blow a hole in the state’s finances without noticeable economic growth.”

UPDATE: Make that 3 tenets (h/t Digby) -

New Data Show Faster Job Growth in States With Higher Minimum Wage
Sam Frizell @Sam_Frizell
July 19, 2014
TIME

State-by-state hiring data released Friday by the Labor Department reveal that in the 13 states that boosted minimum wages at the beginning of this year, the number of jobs grew an average of 0.85 percent from January to June. The average in the other 37 states was 0.61 percent, the Associated Press reports.