I couldn't let go of the remote control last weekend. I kept flicking back and forth between C-SPAN, MSNBC, and CNN trying to get some answers.

Do tax cuts really stimulate the economy and create jobs?

The theory that reducing taxes on the wealthiest Americans creates jobs because they spend more and invest more has more holes than Swiss cheese.

Yet it's become the battle cry for many Republicans. Extend the Bush tax cuts, and we'll all be fine.

I'm not picking on Republicans, because who doesn't want to see the economy humming again? And paying less in taxes sounds painless to me.

But there's nothing reassuring in what some Republicans are suggesting.

House Minority Leader John Boehner's advice: extend the Bush tax cuts on everybody, including the wealthy, and let the economy run its course.

And Senator Mitch McConnell had this to say in July: "There's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts diminished revenue."

Both are terribly wrong.

Most economists are advising against extending the Bush tax cuts, at least on the wealthy.

Why? Because they didn't create the jobs Bush said they would, and they will add about $3 trillion to the national debt by 2020.

And a look back at history debunks the fabled benefit of tax cuts.

Former President Bill Clinton raised taxes and millions of jobs were created, the most of any post-World War II period.

And the Congressional Budget Office issued a report way back in 2005 dispelling the myth that runaway domestic spending was causing the national debt to balloon.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=966

Sorry, folks; it was the cost of the Bush tax cuts and spending on Homeland Security and defense that turned the surplus from the Clinton years into red ink.

The immediate challenge is unemployment, and it looks like Democrats are going to take the brunt of voter anger over it in November.

The economy is producing jobs, but after months of losing hundreds of thousands of jobs, the imbalance is formidable.

We have to replace the jobs lost and add new ones for workers entering the workforce before the US economy rebounds. That's going to take years under even the best scenario.

And it was the answer I didn't want to hear.