Republicans this week filibustered a Democratic plan to extend a soon-to-expire payroll tax cut, objecting to the fact that the extension was paid for by implementing a small surtax on income in excess of $1 million. To justify their objection to taxing the wealthy, Republicans have revived their false claim that taxing the rich amounts to taxing small business owners and job creators.

Bloomberg’s Al Hunt asked Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) — who represented the GOP on the fiscal supercommittee that failed to craft a deficit reduction package — to explain this viewpoint, considering that more jobs were created under the Clinton administration and its higher taxes on the rich than were created following the Bush tax cuts. Upton admitted that “I don’t know specifically the answer to that question,” nonsensically pointing to Friday’s jobs report instead of trying to argue the premise of Hunt’s question:

HUNT: Why under those pre-Bush tax cut tax rates did the economy do so well in the ‘90s? And why under the Bush tax rates, less for the wealthy, to do so poorly in this decade?

UPTON: Well, a couple things. One, spending went up, Al, the wars. I mean, that’s trillions of dollars. And also there was no change in the entitlements. And we also know -

HUNT: But that shouldn’t hurt the economy. That shouldn’t hurt economic growth.

UPTON: Yeah, but that impacts the debt and the deficit.

HUNT: But I’m asking, why did the economy grow a lot? Why were more jobs created in the previous decade under higher taxes than in this decade under lower taxes?

UPTON: I don’t know specifically the answer to that question. I can – I can maybe merit a guess. But, I mean, in large part is because our job – we lost jobs. I mean, look at the jobs report that came out this last week, three-hundred- some-thousand people actually stopped looking for jobs.

Watch it:

As Center for American Progress Director of Tax and Budget Policy Michael Linden found, “in the past 60 years, job growth has actually been greater in years when the top income tax rate was much higher than it is now.” In fact, “if you ranked each year since 1950 by overall job growth, the top five years would all boast marginal tax rates at 70 percent or higher.” The GOP, as Upton displays, simply has no explanation for these facts.

In a Bloomberg op-ed, wealthy investor Nick Hanauer also blew a hole in the GOP’s line of thinking, writing, “I can start a business based on a great idea, and initially hire dozens or hundreds of people. But if no one can afford to buy what I have to sell, my business will soon fail and all those jobs will evaporate. That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs.” The GOP would do well to take note.

2012 GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has been pinning his campaign to his economic record, claiming that his time as an investment executive gives him the necessary experience to boost the nation’s moribund job creation.

“I think to create jobs it helps to have had a job. I have,” Romney constantly says, adding “I spent my career in the private sector. I think that’s what the country needs right now.”

When Romney mentions his private sector experience, he’s referencing his time with Bain Capital, the private equity firm that earned Romney his millions. Bain’s model for creating profit was to buy up companies and, as the Los Angeles Times put it yesterday, maximize profits “by firing workers, seeking government subsidies, and flipping companies quickly for large profits.” In fact, one of Romney’s former partners at the firm said that he never saw his role as that of a job creator, undermining one of Romney’s top selling points:

Bain managers said their mission was clear. “I never thought of what I do for a living as job creation,” said Marc B. Walpow, a former managing partner at Bain who worked closely with Romney for nine years before forming his own firm. “The primary goal of private equity is to create wealth for your investors.”

Plenty of the former employees of companies that Bain bought would certainly agree with that assessment. For instance, Bain Capital formed GS Industries by snapping up steel companies. GSI went bankrupt, and “more than 700 workers were fired, losing not only their jobs but health insurance, severance and a chunk of their pension benefits. GSI retirees also lost their health insurance and other benefits.” However, “Bain partners received about $50 million on their initial investment, a 100% gain.”

Over the years, Bain caused several corporate bankruptcies and thousands of layoffs, enriching investors at the expense of workers at firms like American Pad & Paper, Dade International, and LIVE Entertainment. And while Romney is trying to spin this record into something giving him job creation expertise, even his former colleagues are evidently not buying it.