Posted on 09/09/2010 2:13:07 PM PDT by Signalman
Let's cut the baloney about jobs and rich people's taxes. If corporate profits automatically turned into jobs for the little folk, the unemployment rate would be plummeting.
It happens that company earnings now exceed their lofty peaks of the housing boom. And big-business balance sheets are sloshing in cash. Corporate America's decision to stick with its current workforce is not for a lack of dough.
Companies don't create jobs because they have extra money jingling in their pockets. They take on new workers when they want to expand, and right now the demand's not there to warrant that growth. Corporations are in the business of maximizing profits for the benefit of their managers and shareholders. They're not in the business of creating jobs, nor should we expect them to be.
And so how should we respond to Republican claims that restoring Clinton-era income tax rates for the wealthiest 2 percent would destroy jobs? We shouldn't. They are irrelevant.
An employment policy based on further enriching the richest Americans -- who may or may not spend their wealth on job-creating ventures -- is like trying to feed chickens in the barnyard by dropping feed from an airplane. It's far more logical to focus tax cuts on activities that are likely to expand American business.
That's why President Obama's proposal to make the research and development tax credit permanent -- something many Republicans have advocated -- makes more sense. It would give companies an incentive to spend their money on their businesses.
But to politically sell this fixation on keeping rich people's taxes low, Republicans must convince wage-earners that their jobs depend on enlarging a few personal fortunes. Thus, Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio characterizes the Obama plan to let George W. Bush's tax cuts for the top brackets expire as "job-killing tax hikes."
Republicans made similar hysterical warnings when Bill Clinton proposed raising taxes for the richest 1 percent early in his administration.
"This is really the Dr. Kevorkian plan for our economy," Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., said in May 1993. "It will kill jobs, kill business and, yes, kill even the higher tax revenues that these suicidal tax increasers hope to gain."
It didn't quite turn out that way. America gained a net 21 million jobs during Clinton's two terms (against only 3 million during Bush's). Business investment was higher in the Clinton years. The economy grew more, as did tax revenues, and Clinton ended his presidency with a budget surplus. Even the rich got richer under Clinton, but most people didn't seem to mind because everyone else was doing better, too.
For years, the right has cultivated an air of servility in a fearful workforce. I want to know what magic potion Republicans use to make so many Americans assume that they are wards of the rich.
Employers generally don't take on workers as a charitable gesture. They may be splendid human beings, but they hire you in the belief that your sweat will contribute to the business's bottom line. The employer's need for your labor and your desire for a paycheck makes for a mutually beneficial relationship. But it is not a one-way street.
Americans generally don't like class warfare. Labeling any tax increase for upper incomes as such is a time-honored way to bully the public into silence. Actually, it's not too much to ask the top sliver -- whose wealth is running away from that of even ordinary millionaires -- to do more to contain our soaring deficits.
If the rich get richer from a recovering economy, and they will, then good for them. But they're now owed tax cuts besides.
People should remember that the ‘rich’ have sacrificed a large part of their lives and free time to succeed. If someone makes that much out of hard work (acting excluded), it’s theirs and their right to spend how they will.
I could almost read this article without getting totally pissed. However, this is stupid. Does the author not realize that keeping tax cuts in place is better for demand than raising them?
Well we have had the Bush tax cuts while all the jobs were created in other countries. Just check what you buy and see where the jobs went. Demand is down, because income is down, because jobs are down, because jobs are exported. And tax cuts won't bring them back because tax rates did not send jobs overseas.
Even if you considered all federal taxes, the top 1% paid 28.1% of them in 2007, up from 15.4% in 1979.
But wait! (you say) The top 1% have a larger share of the total pre-tax income. Yes, they do. It was 19.4% in 2007.
So, in 2007, the top 1% collected 19.4% of total income, but paid 39.5% of total individual federal income taxes. So, they are paying twice their share of individual income tax for their every share of income.
Still think they aren't paying their fair share?
Hey Froma!
Did you Fail Econ 101 or just never enroll?
Unless the “rich” are burying their money in the yard, or giving it to Obama, that money creates jobs!
They buy, they build, they hire, they consume, or they invest so that other’s have access to that capital to buy, build, hire, or consume.
Each of those activities CREATES JOBS!!!!
Just because this solid economic model, called “the multiplier effect”, has been lost on liberals, doesn’t mean its’ not real!
I never got a job from a poor man. Poor men don’t hire people to work on their homes.
Trying to balance the budget by increasing taxes on "the rich" without, at the same time, cutting government spending will have the following effects on the economy as a whole:
1)slow down or decrease amount of saving
2)slow down or decrease productive expenditure
3) decrease capital accumulation or slow down the rate of increase in capital accumulation
4) slow down economic progress
5) decrease costs of doing business
6) increase oppression/tyranny
7) by slowing down economic progress, it hurts those whom he is pretending to care about (the "non-rich").
Raising taxes on “the rich” deprives them of funds that could be used to pay wages, which decreases the demand for labor. A decrease in the demand for labor tends to slow down the rise in average wage rates or decrease them. A decrease in the demand for labor also tends to slow down a rise in the employment rate in the private sector or decrease it. Both of these are bad for the “non-rich”. Thus, again, progressives end up hurting those whom they say they are trying to help. It appears that progressives are really filled with envy induced resentment against achievement which motivates them to want to attack and punish the rich rather than help the non-rich.
But, even if raising taxes on “the rich” could increase the government payroll, and increase the demand for labor by the government, and during a time of unemployment, raise the employment rate in the public sector, the negative side effects of the increased taxation would still be much worse:
1) slow down or decrease savings
2) slow down or decrease relative demand for capital goods
3) slow down or decrease in relative production in capital goods
4) slow down or decrease accumulation of capital
5) slow down or decrease productivity of labor
6) slow down or decrease incentive to improve products and methods of production
7) slow down or decrease in productivity of capital goods
8)reduction in the wage "share" of national income which reduces real wages
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