Are Republicans right do the Rich or the Wealthy create Jobs

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I am honored.

When does my engraved plaque arrive?

Is this like failing Scientology, where if he was enlightened he'd be at a zero and anything prior to that is a -2 or -1?

A history lesson about tax cuts, economic activity, and government revenue.
Trend lines

Great links. I do wish more people would actually look at data instead of just spewing out BS theories.

Its enough to turn anyone's stomach. At least now it should be a bit more apparent where the tea partiers have been coming from all the time (the racism charge doesn't quite hold up against these graphs).

You must not have looked at the history lesson link. Yes, spending is way too high (a lot of that being war bills), but our problems are clearly a two-parter.

"Contrary to what Republicans would have you believe, super-high tax rates on rich people do not appear to hurt the economy or make people lazy: During the 1950s and early 1960s, the top bracket income tax rate was over 90%--and the economy, middle-class, and stock market boomed.

Super-low tax rates on rich people also appear to be correlated with unsustainable sugar highs in the economy--brief, enjoyable booms followed by protracted busts. They also appear to be correlated with very high inequality. (For example, see the 1920s and now)." Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/history- ... z1T8Masiai

The racism (although it's really just bigotry in general) charge comes more from the "Obama is a Kenyan and a Muslim" nonsense. And from the fights against Mosques. And from the disproportionate cuts proposed to services for low-income Americans, who often happen to be minorities. And the fight against reproductive rights for women. And the fight against equal rights for homosexuals.

I'm not asserting that the tea party or Republicans are right on every count, just that really the tea party has been furious with all of Washington as well as their closest to similar party in office.


That's definitely the religious right more than the atheist or secular right.

There are a lot of aspects that really hadn't endured much public scrutiny until now and, if the tax issue is a losing one and the math has done to prove it - that's really it then. However, my biggest thing I side with the Republicans and tea party people on is that the cuts being proposed by the Dems won't have a chance of being enough to get us out, it seems like most of what they've offered so far isn't much over a token gesture. The other thing I get worried about with the 'tax the rich issue' - outside of the matter of principle involved, how much money is there to be made from them? I remember Charles Krauthammer saying something like 60 billion in possible revenues (don't know what the percentage hike or minimum bracket for this was) against 1.6 trillion, if that's the case, if even double that is the case, we're still talking about a pretty small drop in the bucket.

Over the past 4 decades, the role of the wealthy has not been to create jobs, but to move them to low-wage areas of the world. And they have been rewarded handsomely for that. Since Reagan and Thatcher, we have reduced the top tax bracket remarkably, yet we have not ushered in an era of unprecedented prosperity with jobs for all. In fact, the economy kinda sucks.

Let's not forget that the cost of all our recent tax cuts are included in the stimulus spending. The notion that we're going broke because of food stamps and home heating subsidies is total garbage.

From: http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/16/news/ec ... /index.htm
"The tax package passed by Congress has a bigger price tag than any other economic stimulus in history, but not much bang for all of those bucks.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the package has a total price tag of $858 billion, topping both the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which bailed out the nation's banks and automakers, and the $787 billion stimulus signed into law in February 2009.

Okay, some thoughts on that link.




This acknowledges something I think Republicans and Tea Party people are being unfairly derided over.

Many are WILLING to pay more in taxes to solve the mess we are in BUT we ARE NOT WILLING to do so if government doesn't learn to seriously cut it's spending and live within its means. Of late, government hasn't seen a spending bill it doesn't like, and as we are going deeper and deeper into debt, those of us who have disciplined ourselves to live on a budget think it is high time the government did likewise. The whole "digging our heels in the dirt" to resist raising taxes is largely because we see no evidence that government is serious about forcing itself to cut spending on things not absolutely essential to balance the budget.



I think something lost in this debate (and done so deliberately) is the definition of "rich." Obama clearly wants to target anyone making more than $250,000/year/household. I feel confident saying here and now that this is not the definition of "rich" that has always been around. Perhaps if you said an individual who makes over $500,000 in salary/wages or $500,000 in net income from a business venutre is "rich" I could agree with you. If you wanted to say over $1,000,000/year/household is "rich," I could agree with you.

$250,000/year/household is not all that much if you get two low-level professionals who work long hours under one roof. $250,000/year/household will easily sweep up many small businesses if the government is going to count GROSS RECEIPTS and not NET INCOME when deciding how to apply the tax rates. I tell people to not start sole proprietorship or LLCs being taxed as a pass-through entity because you don't want your business finances commingled with your personal finances. It's easier to distinguish your tax rate on NET PROFITS when you keep the business books separated from your private finances.

Obama wants to "tax the 'rich'" but most feel his limits are set way too low. I think he's targeting the upper middle class, and while I can agree most all tax benefits certainly reward the truly "wealthy" people, Obama's proposals will hurt a lot of the very people the economy depends on...the middle class because the bar is set too low.

Even then, raising taxes as an issue of "fairness" is dangerous as I see Obama doing nothing short of class warfare...demonizing a group as a way to get support. It's easy to hate the rich, but not all rich people are deserving of your disdain, and many of them have their wealth by a lot of hard work on their part.

The real ugliness is that the way its done right now its the big mega-corps who have big exceptions and loopholes cut for them while the smaller businesses out there, the ones who are apt to keep their jobs here (or at least are financially unable as of yet) don't get those benefits. They really need to flip the script on that one and start feeding small to mid-sized business rather than feeding the giants. Claims were made that the idea of crunching the top tier down to 25% and then plugging every loophole would be beneficial in this manner, if what's being stated is correct I don't know if the 25% may be too low, however I do like the notion of the small and mid-sized firms being on firmer ground competatively with larger companies rather than having the tax code err against them.


Its a double facepalm - as if everyone decided all of a sudden that FDR was an economic genious, you'd swear this stuff is from his playbook. I'm starting to get the impression as well that it may take several generations of our country being significantly worse off to shake he moral hazard of prosperity that we, Western Europe, the UK, and Aus/NZ are dealing with right now culturally - I really hope people have a quicker and better threshold for personal responsibility that I'm guessing at but, my faith in people's decision making abilities has gone downhill significantly. Apparently people with ties to eastern Europe talk to relatives back home who are shocked pale wondering what the US is doing, even saying to relatives back in the states "Why did you elect a communist?" (I suppose I can't hold them in hyperbole - they've lived under it). They may be on the right track but, if I understand human nature right, all it will take is a few decades of prosperity in their economies before they hit the same problems and start doing all the same things wrong as we are.

Rich folks seem to be doing better than ever these days

http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/ameri ... wboys.html

The owner may be able to hire a few cow-pokes, ranch hands, and maybe a Chinese cook.

Here, we agree, maybe... I've said before that we need a new top bracket for incomes of over $1 million. I still want to roll back the Bush/Obama tax cuts, but I also want the "truly rich" taxed at an extra 2% on the AMT.


Do you have any published source for the bolded part, or did that come from some unsourced right wing email? All I've seen in print from European socialists is that they consider Obama center-right, or centre-right, if they're English socialists.


The Economist Food Stamps, the struggle to eat

Its not socialists talking. As far as I understand it a lot of old Eastern bloc nations, after liberation, went pretty far to the right. The specific example was a call in on a talk show from a Bosnian-American in Ann Arbor referring to Bosnians back home. Could it be a fanciful neocon fabrication? I guess I can't rule that out on any talk show from any side of the political spectrum but its kind of an odd lie to tell when its something you can check out pretty easily in a lot of ways and this would be far from the first time that I've heard of people from former Eastern bloc nations speaking strongly on things like this.

Since we are all screwed regardless might as well tax the wealthy so the unemployed don't have to eat worms and live in drainage culverts.

Ah, so you've got post-Apocalyptic visions.

I have a feeling that under President Hu Jintao we won't be quite that bad off, though we'd need to get used to perhaps rice three times a day and chain gangs being the safety net for the unemployed (which hey, that could do wonders for our obesity epidemic!).