I know, I know, an oxymoron... Seriously, though, I am a registered republican but have always listened to both sides of arguments. One thing I've asked the few democrats I've known is to coherently explain how increasing regulations/ taxes on corporations and raising personal taxes on the "rich" actually creates jobs and makes everyone's lives better. Serious question. It always sounds good politically to say, "vote for me and I'm going to sock it to the rich." But how does that actually increase the take-home pay of someone making $35,000/year? It seems to me that lambasting people who have become economically successful is counter-productive on 2 fronts: 1) it promotes jealousy toward those who have "made it" 2) it creates a feeling of hopelessness, as if to say to people, "you can't do well financially, you'll never make it, you need my help as a democratic politician - so vote for me" I'll never forget when Kerry was debating Bush and Kerry looked out at the audience and said, rather presumptuously, "none of you look like you make $200k/year." He was trying to defend rescinding the Bush tax cuts, thereby promoting an increase, and as usual tried to make the argument that only the "rich" benefit from tax cuts. To me that one little statement spoke volumes and no one in the media seemed to catch it. So in conclusion, my democrat friends, I truly want to understand your point of view, as no one has been able to adequately explain this. Please answer the following: 1) How do tax increases/regulations cause corporations to hire more people at a higher salary? 2) If a tax is in place, is it wrong to ever rescind it? 3) If the minimum wage works, why not raise it to $30/hr? 4) If raising taxes works, why not tax everyone at 80%? How much taxation is too much? There are many other questions, but these will suffice for now. Please, no name calling - intelligent responses only. Thanks.
The budget deficit would go down, the trade deficit would go down as the rich would have less money for imports. If the deficits decrease interest rates could be lower as less need to attract foreign capital. I believe in democracy but would not vot democrat if I was in the us.
ok just21, my counter-argument would be: in the late 70's, we had a 70% top tax rate, but we also had double digit interest rates, high unemployment, and high inflation - in addition to a budget deficit. When taxes were dramatically lowered in the early 80's, inflation went down, unemployment declined, as businessess were able to hire more - interest rates eventually declined as well. Now, the budget deficit went up, but that was due to a Congress that would not cut spending.
1.) DEMOCRAT and democracy have nothing to do with each other. 2.) Explain "how" the deficit would go down, trade deficit would go down, and the rich would have less money for imports. What does "the rich would have less money for imports" mean and exactly what income level are you considering rich.... On that note....what $$$$ level designates "rich". To Kerry it would be a family making more than 80K a year (in many of his arguments, this has been the basis.
"2) If a tax is in place, is it wrong to ever rescind it?" Imo there is usually a special interest that will benefit from the tax. The special interest is threatened. Rather than face the wrath of special interest groups by eliminating the tax, corporate welfare is introduced. This is not a bad thing. Politicians understand to some degree that a tax cost benefit could be repressive. So rather than rescind the tax, a tax reduction incentive is offered.
What I was getting at with the "if a tax is in place, is it ever wrong to rescind it" was that, I always hear democrats saying we can't cut taxes because we're "giving away money to the rich." That has never made sense to me, because money is not being given away, people are just being allowed to keep THEIR money that they earned. It just seems that once the tax is there, democrats demagogue the issue to repeal it, regardless of how repressive it is, citing that "rich" people will benefit, which of course is bad - according to them. This also confirms my belief as to why some prominent liberals seem to admire dictators so much, such as Castro, because the underlying ideology seems to be that your money is not yours to begin with, it belongs to the state; which explains why they refer to tax cuts as "hand outs."
The main reason to resist tax increases and fight for tax cuts has nothing to do with the economy. It has to do with the size of government. History teaches us that Congress will spend something like $1.10 of every new dollar raised in taxes. If they don't spend it today, they will spend it tomorrow by enacting vast entitlement plans whose true costs only become clear in the fullness of time. This is why tax increases never end up shrinking the deficit. It's like giving an alcoholic some spare booze for safe keeping. ZZZ no doubt will say the massive Clinton tax increases lead to a surplus. Do we have a lower or higher deficit today? Congress did what it always does, it spent the surplus plus more.
1) How do tax increases/regulations cause corporations to hire more people at a higher salary? The entire premise of your question is wrong. Taxes are not collected/raised to create jobs, they are collected to pay government expenses - the war in Iraq/Afghanistan, Homeland security, Air Traffic controllers, infrastructure, roads, tunnels, bridges, the military, courts, public education etc... Someone has to pay for all these services and the Democratic argument is that the corporations don't pay their fair share. We can legitimately discuss whether some/many of these services are needed or can be reduced/eliminated but that would be a totally seperatate discussion, right now these services are provided, neither party is campaigning to eliminate them (mostly because the population wants to keep them), the budget deficit is huge and growing and someone will have to pay for it one way or another. Corporations have had it too good for too long, their profits have gone through the roof while the real wages of american workers are lower than they were in 1973, arguably corporations benefit from government services and government contracts far more than individuals so it's both fair and pragmatic to send the bill to them. 2) If a tax is in place, is it wrong to ever rescind it? No, it is not wrong, as soon as the government debt is paid off it's OK to cut taxes. 3) If the minimum wage works, why not raise it to $30/hr? Based on your logic if tax cuts work why don't we cut taxes to zero, even better, why don't we create negative taxes and make the government pay us. If speed limits work why don't we decrease legal speed to 5miles/hr? The point is, minimum wage works because it provides a [relatively] reasonable income to workers without destroying businesses, and those businesses that are wiped out because they have to pay whopping $6hr shouldn't exist in the first place. $30hr minimum wage will certainly destroy most of american businesses. 4) If raising taxes works, why not tax everyone at 80%? How much taxation is too much? The Laffer curve PS I consider myself intelligent enough, I don't consider myself a dem although I usually vote democratic.