A Taxing Matter

Taxing the rich brings down the economy. This is the constant litany of the Republicans and the reason, according to them, that the Democrats always fail at managing the economy (which is another lie). Are we living in the same world, the majority of us and the Republicans? Go to any website that has data on rich nations, nations with best quality of life, etc. The US is always somewhere in the mix for the top ten or 15, but there are always at least two countries, no matter what the measure of wealth or quality of life, that are ahead of us: Switzerland and Luxembourg. Both these countries have higher tax rates that we do. And, whenever there are other countries ahead of us, they also have higher tax rates than we do.

In fact. Paying taxes has a better return in benefit than does the alternative that the Republicans suggest. What they suggest is that lower taxes gives the rich the ability to develop and invest capital in the private sector which improves the economy and creates job and prosperity. So, they would suggest you give your money to any of the strongest companies on Wall Street. Recently, let me see, how many new jobs has that created, what great economic boom that has supported, what stability that has created for the average citizen of the world, how many people have been able to retire because Citicorp, GM, AIG and Bank of America have been producing capital for reinvestment in the economy to creat more jobs, more prosperity?

Let's say that the stimulus bill only creates 3 million jobs, not 4 and that these folks who are working make an average of $40,000 a year. These folks will spend all they have for home, care, food, clothing, education, vacation amounting to a $120 billion dollar investment in the economy which when turned over, locally, will create even more jobs, more investment in the economy, not to mention that education will improve, health care will get cheaper and more peopel with access to it, and the nation will get a new growth industry - altermative energy. Meanwhile, AIG lost $60 billion in just the last three months aned Gm is in the midst of laying off thousands. Where do you want to invest?

In fact, when President Obama was arguing, for the sake of attracting the Republican vote, that most of the stimulus would go to the private sector, it frightened me. Who wants to invest in the private sector, isn't that what is killing us. You can't rely on the market. Who wants a market. I want a job. And, I want my pension fund back. The government didn't take it away, the private sector did.

Paying taxes is the best investment around!!!!