Mitt Romney Tells Employers to Intimidate Employees

Mitt Romney, on a conference call, tells employers to tell their employees how they should vote:

[video=youtube;I5fOKRMG9g0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5fOKRMG9g0[/video]

 

American businesses (job creators) in general don't have a great deal of respect for Obama. I'm certain they don't want Romney to win just for the fun of it, rather, they think their business will grow and prosper under Romney. In that YouTube video it gave one example. The CEO of Westgate Resorts said, "If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone." For the CEO, he may just be stating what he believes to be fact. The CEO won't know how his employees voted. A private citizens vote is not public. However, I have paid attention to the fact that businesses tend to look at Obama as a hindrance to success. That's important to me, as I would like to see a prosperous economy with plentiful jobs. I thought this article was interesting as well > If Romney Wins, Wealthy Will Spend, Invest More: Poll. An excerpt, "...In other words, business leaders say they are about twice as likely to spend and invest (which would create jobs) under Romney than Obama..."

 

Righttttttt, the email he sent out was meant to intimidate people....

Wow.....

 

Rebecca: That claim and that poll are all part of the GOP/ low tax rate team/ political nonsense koolaid.

It does not work that way.

A couple of examples of different types:

During the bulk of the 1990's the marginal fed tax rate on highest income was 39.6%. During the 2000's, after the Bush tax cuts the marginal fed tax rate on highest income was 35%. The maximum marginal rate on taxes for "job creators dropped by 10%.

During the 1990's about 20 million jobs were created in the US. During the 2000's about 5 million jobs were created.

Did NOT work. What happened?

People do not hire because their individual tax rate was slashed. They hire because new employees might enable the business to earn more money, meet demand better, create new demand and overall business income might increase.

Might, might might. Nothing is guaranteed.

Take a rich guy who owns a business having income after tax deductions and credits of about $400,000/year. That $400,000 is subject to the max tax rate.
At $400,000 you are just above the last highest tax bracket.
At $400,000 you are very close to what I believe is the 1% rate...the highest incomes in the country. I think its in the $500,000/year range.

If you are a business owner and apply your personal income to that of your business....you are a fortunate person with regard to taxes. Your business can be used to pay for enormous volumes of things that you might use for yourself at home. You have more tax breaks than anyone else. You can buy supplies for the business from anywhere...have the business pay for it...and you take some of it, or most of it, or all of it home. hell...the business might be paying for your toilet paper, soap, dinner ware, food, newspapers, mobile phone, auto expenses, possibly clothes, trips, etc etc etc.

Instead of paying for it out of your own pocket...after taxes...like the majority of the country...your business pays for it...before taxes.

Let me tell you. THAT IS SWEET!!!!

Then after all that stuff and various deductions or credits you have $400,000 in income subject to the fed tax rate.

Today at a 35% max tax rate....You have to send $140,000 to Washington DC. They end up doing with it what they want. Hey. I can tell you something...unless you are a diva or a whacko you do not spend $140,000 of your hard earned money on any other one thing. It is a LOT. No doubt.

Suppose, per the Romney/Ryan plan your marginal max rate dropped to 28% per their plan. That means you would send $112,000 to DC for the Feds to gobble up your money.

You, (mr or mrs or ms) business owner now have an extra $28,000. Whoopie Doo!!!! What are you going to do with that money?

Are you going to hire an American worker with that extra loot? Hey...$28,000 doesn't go far for a full time American worker. They may not be that great. On top of that you can't pay them the full $28,000 in wages. you, the business owner pay some social security taxes on that salary...and other costs.

You can't hire 2 workers...unless they are temps or part time. And if you spend it all on workers...what do you get from it??? NADA. NOTHING. ZILCH!!!

How do you benefit?

Here is my example. The other day, while entering one of our businesses (I'm in partnerships), I walked into the business with one of our newer employees. I was thinking about the tax issue at the time. She and I were coming in the building and talking about getting coffee from starbucks or independent coffee houses, and stuff like that.

Why did we hire her? It wasn't because of tax rates. We have no idea what is going to happen to tax rates.

Here is why. The business is a small business. We've owned it for a couple of decades now. We bought it cheap, cheap cheap a couple of decades ago. Its not like we knew what we were doing then--but it was very cheap...and the majority partner at the time wanted to buy a business for a particular reason...and I liked the whole idea.

Then we worked at it and we figured out what worked well and what didn't. The little business went from a tiny afterthought to the major competitor in the region. Its a small service. Its not huge.

We outperformed the competition. It came out of a lot of work and experimentation and all sorts of things.

Now about that employee.

We discovered through trial and error that if we add an employee in one area it helps us to meet DEMAND from consumers BETTER. With one good employee in that role we sell BETTER. When we sell better the business makes more revenues. If we control costs, the extra income from the extra employee helps the whole business perform better and it makes more money.

When we make more...the partners earn more. Those are pre tax earnings. Doesn't matter about the tax rate. We make more...before we get taxed.

When we drive more revenues over certain levels we give bonuses. The employees make more. Every one benefits.

Hey...we don't have to hire that extra person. We have operated without that person. It means the type of job she now does is a little tougher on those that do that kind of work. More importantly it means that without that person we do a worse job of meeting DEMAND. When we do a worse job of meeting demand the business earns less money and so do the partners...and the employees.

That new employee is good at the job. The business is meeting demand better. We are earning more revenues and working at controlling costs, while keeping consumer satisfaction high.

Its working with the new hire. The decision to hire somebody had ZILCH to do with tax rates. Its a bogus argument.

Look at state income tax levels.

California has very high state income tax rates---over 9% on the max level. Next door Nevada has a 0 ZERO state income tax rate.

Companies do not flock to Nevada from California so the owners can keep more money. Nevada is one of the states suffering the most from the long term recession...with among the slowest recovery. Parts of California are suffering also..and other parts have picked up.

Florida has a ZERO income tax rate. Much of Florida is still suffering badly from the recession. Meanwhile states with new forms of production and products are doing GREAT..with lots of new hires and rising incomes. The states with new oil and gas production from fracking like the Dakota's, parts of Texas, etc are all seeing job growth. PRODUCTION//DEMAND its the stuff that generates jobs.

Its a bull sh!t premise about giving lower taxes to rich guys as the underlying growth premise for the economy. Its trickle down economics. It has yet to work.

A

 

Why would you phrase a statement like that which ignores the internet bubble, the property bubble, and 9-11, as if they had no effect? Are you really trying to tell us the economic collapse of the internet bubble and 9-11 did not have exactly the opposite effect the internet bubble had in the 1990s? Are you really trying to imply that those who support lower tax rates believe lower tax rates are the only thing that impact job creation? If so, you might want to talk to all the Democrats in congress who got behind the Bush tax cuts in 2001, 2003, and by Obama in 2010. Are you really saying Obama didn't think the tax cuts helped create jobs?

The rest of your book can be summed up nicely by a simple concept. You seem to think the government can do better with your "excess" cash than you can, so you should just give it to the government. Outside of the immorality of that concept, the fact is that lower tax rates do create jobs. People who have "excess" money invest it or spend it, both of which drive demand and create new business, which in turn creates new jobs.

Another thing regarding "excess" money. People/families earning more than 150k a year pay full boat for college tuition for their kids. That is 45k$ a year per child. Compare that to a family earning 60k a year which will get free tuition to every ivy league undergrad school based need not on grades. There are a myriad of other taxes that only touch the rich including "luxury" taxes on vehicles costing more than $65k, and specialized state taxes. By the time you get through adding up all the extra money paid by the "rich" you end up with some very high rates.


It leaves only one important question. What do you think a moral maximum tax rate would be? 95%? After all, if you make 20 million a year, that still leaves you a million dollars a year to stick in the bank. That should be plenty for anyone, right? I'm sure you know that all those taxes would not eliminate more than 30% of the deficit, and would not impact the debt at all.

How is this for a savings idea. Right now, the president gets 50% of his 400k salary for the remainder of his life. Most ex-presidents live to a very ripe old age because of their top end free health care. The long life expectancy brings that perk to a $14 million expenditure on a single person who worked briefly for the government, which gets bundled on top of any governors/senators/state senators pension, which most people who become president already have. How do you feel about cutting that perk before asking someone who worked for his money to give it to you unwillingly?

 

Because the dems do such an extraordinary job at getting people to forget and flat out ignore their flaws.

They are experts at "sweeping things under the rug".

 

@EarlPearl

The majority of business owners feel like Obama is fighting against them. They're crucial to the economy, and create jobs. I do feel it's important. Here's more criticism > I just saw this today, an excerpt from a letter published in the newspaper:

I don't believe the answer to our economic problems is more dependency and government control, but self sufficiency and opportunity.

 

@Rebecca: This phrase in the quote you provided really sticks out: "So when the President and his aides pit Americans against one another, it is not only misguided, it is irresponsible"

It is stunning that Obama won presidency with more than 60% of the white vote and 93% of the black vote with the promise of putting the racial divide and bitter partisanship in this country behind us. After four years, Obama has 35% support among whites, near 100% support among blacks, and over 70% support among latinos. It isn't an accident. The man has made his political career in this country by pitting Americans against each other, along racial lines, along gender lines, along income lines. It is extremely bad for us as a nation, and there can be no doubt that, as divided as we were after 8 years of Bush, we are FAR more divided as a nation today. Very sad really.

 

And that is the best, clearest argument for why the Right Wing Extremist singular focus on tax cuts is the dumbest, least important point possible for economic growth. Not only did some other influences completely overwhelm and negate the totally theoretical (never really proven) right wing argument about low taxes spurring the economy...the 1990's showed that enormous development and growth in industry IS THE SINGLE GREATEST CAUSE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH AND JOB GROWTH. Alternatively....GOP right wing inspired lower taxes for the wealthy don't matter in the face of Huge Growth in Demand. After all, the 1990's saw more job growth in the US than any other decade!!!!! THINK OF THAT.

As to your last sentence about Dems supporting Bush in 2001 and 2003 it was a small minority of dems supporting bush but a large majority opposed. In 2003, the only way the subsequent tax cuts passed was because VP Cheney broke a tie in the Senate. Not much of a legislative victory at all. Don't misrepresent history.

To quote Ronald Reagan. There you go again. You do enjoy misrepresenting what other people say don't you?

What a joke. You are whining and moaning about "luxury taxes". Look people who spend $65,000 on a car...are spending more on a vehicle than the majority of Americans earn in a year. Mitt Romney has to be spending at least $55,000 for his car elevator--again more money than is earned by more than 1/2 of all American wage earners.

Look, the issue about tax rates is really one pushed the Right Wing GOP. They started screaming about US govt debt the day after Obama got elected. The GOP never uttered a peep about debt while Bush was in office and Fed debt doubled. If you want to pay off the debt, everyone should be involved--not just the less fortunate of the nation.

Your comments about education costs is totally fallacious. The fact is that total student debt for higher education has now passed total household credit card debt. People are borrowing money to get a higher education. The comment about "free tuition" is simply utterly untrue on the grand scale. The student debt problem will create an incredible long term problem for the nation going forward.

There you go again. Extremist Right Wing scare tactics. Nobody but a propagandist for the Right Wing would ever talk about 95% marginal tax rates for anyone.

Aren't you clever? Go down to Southern California and pick up $14 million from Mrs Reagan. She is old and little. You can overpower her. Then go over to Texas and get $14 million from senior Mr. Bush. He is in a wheelchair. After you take his money I'm sure you can outrun him. Go get the money from Jimmy Carter..but watch out for his grandson...that guy is pretty sharp and persistent. You are just a fount of ingenious ideas.

 

Rebecca: I've had ownership positions in small businesses for a long time. For a long time I was a passive investor. Now I'm active.

I think most of that stuff is moaning and whining done with a political intent. I'll address it from several points including our own experiences:

A). corporate moaning or corporate impact of regulations.

If there are govt regs. A company deals with it by hiring people. It costs money. The bosses in big companies don't deal with it. Don't whine. Lay out the specific costs. See if it has impact or not.

I believe one of the best most effective pieces of govt legislation was something called the Sarbanes Oxley Act, overwhelmingly passed by both house and senate and signed into legislation by President Bush in 2002.

What led up to it was overwhelming massive corporate fraud. It was not only large but widespread. Of the many companies involved the two biggest and best known were Enron and WorldCom. Both companies completely crashed. Their stocks went from enormous valuations to ZERO value. The crash of those two companies alone cost investors from peak to ZERO valuation about $250 billion. The peaks were not too distant from the crashes. It was enormous fraud on a grand scale.

Following passage of Sarbanes Oxley that type of fraud stopped. Dead in its tracks. Frankly the believability of the Stock Markets and investment was restored.

A big company with revenues in the $6 billion range spends about $2.5 million/year on compliance on Sarbanes Oxley. That is pennies relative to what that big company spends on corporate perks and bullsh!t overhead.

Its not that big a problem but it totally ended a particular form of fraud. Ever since Sarbanes Oxley has been passed the Right Wing has moaned and groaned about it, attacked it, and wants to see it overturned.

That moaning and groaning is simply all about corporate crooks wanting to steal your money.

B).GE might spend $100 million on tax avoidance.

OTOH, GE has a tax department of about 1,000 people. That is overhead too. If the tax staff of GE averages $85,000 in salary and $15,000 in benefits...GE....Big Big GE spends $100 million on tax preparation.

The other year GE paid ZERO in federal taxes. They didn't moan. $100 million spent on tax avoidance is a lot more than $2.5 million paid on compliance to eliminate fraud.

You can't tell me certain elements of oversight aren't worthwhile.

C. Our small business got screwed by the govt.

I'm pretty sure one of our small businesses got screwed over by a state govt flunky. I can't prove it, but I'm virtually certain. It cost us a lot of money. We put our heads down, and kept moving forward.

We didn't turn it into a political rant...and one of my partners on that deal is a devout GOP guy. We just aren't in the political moaning and groaning party.

Frankly I think a lot of that moaning and groaning is politically motivated. All I can suggest is that the foxes want to get back into the hen house...and they hate having a referee telling them to have to be half way honest.

 

Talk about your logical fallacies. According to you, because one thing effects economic growth, some other thing must have no effect at all. I know that you know that line of reasoning is complete BS, but you really should disavow it publicly to keep others who don't know you as well from thinking you are completely insane.

You left out Obama's support for the Bush tax cuts in 2010. Let me guess, Obama made all those Democrats pass that bill because he thought it would damage the economy and line the pockets of the rich?

So tax those evil rich, right? They don't need car elevators, or luxury vehicles. The State make such better use of that money. I notice you completely avoided stating what you thought was a moral maximum rate to tax people.

No, they arent. I would direct you to the tuition web page of any Ivy league school and you will see what I am saying is true.

Absolutely agree with everything in this last statement, including the idea of free tuition being untrue on the grand scale. On the grand scale, 50% of people are, by definition, dumb. The government sponsored concept that everyone will graduate with an advanced degree and be immediately employable is idiotic. No ivy league school is going to fund tuition for a retard (yes I just said retard).

What we wind up with are schools being created to suit every variety of student, including the F students. Those schools use the tax system to make a healthy tuition off of people who would never get admitted to any real college. You can see it in the hiring profiles employers look for now. A college degree is no longer enough. It has to be a bachelor of science degree. Even then, the talent pool can be really pathetic.

You can thank your Democrat legislators for perpetrating the College debt bubble, just like they are to blame for the creation of the housing bubble. Not everyone was meant to own a house either.

Gladly. Reagan, Bush, Clintons, Ford, all of them, especially Jimmy Carter. Most ex-Presidents make more from a few speaking engagements than they do from the taxpayers so why would we waste tax dollars on them? Are you really standing behind the idea that this is something other than a complete waste of taxpayer money?

Regarding your comments to Rebecca, I really admire your success in the face of adversity attitude. It is something most successful businessmen share with you. Unlike you, they don't welcome adversity, so I have to wonder why you would.

 

O_Nation: You are a master of obfuscating a discussion.

1. History has shown us that the impact of lower taxes, essentially lower taxes on the so called employers, has NO EFFECT on hiring and job growth. We had huge job growth during the 1990's with higher taxes on the wealthy..the so called job creators. We had marginal, even miserable job growth..or essentially job losses during the 2000's a decade with lower taxes on the job creators. Those are facts. The talk is all chatter but it simply hasn't worked.

2. Take the real numbers. Apply them against the called for Romney Ryan tax proposals as it might apply to the so called job creators.

Compare to today's marginal tax rates for those "job creators".

A). If a wealthy business person has business income of a lot--$400,000 (putting he/she) in the max tax bracket...that "job creator" would currently pay $140,000 to the feds. Change the tax rate to the Romney /Ryan (we don't give a real rats ass about deficits even though we whine about it--and all we want to do is cut support of the less well off--and make sure the rich do still better)---the so called "job creator" pays the feds $112000.

The "job creator" has an extra $28,000. Does he/she keep it, put it under a mattress, invest it, buy stuff, or does he/she HIRE somebody. $28,000. Not a lot for a new hire. One low wage person. ONE. and low wage to boot.

The wealthy "job creator" isn't going to change the face of the economy.--but he she has a nice amount of extra cash. NO DOUBT.

b. Take the really really wealthy business owner with business income (after all his/her writeoffs) of a whopping BIG $1 million. Now that is a wealthy person.

Currently this person after fed taxes has $650,000 in his/her pocket per year. Lot of money. His/her NET is more than the gross income of people who hit the 1%.

So say, Romney/Ryan (we underwrite the rich) tax policy comes into effect.

This uber wealthy person now has a NET after fed taxes of $720,000 per year. This uber wealthy person has an EXTRA $70,000. How many can he/she hire???? One Full time person at a US median/nice income of about $50,000 or so.

ONE PERSON. This Mr/Mrs./or Ms wealthy successful business person (bless them). now has the OPTION of hiring 1 person at a middle income salary. Possibly they might hire two people at around minimum wage. Possibly!!!

That doesn't do wonders for unemployment.

Finally the UBER wealthy private business owner. This person earns $10 million/year from the business, subject to taxes after a helluva lot of business owner write offs and tax breaks.

First how many such potential job creators are there??? In 2009, reflecting income from 2008 a total of 8,274 people filed taxes showing $10 million or more in income. A fair number are not direct "job creators". Athletes, entertainers, hugely successful authors, artists, musicians etc. They aren't business owners in the traditional sense. A big number of those people earning over $10 million do it strictly off investments. They aren't working. Mitt Romney--> prime example.

So there might be a couple of thousand business owners of great big partnerships. These are the ones that Romney/Ryan promise will solve the unemployment crisis because they WILL HIRE MORE AMERICANS if they are granted tax relief from today's rates...already significantly lower than in the 1990's.

So this person, assuming he isn't Mitt Romney with virtually all of his income taxed at a 15% rate....would face a 28% tax on the business income versus the current 35%.

Okay baby. This person is now left with $7.2 million after fed taxes per year...versus $6.5million per year. This very successful person has an extra $700,000 to POTENTIALLY HIRE PEOPLE. Say there are 3,000 of these people of the total of 8,274 from 2009 filed tax returns.

They each hire people at total incomes of $600,000/year (hey the business has to spend on SS taxes and bennies. These 3,000 uber wealthy people don't keep one dime for themselves. No elevators for their cars, no castles, no extra anything. They are investing in hires.

3,000 x $600,000 in employment = a potential for $1.800 billion for new hires. At $50,000/job....that is potentially 36,000 jobs. While a lot its a drop compared to the scope of the unemployment issues.

Now compare that number to jobs created by the Recovery Act of 2009. Independent sources Moody's and IHS Global Insight reported 1.6 to 1.8 million jobs saved or created initially and forcast up to 2.5 million jobs created in total. The Congressional Budget Office estimated 2.1 million jobs created or saved during the last part of 2009 alone. OTOH: economists Conley and Dupor estimated the recovery act saved or created 450,000 state govt jobs but destroyed or forestalled 1 million private sector jobs. Conley and Dupor's research was widely criticized for errors. Economist Wilson of the Fed used Conley/Dupor's methodology, corrected for mistakes...and estimated 2 million jobs created or saved in year 1.

Look. The Obama Recovery Act cost govt money...but most with knowledge and research claim somewhere in the realm of 2 million jobs created or saved.

Cutting the tax rates of the uber wealthy will create big deficits. The numbers MIGHT pan out to 36,000 jobs plus groups of 1 and 2 jobs created here and there all over the place.

All based on estimates, and what ifs...if the wealthy so called "job creators" don't pocket the money or send it to the Cayman Islands.

The whole RIGHT WING program is a outright lie on economic opportunity. It simply can't produce job growth based on a direct analysis of the real numbers.

It does promise a lot of already wealthy people a lot more wealth. Beyond that its a bull sh!t sales job to the rest of the population.

Real growth comes primarily from the swings of demand and supply and is impacted by millions of outside events. Taxes on the wealthy have the smallest impact.

 

Thanks. I get that a lot.

It is also a fact that eating donuts can make you fat. Too bad that fact, and yours, do not provide any evidence that tax rates have no effect on hiring and job growth. If you feel like providing some actual conclusive evidence to back that claim, I'm all ears (or eyes... this is a forum).

Why are you comparing marginal tax rates instead of effective tax rates? It seems you are completely unfamiliar with what the Romney/Ryan ticket is proposing. It also seems you either did not read, or did not understand my explanation of how low taxes stimulate the economy. It also seems you either did not read or did not understand my question regarding what you thought was a moral and fair effective tax rate for a person, any person, wealthy or poor, to pay.

Are you trying to imply that Google, or GE pay an effective tax rate on their busines income of 35% right now? If so, I think today would be a terrific day to stop sniffing glue.

The people who pay the whole 35% are the small business owners, who cant afford to spend millions on accounting firms practicing such quasi legal tactics as the "double irish". When you advocate for the 35% rate, what you are really doing is protecting the mega wealthy corporate elitists and stepping on small business. Down deep, you know this to be true, so why be intellectually dishonest? Do you really think that much Of Obama? I doubt it.

Weren't you just trying to tell us that government spending doesn't create jobs? Pick a side of the argument. Ron Reagan inherited an arguably a worse economy than Obama and managed to create 10s of millions of jobs in his first term. Yes there have been some jobs created under Obama, in spite of him, not because of him. Most people are aware of the pending fiscal cliff Obama insisted on putting off until after the election, and the inherent instability his policies are adding to our economy.

Compare that with Reagan's 21 million in the first term. Obama has to go.

 

Romney is correct in telling employers their employees have a right to be told that the consequences of another Obama term could have disastrous results on the business. Employees depend on their job to feed their family, so if another Obama term threatens their livelihood they deserve the truth up front.

Obama on the other hand... has instructed employers who are required BY LAW to give employees advance notice about pending layoffs under the WARN act to ignore the law despite the fact he already signed the sequestation law that will force layoffs, and promised them government funds to make them whole if they get in trouble for ignoring the law.

Obama, for political purposes, does not want legally required warnings to go out
He is attempting to use government funds to keep it from happening. That too is illegal. Any employee with a brain can see Obama's waaaay more worried about protecting his job than theirs.

 

Run the numbers. Expanding tax cuts to rich people doesn't pay off. Its simple mathematics. You can bull sh!t your way all around it. You can review history. The numbers don't work.

When you expand tax cuts to the wealthy here is what occurs. The wealthy get wealthier. Everything else is a pipe dream.

I like getting wealthier. OTOH: From the day Obama got into office the Right Wing Extreme party went from never uttering a peep about US federal debt to screaming about it.

Now the Right Wing answer to all problems is rooted in one thing. Extend tax cuts to the wealthy. Its an extraordinarily extremist position, with the extremes pushing an overall economic philosophy that pushes more money into ever smaller pools of people.

Frankly if the many private businesses of all types, instead of laying off millions of people, and holding onto cash for dear life, had retained people, cut their hours, given them part time, better protected the working stiffs of America...more folks would have had somewhat more money....more money would have been circulating in the economy rather than hoarded in corporate tills at record levels and the entire state of the economy would be better.

But it didn't occur.

But simply run the numbers. Enabling a tiny few people to aggregate never before seen fortunes is a clear direction to starving an economy and killing widespread demand.

Very scary philosophy.

Run the numbers for yourself. Figure it out.

 

I have. Its the reason I vote Republican.

[video=youtube;UnX7TNFIELg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnX7TNFIELg&feature=player_embedded[/video]

 

He actually wants to cut taxes for small businesses. What do you have against Romney trying to free up some cash for them?

 

You've got it wrong. Obama has the Unions telling their employees to vote for Obama.

 

The Declaration of Independence - 1776

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
​

The US Contitution - Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 - 1787

No direct taxes​

The 16th Ammendment - 1913

Congress can tax 1% of the population 7% of their annual income, and the other 99% at 1% of their annual income.​

George W. Bush -2004

Congress can tax 1% of the population 35% of their annual income, another 50% of the population at around 20% of their annual income, while gifting the other 50% of the population a check for $4800 from the tax coffers.
​

Barack Obama - 2012

The tax code is not fair. We need to raise the taxes on 1% of the population by another 3% to 38%. Then, it will be fair.​

Doesn't everyone see the inherent fairness of it all?

 

@grpaul: I have several small businesses. We love all sorts of better deals. I like tax cuts for myself. Selling the fact that giving me a tax cut will get me to hire is a total falsehood.

We hire if and only if we see opportunities to grow and expand the businesses. We would be idiots to hire b/c we happen to sit on more money at any one time. We've had small b&m businesses for many years.

Give me more money. I love it. Don't promise anyone I'm going to hire them b'c I have more money. Its a lie.

When it comes to the tax breaks...all things considered...with the size of the deficit, the pinching on US capabilities because of that ....in order to close the budget it will take efforts from all areas. That is simple common sense.

The right wingers have been screaming about budget deficits since the day Obama took office but not a day before. Now they are proposing to incredibly explode the deficit and/or make war on the less well off in America..while enriching the rich.

Frankly that is a sort of banana republic set of policies. The potential corrupt payoffs between GOP corporate supporters and the GOP should they regain power could make the Bush payoffs to their corporate friends look like child's pay. Its scary.

As a business guy for a long time, its offensive to run something by the public that is the epitome of an outright lie.

Look, businesses don't hire just because they are sitting on tremendous cash. The most obvious case of that is the extraordinary combination of huge growth in corporate cash levels and corporate profits that bounced right out of this past recession. All businesses did was horde cash.

This fundamental of the Right Wing economic package of promises is a grotesque lie to the American public.