Forum Post: __We must lower taxes on the job creators__
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 24, 2011, 8:51 a.m. EST by bensdad
(8977)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
A serious business hypothetical for a serious capitalist-
Joe has a successful plumbing contracting company. Joe has 100 employees and after paying all of his expenses and taxes he make a net profit of $1,000,000 - ( $10,000 per employee. )
Republican supply side says:
Cut Joe's taxes to give him an extra post-tax profit so his income grows to $1,100,000.
Can you explain why Joe would use this extra supply of income to hire two more plumbers?
And what work would they do?
Or
Joe could do what most American businesses are doing today-
Sitting on huge profits because taxes are at historic lows and firing people because demand is low.
Or
Democratic demand side says:
Create demand for plumbing services - say by rebuilding public schools and highways.
Joe will get part of this new business and hire ten more plumbers to get his extra $100,000 in profits.
WE MUST LOWER TAXES ON THE JOB CREATORS
..............................................Joe is not creating the jobs - WE ARE
Melissa Block talks with Justin Wolfers, professor of business and public policy at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
BLOCK: We hear a lot about small businesses being the engine of job growth in that - country. How true is that?
WOLFERS: Categorically false.
A very real and fundamental point to bear in mind is that taxes on 'Joe the plumber' and just about everyone else in society, would be lower if Imperial Wars could be ended AND IF the 1% and all the Corporations (apparently legally 'individual persons') paid their Proper and Fair Share of the Taxes !
The Banking Corporations in particular are the primary culprits in this 'cult of tax avoidance and evasion' and their opposition to The Tobin / Financial Transaction Tax, is utterly unconscionable given the long term existence of the highly regressive 'Sales Taxes' and 'Value Added Tax' - currently 20% in The UK, which everyone else has to pay !!
I'm not a violent person other than in self-defence but I'm beginning to have dreams about cutting out a senior banker's cold, dead heart with a rusty spoon ... and claiming it AS self-defence !!!
fiat justitia ruat coelum ...
Consumers are the only real job creators. Without middle-class consumers there is no need for more jobs being created.
So yes, lower taxes on middle-class consumers so they have more money to spend that will justify creating more jobs.
Raise taxes on the rich and corporations that make excuses for not growing jobs while at the same time causing inflation on consumers by raising prices.
here is a hypothetical. there is a notional db of employers and their activity, complaints, hire and fire ratios. employees screen joe and see he has little regard for his staff and refuse to work for him. poor joe goes out of biz because he cannot fulfill his contracts. suzan however has a good record of pay and employee retention, many people like working for her and the loyalty resulting from that gives her the ability to fill contracts and a better product.
what we need is such a database.
low taxes low like zero
;) how 'bout low like "Duck!, tax-man. -.- "
Please hear me out: If there's demand for more plumbers, joe will hire more with the excess income he got from the tax breaks. more workers will ultimately net him an even greater profit than what he first got. If there is not demand for more plumbers, joe will take some of the extra money and probably reinvest it in his business-buying better tools a new vehicle, etc. Suppose he does keep all the extra money instead of giving some of it as a bonus to his workers, well he's going to spend that money somewhere. The act of spending money efficiently drives an economy, allowing the businesses he patronized to hire more workers.
I stress the importance of efficiently spending money. When the gov't spends money, they take it out of the private sector and waste it on things that shouldn't be supported. The beauty of capitalism is that companies that do not offer a demanded good or service fail, go out of business, and its former employees get jobs elsewhere. This is the problem with the Democratic viewpoint. You can't artificially create demand. The Democrats try to redistribute money to keep businesses afloat that really should be allowed to sink (GM and the banks for example). If the schools and highways don't really need to be rebuilt, then they shouldn't be. If they do need to be rebuilt, that's great for joe.
Joe is the one creating the jobs, as he is the one hiring workers. You are not creating a job, you are providing a service. Nevertheless, I agree we must lower taxes, but not just on the job creators, on everyone. Gov't is too large, and needs to be reduced. Democrats are all for expanding gov't, well how's that worked out in Russia, or Cuba, or North Korea? Republicans (real ones not RINOS like McCain or Romney) want to put power back in the hands of the people. Always remember, the gov't works for us, we don't work for it. But if we allow the Democrats to continue spending our money and increasing gov't, we will soon be forced to work for them.
That's right. NEITHER is the job of government, it's a false choice. Prune back government from both sides: the left AND the right.
Government's job is to protect liberties,nothing more, and nothing less.
People will do what they wish with those liberties, and live happy lives!
--Note the flawed rebuttal many will levy against me that government must regulate against evils too...
Well, that is part of "protecting liberties", because something is only "evil" when it encroaches upon liberty. Virtually everything else is fair game.
Absolutely! The Constitution was written to protect the people. Protect them from whom or what? It was written to protect us from having our liberties taken from us by THE GOVERNMENT! Wake up, fellow Americans!
is having clean air and water part of protecting liberties? is keeping the Gulf of Mexico free from giant (preventable) oil spills part of protecting liberties?
I'm asking.
I'm inclined to agree with the Libertarian principle and with Thoreau and others who echo "that government is best that governs least". I especially would like to apply this principle to drug policy, my "liberty" to hitch-hike on freeways (currently illegal in most states) and also liberties like being able to drink a freaking beer in public.
But isn't government also created to "ensure domestic welfare"... to assist people in at least providing the conditions for the Pursuit of Happiness? for me that would include infrastructure (roads, electrical grids, fresh water systems) as well as education and plenty of public lands for recreation. Ron Lawl has a different take on all this. I like half of what he says.
government has lots of roles to play. and it's not ALL about business profits or even jobs. McDonald's creates lots of jobs... don't think that is doing any of us much good.
Yes. Clean air and water are neccessary for liberty, however -- you have to first prove liberty has been encroached, and that is best done through lawsuit brought by the people encroached upon. ONLY THEN, does government have the authority to throw around, and that authority, with the indictments in-hand, can rightfully be near-absolute.
Roads - local. Hitchiking - nobody's business. Drugs & drinking beer - as long as you're not encroaching.
Electrical grids - local & private (why electricity, what happens when everything is manna-powered... would you want gov't status quo holding the world back?) Think: Oil.
Fresh water - local & private
Public lands - this is a big one. I am of the opinion that all unmaintained lands should be public. Period. Maintenance is tricky to define though.
well, let's take water for instance.
we can pay taxes and have fresh clean water to our homes and water fountains throughout the city. these were the "public utilities" of the old days. no one would have dreamed that they could sell bottles of water and make a profit!? but they did. and now water is actually more expensive than gasoline. and we have plastic water-bottles, environmental problem there.
now... who "sold" us the idea that bottled water is "more pure". and WHY is it more "pure"?! who polluted OUR water??
okay great... profits and jobs for the private water company, but where did my water-fountain go?? (I look for them everywhere and make a point of using them).
Public lands... well, they need a little bit of maintenance and there are some jobs there too, and good ones. Have you been to many National Parks? WOW... that's what I call good government! And pretty cheap too!
as for lawsuits... okay, but it's pretty difficult when you are a middle-class family raising kids to sue the Giant corporation that is poisoning your ground water or air in your community. They have plenty of Lawyers on retainer sitting around anticipating lawsuits and you are trying to get the kids to bed so you still have enough energy to make love to your wife!
how about we all chip in for some gov't "watchdogs"?? why not?? Besides... we do have Laws you know. Nixon (I think) signed the Clean Air Act that lobbyists are busy trying to dismantle because it means they have to spend money to clean up their messes (or not make them).
come on, my brother... it's complicated. but yeah, you are right. Democrats suck! : )
The solution to big corporate lawyers is good public ombudsmen. This should be provided by your local tax base (county / state)
well shit, then what are we disagreeing about? or are we? i certainly agree that, generally speaking, the more local the governance is the better. really that is an important point... now that I think about it. we keep having these National and Federal debates... we probably should focus more of our energy locally.
You do wanna fight the consolidation and centralization of money and power, right? :D
um... sure! power & money is in the hands of the 1%!
Occupy the Senate, occupy the House, occupy the state legislatures!
Do you know anything about the cost of doing payroll? the BANKS have raised payroll accounts up to 23%. there is your: Pay raise, Bonus, 401 contribution, These Thief's steal at the point of transfer cash between me and my employees. all else is just crap!
Where to start? Businesses fund expansion through borrowing or through income, not through tax breaks. Businesses don't necessarily spend money efficiently or more efficiently than the government; the fact that so many businesses go out of business proves this. Moreover, business efficiency isn't necessarily an unalloyed good since that efficiency (a suspiciously nebulous term) is often realized in the form of productivity gains achieved by making workers redundant. And in certain historical periods (now, for example) those workers don't get hired elsewhere because there isn't enough demand.
And, also, you can artificially create demand. You may not like that fact, but that doesn't change the fact that it happens. We artificially create a lot of demand. The contrary claim is just baldly counterfactual. Millions of Americans work in jobs that are directly or indirectly created by government spending and which wouldn't exist otherwise. I honestly don't understand what people are thinking when they say that government spending doesn't create jobs. The notion that government spending is a drag on the efficient operation of business reminds of a paraplegic blaming his wheelchair for the fact that he can't walk.
The fact that the government has to compensate for weak demand isn't an argument against government spending. The fact that government spending hasn't been adequate to pull the US out of crisis is also not an argument against government spending, since the crisis could've been worse. Both facts, however, might still prove to be arguments against the long-term feasibility of capitalism.
i think 99% of "us" join you in noting that GM and the banks were not "allowed to fail"... and so this ruse of pretending that we have a free and fair market place for capitalism has been exposed.
I suppose I WISH Democrats were trying to "redistribute money"-- at least then we would have a choice between two perspectives. I think the Democrats just exist to play the patsy to the Republicans who exist to carry out the demands of... well, the highest bidders.
I agree with you on all the basics of capitalism. but we still need government. and i definitely agree that gov't SHOULD work FOR us. "we" OWS folks don't think it is working for us.
who is a Real Republican in your opinion?
what Should gov't spend money on?
don't we need gov't to regulate business so that our air, water, and land is not polluted as well as regulations so that giant banks don't go around gambling with our pension funds? (and then sticking us with the bill when they lose)
i agree with you in theory, but there are a lot of devils in these details. would like to go a few rounds if you care to reply.
I agree that at certain times in the economy relieving the tax burden on businesses is the right way to go. However, the US is in a financial crisis. Businesses are laying off more people because customers are saving money and not buying products. Corporate tax cuts will not make most consumers spend more, and thus tax cuts do not create demand. Corporations would rather do 20 other things with their tax savings than spend it hiring and giving benefits to workers that are not needed.
Either you lose billions in tax dollars to tax cuts that may or may not hire more people or you lose/spend those billions in paying off the deficit or hiring public employees, either way is kenynesian and an act of stimulus
You also are only seeing one side of the equation, like ZenDog. Read this quote from HearMeOut very carefully:
Nevertheless, I agree we must lower taxes, but not just on the job creators, on everyone. Gov't is too large, and needs to be reduced.
Cutting taxes for everyone isnt that sound of a strategy either. Im from Ontario, Canada and the provincial conservative ran on tax cuts for average citizens. He was going to cut 5 different taxes, and even with all these big tax cuts do you know how much people were going to get out of it? 40 Bucks a month. He would sacrifice billions that could go towards deficit reduction just so that people could have a little spare cash that isnt even enough to buy a month's groceries or rent. Its not a good strategy right now during a debt crisis.
I'm not concerned in the slightest with deficit reduction. That monetary system is all fraud, based on illegal agreements made without public consent.
It needs to be tried and prosecuted criminally, terminated and "forgiven" -- or we're going to get ugly. Real ugly.
That is the stance We The People should take on the so-called "national debt."
Oh great! If you dont care about the deficit, (Im not being sarcastic), then you should support stimulus spending. Its far more efficient than tax cuts but usually tends to increase deficits, while tax cut stimulus cannot be directly blamed for deficit creation. Both do, but stimulus spending actually create jobs instead of just hope for them like tax cut stimulus does.
How can government spend stimulus money I don't let them have?
You're still only seeing one side of it!
All government does is prosecute crime. Crime is aledged by the victims. Everything else is up to you.
NO_STIMULUS_SPENDING
But you are letting them have the money. They have billions in tax revenue right now. At the same time businesses are not hiring right now either. People need jobs and the private sector will not create them because there is no demand for labor. Thus government can invest in infrastructures, hire teachers, construction workers, and senior caregivers. You may have an idea of how government should function but thats not how they function right now and right now we need jobs.
I am not! I have not given one cent in taxes in over a decade. You are paying them an arm-and-a-leg to encroach upon my liberty, and I don't appreciate it.
The way it functions right now is the result of a giant inflationary credit bubble based on leveraging money nobody really had for a period of almost 100 full years so far.
That bubble is going to pop, and the consequences are going to be dire and very painful. There is nothing you or I or government or anyone can do to prevent that. Sad fact of living a lie. You reap what you sow.
There IS however, a side-ways step out from under the falling rock: refuse the debt. Refuse austerity. Refuse receivorship. Refuse repossession. Call out the criminals, and get ugly if you have to.
To be very clear, I mean REAL ugly. Protesting is only the first step. And um, if history is any indicator, we are going to have to get ugly.
How come people who say things like "Gov't is too large, and needs to be reduced.," NEVER seem to have any questions, critique or even notion of The Massive US Military Empire and Its Gargantuan Expenditures ?!
Do such expenses have an impact on domestic taxation d'you think ?!!
If the government of The U$A was truly 'democratic', then its size wouldn't be the problem but as a pissant apology of a demoCRAZY deMOCKERYcy is prevalent, whereby you have a "Gov't. OF The 99% BY a 1% FOR a 0.01%", then complaining is all that is left to do ...
veritas vos liberabit
I dunno what you mean. I have ZERO support for the actions of the u.s. military, period.
@ ScrewyL : Nothing personal at you, I was just using your post to make my point. ;-)
Joe should fire half of his plumbers and hire illegal Mexican plumbers for half the wage of the Americans he fired and then he should invest his profit from his wage savings into a Foreign based Mutual fund that use slave labor to make plumbing parts, which he also buys to save money. He should then put this profit in a Cayman bank which loans the money to a drug cartel that sells Joe's kids some bad Heroin which kills one of them. What goes around comes around.
Who's funding the Conservative Movement?
KOCH FOUNDATIONS: David H. Koch Charitable Foundation Charles G. Koch Foundation Claude R. Lambe Foundation SCAIFE FOUNDATIONS: Sarah Scaife Foundation The Carthage Foundation Allegheny Foundation BIG OIL: Exxon Mobil WAL-MART: Wal-Mart
lower them to no tax if " they" hire more people, then ,if they dont, have the irs punish their asses.
Nono, no "IF", no "punishing". Government has no need for their tax money because it's not going to spend it! You don't need money you won't spend!
the government does need their tax money if for anything else but to keep us from thinking that its all on us 99% , But the point im making is to ensure that if we do give them tax cuts ,do it under law that if companies can use the tax money, either by tax write offs ( company equipment, so on )that they will need to hire people (qualified of course ) under the new IRS reform law. thats punishable by law . of course im talking small co to mid-size co. big corp. will still do what it can get away with things IUF they are not watched real close By US!
We're not giving them back their tax money -- We are not taking it in the first place!
You're trying to give government extra powers they don't need.
thats right, the irs is not taking at that point, so we are in a sense dis-empowering through allowing. remember A+B=y, but now the companies that use that money (that has not been took in the first place) can use that new found Moines for hiring or investing back into : bonus, 401k, health insurance. im still talking small to mid companies, not corp.
Yes, but i'm also subtracting G.
Once you 'do not take away the money in the first place', the corporation is free to do with it whatever they choose. It is not government's (or the people's) job to tell those businesses what to do with the money because those businesses do not encroach upon liberty.
Now, on the point of corporations, however, those should not even exist. There is no rational basis for "limited liability" unless it is your intention to encroach and get away with it.
LLC needs to be done away with completely; It's a farce.
i agree again, but im not talking about corp.! small companies that can use the money! and yes LLC groups are collective fraudsters! But for every left turn there is a Right turn in the laws. If they say you must do this, look in the other direction for the open window. ive had wells fargo in court for 2 years now and i have learned this first hand.
To quote Elizabeth Warren, a champion for all people, not just a sliver or rich and elite:
"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody."
That pretty much sums it up.
That's total bullshit from the Tea Party Republican agenda.
Your lack of any salience is noted.
Why did you join this forum on November 21, what where you waiting for?
I joined to have my motives attacked, rather than my arguments. You?
Yeah-ya
point one: Paying 0 percent tax and then reducing that tax rate equals CORPORATE WELFARE.
point two: Why would anyone consider lowering taxes on corporations that are not actively hiring regardless of current tax rate?
And finally, if as you say, We are creating jobs
then where the fuck are they?
.
On Greed, and Externalities . . . . Nov. 23, 2011
http://occupywallst.org/forum/on-greed-and-externalities/
.
– Greed, I say, Is NOT Good . . . . Nov. 24, 2011
http://occupywallst.org/forum/greed-i-say-is-not-good/ z
ZenDog, this is the perfect example of being trapped by the L-R paradigm: "Paying 0 percent tax and then reducing that tax rate equals CORPORATE WELFARE."
You see something that smells like "corporate wellfare" and you immediately say "no way, no way." But wait, HearHimOut. There's more.
When you lower taxes, you also lower spending -- by government. You're only seeing one half at a time. Open both eyes.
We can't create any jobs at the moment because we don't have any excess income, because it's being taxed away from us (including by inflation)
If you said our tax rate should be more competitive with Europe, I would agree.
When you say: When you lower taxes, you also lower spending you are misstating the facts. It does not lower spending, it lowers income.
We engaged in war on two fronts, one on the basis of a lie, and both efforts were charged into the future. Bushite tax cuts coincide with an increase in government spending - of epic proportion.
You're misinterpretting my statement to be one of causality ("lowering one causes the lowering of the other").
No, I'm am prescribing two seperate changes upon government:
I do not accept the premise that we must lower taxes at this time. The One Percent are already experiencing lower taxes than at any time in at least the last 20 years.
So far the public has seen little from their magnanimity beyond a concerted effort to tank our economy for the purpose of political advantage with the intent of legislating even further reductions in federal revenue generation which in time will degrade the ability of federal authority to regulate to such degree that it will simply not be possible.
You are standing on failed policy.
Look at how much the government spends on defense and subsidy.
You are stuck on seeing only one side of this.
What I see is that repelicans, because of their ability to stand together as a block, can exert influence over Congress such that they get their way, even when they are a minority.
One can argue that as a result, they maintained control of both policy and power for the entirety of the BUSHITE REIGN.
They could have attempted to pay for both wars - they chose BUSHITE tax breaks on the one percent instead.
This has had a consequence - that of driving our deficit into unprecedented territory. I presume a significant degree of deliberation lies behind these facts.
WE cannot, for example, in the wealthiest nation on earth, cease subsidy of GRANDMA such that she is forced to chose between paying for rent, or the purchase of a single can of cat food.
WE must place curbs on private empire
This cannot be done without revenue.
REPELICANS understand this fact very well.
Nono. You take away all the:
from government, and your archnemesis, the republicans, will all go home 'cause there's nothing for their greedy hands to manipulate in government.
Then, you wait until some evil corporation poisons a river somewhere and The People downstream sue them.
You hold a trial. The evidence is presented. The People win, and then The Sheriff comes in and really gets tough. Case closed.
That's the original American system. This republican/democrat premptive government thing is a big expensive swindle upon The People which was imported from Brittain.
That has been done - PG&E stands as one example. The threat of lawsuit is not sufficient inducement to encourage responsible behavior at corporate levels.
In fact, the entire corporate legal structure is designed specifically to avoid personal responsibility.
What we have is the growth of Private Empire. These Empires are in competition with the Federal Empire.
A Government By the People, For the People, must reign supreme.
NOTHING is sufficient inducement to encourage responsible behaviour at corporate levels. If you make massive regulations and watch them closely, they will do their dirty deeds where ever you aren't looking, and you will have wasted your money.
You cannot cost-effectively pre-empt evil, however you CAN arbitrarily make the penalties extremely high. It is entirely up to the people and their government what shall be the penalties for crimes. Say, if your poisoned stream kills a kid, then it's involuntary manslaughter; duh...
I agree that "Limited Liability" is a farce and should be done away with altogether. Ultimately, any criminal act a "corporation" does, comes down to something criminal a human being did. I see no reason why under any condition that human being should not be criminally and civilly liable.
As far as I am concerned, the same goes for politicians and police as well!
A "Federal Empire" is never "For the People". It always becomes increasingly self-serving and resistant to positive change, meanwhile the power it holds becomes an attractive nuisance for the big-money-havers to corrupt.
What you say here has a kernel of truth.
Yet what you propose is not in line with the will of the people. Over 70% of Americans favor ending BUSHITE tax cuts. Polls have been remarkably consistent on this since before the last budget debate.
REPELICANS refuse to submit to the will of the people, instead preferring to lie, claiming the will of the people was otherwise.
If this single issue should rise to the level of national security and interest, who is to say who may not lose everything they possess in advocacy contrary to both the will and the interest of the American People?
The liability should be with the executives. Limited liability keeps the shareholders from being bankrupted if the company executives are bad actors.
The laws of this country give shareholders very little power over the people who run the company, so they should not be on the hook for what they cannot control. More executives, however, should go to jail.
[Removed]