You think? I haven't decided which carrion animal they most resemble - vultures, hyenas or jackals. The problem with comparing Cons to said animals is that it's a terrible insult to carrion eaters everywhere.As President-elect Barack Obama and Congress work to craft an economic stimulus plan, various conservatives have tried to turn it into a giant tax cut for corporations and the rich.
Today, the Chamber of Commerce weighed in with its State of American Business 2009 report. While the Chamber is correct to say that a stimulus package should be enacted “immediately,” — and rightly notes the benefits of infrastructure investment — its plan is essentially a pro-corporation, anti-worker grab bag.
The Chamber’s proposals include:
- Cutting corporate income taxes and making the Bush tax cuts permanent.
- Reducing the corporate capital gains tax and extending the corporate tax refund period from two to five years.
- Defeating the Employee Free Choice Act and maintaining the anti-worker status quo.
Cutting corporate taxes is one of the worst ways to stimulate economic activity. The Chamber’s ideas are simply “time-honored business tax breaks that have never done anything to jump-start the economy.” As the Tax Policy Center’s Roberton Williams opined, maybe “businesses are just trying to profit from the government rescue.”
Either Mitch McConnell thinks we can't do math, or he's arithmetically challenged. Have a look at his "middle-class" tax cut:
A new analysis from the Tax Policy Center finds that this tax change would lower taxes by less than $400 for average middle-class Americans, give a $4,000 tax break to those making over $2.8 million a year, and do nothing for households making less than $40,000.These people have very strange ideas of "middle-class."For households with children the benefits are even more uneven. Families making less than $70,000 a year would see their taxes go down by an average of just $21 and those making between $70,000 and $140,000 would get even less. Households making over $600,000 with children, however, would get an average tax cut of $3,600.
While McConnell and the conservatives would like to dress this up as middle class relief, it’s really just another giveaway for the mega-rich.
I'm going to go hoarse repeating myself, but here we go again:
PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT TAX CUTS.
Thank you.
3 comments:
Dana,
What do you think a couple making a collective $50,000 does with a $400 tax cut verses what someone with an income of $2.8 million does with a $4000 tax cut?
I would argue that the $4000 is a much better investment.
That $50k couple could buy a refrigerator with that money. They could buy clothes for their kids, or buy their books for a semester of college. Will the rich people buy any of that with their money? Will they buy anything that most of us buy, or would buy if we had the money? In all likelihood, they wouldn't.
The rich people already have lots of money. The middle class don't, and they aren't buying anything. That's what all that stuff about consumer confidence is that you keep blocking out of your mind.
The rich can only buy so much, and they certainly can't help apply economies of scale to the things the rest of us need. Only more money given to the middle class and the poor will do that. We can have some nice jewelry industries with your tax cut, but I'd prefer that people who need things to live could buy them, instead.
That refrigerator or stereo or clothes that the $50,000 couple purchase were probably made overseas which means a small % of that money stays here. You're giving a tiny profit to the retailer and a little money to the teenager who sold it to you.
Why is consumer spending the only logical use for tax cut savings? The rich are more likely to invest their savings which bankrolls our economy and at some point creates jobs.
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