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Categories: Corporate Accountability , Economic Fairness, Jobs and Economy, Tax Fairness, One Wisconsin Now - The "tOWN Hall"
Senator John McCain will be making a campaign stop in the Milwaukee area on Wednesday. He is supposed to talk about the economy and hype his out of touch plans to treat what ails it. Yes, the man that admitted that he doesn’t really understand economics plans on lecturing the rest of us on economic solutions. If his recent pattern is any indication, he will be fully prepared to offer all kinds of rhetoric about the economic problems of the working class. Before people start lapping up his sales pitch, they might want to look at the details of his actual agenda. As the Washington Post recently observed, McCain is trying to send a populist message while offering little else than corporate tax cuts.
In Pittsburgh on Tuesday, McCain even took a few potshots at well deserved targets in the banking and lending industries. While he has been paying this lip service to the average worker, his economic plan has very little for them. The centerpiece of McCain’s economic plan is a massive tax cut for corporations. Some of the very corporations that he has recently criticized on the stump would be big time beneficiaries of his corporate giveaway plan.
Essentially, McCain would reduce corporate taxes from 35 percent to 25. In addition, he has vowed to make permanent the massive Bush tax cuts mainly benefiting the rich. The price tag on his planned giveaway to the most powerful and privileged would be in the trillions. Conveniently, in his stump speech, McCain has failed to explain just why working people should be jumping up and down because of such proposals. Further he has failed to explain how he plans on paying for such massive giveaways.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) recently sent Senator McCain a “Dear John” letter offering their assistance in coming up with a real economic plan that puts working families first. He has not responded to the effort and one close look at his actual plan demonstrates the exact reason. McCain only offers significant relief to those that are struggling the least, at the expense of those that are working the hardest and struggling the most. No amount of populist rhetoric on the stump will change the reality of his plans for our economy. They go above and beyond even the Bush plan that has delivered hard times to the average American.
People like you need Econ 101 lessons. For starters our 35% corporate tax rate is second only to Japan. When business taxes are to high it drives businesses off shore.
Today the top 40% of American wage earners pay 99.4% of income taxes. Our top individual rate of 35% is already quite high in global terms. Raising it back to to the Clinton rate of just under 40% would drive more individuals and their wealth off shore.
US taxation rates must be competitive on a global basis. If not, we will drive the wealth creators out of the country. If that happens the US Treasury income will go down, just as Dr. Arthur Laffer predicted years ago.
The corporate tax rate being second only to Japan is bogus. That is a figure on paper only. When you calculate actual collections we have the fourth lowest corporate tax rate. You won't find me weeping for the largest corps in the world based on that figure.
I find it so interesting that the right wing economic elites are always so worried for the most wealthy but rarely find a place for average people in their formulas and equations.
btw, how are you enjoying this Bush Recession? Amazing that it comes after 8 full years of conservative econmics.
Generation of wealth and reinvestment of that wealth into private enterprise has made this country what it is today. If government confiscats more wealth than they do already we will slow down our economic growth. Government consumes wealth and all to many cases squanders wealth. Furthermore in today's global economy wealth can easily be invested off shore. Wealth gravitates to where it gets the best rate of return. You wealth redistributionists just can't seem to figure that out. Low taxes makes for economic miracles. Ireland is probably the best example of that.