MC'CONNELL AND BOEHNER CONTINUE TO LIE AND DECEIVE THE PUBLIC AT THE EXPENSE OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY

POLITICS ALWAYS TRUMPS GOOD
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Liars, lunatics or both?

Rochester, N.Y.-- The melodramatic lunacy in Washington has reduced the Voice Reporter to namecalling.  Yesterday, on the third consecutive day of meetings on raising the nation's debt ceiling, Republican leaders signaled increasing pessimism about the likelihood of a deal and laid the blame for deteriorating negotiations squarely on President Obama's shoulders. What else is new?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a floor speech, "But in my view, the president has presented us with three choices: smoke and mirrors, tax hikes, or default. Republicans choose none of the above."

He went on to link his assertion that a tax increase on the wealthy kills jobs—which has never been proven by the facts.  Frankly speaking, it's insulting that he and the GOP continue to consciously mislead the American public with these soundbites-- or, it's inexcusable because the only other answer is that they are too dumb and out-of-touch to know any better.

Essentially, the on-again off-again McConnell plan to deal with the deficit would allow the president to raise the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion in three increments during the election season. Congress could veto the president's actions with a resolution of disapproval. The president could then veto the disapproval, meaning Congress would have to override the veto with a two-thirds vote. Therefore, it would only take one-third of Congress to support raising the debt ceiling.

On top of this, critical budget negotiations at the White House have left Speaker Boehner refusing to give up even one penny of tax breaks for Big Oil and billionaires.

Boehner and the GOP are irresponsibly putting the entire American economy at risk because of their insistence that millionaires, billionaires, and Big Oil companies should keep getting tax breaks while seniors lose the health care benefits they have earned.

The political thinking is that the GOP could voice its disapproval, the president would look like a tax-and-spend such and such, and economic catastrophe would be avoided. Plus this would all happen later. And "later" isn't now. That's the great thing about later. Whether this is all part of some protracted bout of mind-gaming, a set-up for some political long con, or a genuine fear of the U.S. defaulting on its obligations, this is getting very weird.

Mitch McConnell is either a complete lunatic or fiendishly conniving when he spouts this "job-killing tax hike" idea. How stupid does he think we are? Frankly speaking, let’s end this big fat lie once and for all. Making large corporations and the richest Americans pay their fair share of taxes has nothing to do with job creation or unemployment—period.  Just because you say these things do not make it so-- they are complete lies and fabrications and this political nonsense has got to stop.

Most sane economists agree that the top 2 percent of the richest Americans do not spend their money by creating jobs. It means we are only creating windfall bonuses by not holding them to the same tax standard as the rest of America's citizens.

Giving an unnecessary tax give-away to the rich also causes an erosion of vital public services-- this has become the devil in the details when local governments try to balance local budgets. By not adequately having a fair and equitable tax system, we deny all our residents, rich and poor, the necessary services they have come to rely upon.

Democracy and demand creates jobs, not the wealthy

The very idea that wealthy people and corporations create more jobs when paying less in taxes is a claim that has superficial appeal, premised on the idea that, because businesses employ workers, they would employ more workers if they had more money. However, this simple calculus fails to acknowledge that employment is driven by consumer demand, not the amount of money in an executive's pocket or on a business' balance sheet. A business or entrepreneur will not use profits to add more workers unless there is consumer or business demand for their product or service.

Regardless of your income, all Americans are supposed to contribute to our national productivity, expect equal opportunity and should demand equal rights at our workplaces. And there are social benefits we are all entitled to because we pay for them-- like health care, a living wage and Social Security when we get older. These are inalienable rights, not programs for the privileged few who can afford them. 

photo:  SEIU 1199

Taxes are the lifeblood of our democracy

According to Citizens for Tax Justice, overall taxes in the U.S. are the third lowest among industrialized countries (only Turkey and Mexico are lower). Corporate taxes are also lower than in most other industrial nations.

Additionally, there are huge inequities in our tax codes-- and they favor the rich. People at the bottom of the income ladder, the lowest 20 percent, pay almost twice as much of their income in state and local taxes as the top 1 percent. The poor pay 11 percent, the rich just 6 percent.

A functioning democracy should be designed to have a progressive tax structure that is in proportion to the means and ability to pay for the vital services we demand and cannot do by ourselves as individuals.

Conservatives and Republicans cast American tax-payers as victims. They moan that we are just taxpayers bearing up under the obligation to pay into federal and state coffers. Some are stoic in the face of the inevitability of “death and taxes,” while others burn with resentment like the Tea Party folks. We dread the task of hauling out that folder of receipts and calculating just how much of our income we have to hand over to Uncle Sam.

All of these GOP stories reflect a complete miscalculation to the reality of our tax paradigm. What is missing from this picture is any sense of a larger meaning in the act of paying taxes. Most other things that require effort and sacrifice-- family, service, charity, and volunteerism-- have virtuous, or at least redeeming, meaning associated with them. That meaning helps us face life’s challenges with a sense of a larger purpose that makes these acts worth the investment.

The GOP stories they tell about paying taxes reflect a chronic disconnection from our role as citizens; they are devoid of any civic meaning. The real meaning of taxes pays for the things that underpin our public life and connect us to one another through our communities, our states, our country and our collective future.

When we lose sight of this, taxes are seen as merely depriving us of our individual property. If, on the other hand, we see ourselves as stewards of a common good, as citizen managers of public systems and structures that secure the city, state and country we live in, then taxes are our contribution to something much more important than our individual being.

We all need to be telling a new and meaningful story about our tax responsibilities that celebrates the concrete opportunity it offers “we the people.” The problem is, without the public systems and structures that taxes pay for, the America we know and love would cease to exist.

The final analysis: no correlation between job creation and tax breaks for the wealthy

Looking at raw statistics, it is easy to see that there is no correlation between reducing personal income tax rates for the wealthy and employment levels. The marginal tax rate for the wealthiest members of society hovered above 90 percent for the twenty years between 1944 and 1963, with unemployment during this period as low as 1.2 percent and a high of 6.8 percent. From 1965 to 1981, taxes for the upper income bracket were lowered to 70 percent, with unemployment as low as 3.6 percent and as high as 7.7 percent; from 1982 to 1986, the wealthy were taxed at 50 percent, with unemployment only reaching a low of 7 percent and a high of 9.7 percent. Taxes continued dropping through the 1980s and 1990s, with the top tax rate dropping to 31 percent in 1992, but with very little positive impact on job growth.

In 1993, unemployment was at 6.9 percent, the tax rate for the wealthiest increased to 39.6 percent, and unemployment actually decreased to 4 percent by 2000. From 2003 through today, thanks to the Bush tax cuts, the rich have been taxed at 35 percent, and unemployment is now approaching 10 percent.

Jobs are created by supply and demand. When there is a demand for something and a middle-class that has the resources to pay for it-- jobs are created. Rich people and multi-national corporations only create new jobs when the demand for their goods or services increases. Supply and demand has nothing to do with how much taxes businesses and CEO's pay or don't pay-- neither does it change their ability to employ more people.

So, the next time you hear Cantor, McConnell and Boehner perpetrate this fraud on the American people, feel free to interject some truth into our public discourse where you see fit.

Simply put, the American people are hungry for our leaders to restore a vision for a national future founded on the premise that social justice and material prosperity are not competing values-- that they can co-exist and are necessary to each other for a healthy, sustainable and growing economy. The sooner we recognize that, the better.

This commentary is the expressed written opinion of the Voice Reporter and does not reflect the views of CSEA as an organization.