Let 'em Eat Cake

Barack Obama’s plan to ask Congress to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for people with incomes of over $250 thousand has given the right wing a talking point, or shrieking point for Tea Party types. It would raise the taxes of the top two percent of taxpaying Americans, a relatively small number. Still this is double the much maligned one percent we’ve been hearing so much about. You can see where things could go at this annual rate, now 2, then 4,8,16 and 32 percent after four more years of an Obama presidency, the end of America as we know it.   So we must prepare now for the coming onslaught from the right which has as its centerpiece “job creation.” According to the Congressional Budget Office, taxing annual income over 250gs an extra 3.6% would save the Treasury approximately a trillion dollars over ten years. A logical question then is how much of this money would go to businesses intended to create jobs.   Hardly everyone with taxable income over $250 thousand qualifies as a job creator. Many live solely off inherited wealth and others from accumulated wealth or retirement money. Surely we aren’t expected to believe that simply trading in stocks of job producing corporations qualifies. Another question is whether a rich investor would be dissuaded from further investment by having to pay an additional $27 thousand on an additional million income. The claim that “small businesses” would be affected is a major hoax. The CBO estimates that only 3% of businesses make more than $250 thousand profit. (Damn! There goes another percent) Most detrimental to this “jobs” argument is the fact that many of the biggest businesses that thrived through this whole disaster have available money today and are still not hiring, and not without reason. Hiring more means producing more and the buying public isn’t currently in the chips.   This issue appears headed for at least a show of hands in Congress, which can’t be anything but a winner for the Democrats. If it’s talked about enough between now and election, many less intelligent and/or less interested voters will eventually understand the simple logic and even simpler arithmetic supporting it. One side wants to react to a budget deficit by a minor tax increase on those best able to afford it. The other side would rather raise taxes on everybody, including those least able or unable to afford them.   In my opinion this showdown should have taken place two years ago. It’s understandable that Democrats preferred saving their strongest ammunition for a presidential election year. Several Senators, including Harry Reid, might have lost their seats with full scale Wall Street opposition. But the loss of governorships and state legislators in swing states with ensuing voter suppression laws could cost the whole ball of wax and for a very long time.   One of two bromides may apply after the election, “a stitch in time saves nine” or “better late than never.” I hope it’s the second.