Though I could probably go on at length about the moral bankruptcy of a political party who writes a blank check for war but decides it’s time to be more fiscally conservative when a healthcare bill comes onto the table (or a bill for any kind of government spending that doesn’t kill people), I instead want to talk about some of my favorite Republican half-baked selling points.
Lowering taxes for businesses creates jobs.
Actually, no it doesn’t. Though I don’t advocate making one’s government larger than it needs to be, lowering taxes for businesses isn’t going to make that business start hiring more people. What will make a business hire more people is a demand for more work for them to do.
Regulation stifles job creation.
That’s cute. Yes, everywhere around America, there are business owners with a stack of resumes on their desks and a shit ton of positions to fill, but they’re just so busy reading up on OSHA regulations to make sure they aren’t doing anything wrong that they just can’t call some of those candidates in for an interview. Regulation isn’t a governmental attempt to be dicks. It tends to be reactive to abuses of freedom. The art of policymaking like that is making a policy that inhibits the abuse but doesn’t inhibit anything else.
Taxing the rich is punishing them for being successful
Actually, how rich would you be if there were no infrastructure for your business to use? How rich would you be if you had no customers because they couldn’t get to your place of business? How rich would you be if you needed an army to guard your business at night to protect it from mobs of people coming to steal your shit? And what would protect your private army from just betraying you anyway and taking your shit?
The truth is, without a government, you would have had a lot more trouble making any money at all. Since you are richer than others, you benefitted more from the government’s services, so you pay them more. If we were sending you to prison for being rich, then yes, we’d be punishing the rich. But we’re not; we’re just taxing you more. And that money goes to make the country good so that its citizens are well off enough to keep buying your products or services.
Despite the fact that everyone looks to the government when the economy’s in the crapper, the government doesn’t have that many tools to improve the economy. It’s in the hands of the people who ruined it. The US economy’s in the crapper because corporations earn more profits than they historically ever have before (even adjusted for inflation), yet the wages of people have remained stagnant for years when accounting for inflation. Corporations moved our manufacturing sector overseas and thought it was great when their costs plummeted but now that’s caught up with them. Unemployment is high, yet those employed are overworked and underpaid. And the richest people in the US are richer than ever. If we really want the economy to get better, we need the people running our businesses to understand that long-term financial health means sharing the wealth.
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