Sick of the Job Creator Rhetoric

Last night the Senate voted down Obama's $35 billion jobs bill to hire teachers, policeman, firefighters and other first responders.  The bill was to be paid for by taxing those earning over a million dollars and extra  .5% , or $5,000 on a million dollars. The vote was 50-50 with all republicans voting it down.  One of the reasons stated for not passing it was that it would place an unfair tax hike on about 300,000  "job creators".  Every time there is an inkling of taking money from the wealthy, there is a knee jerk reaction  "But you will be hurting the job creators".

First off, jobs are created by demand for goods.  Jobs are created by the 99% of the people not making above one million dollars that are pumping most of their paycheck into the economy.  Taxing those making over 1 million dollars is not going to cost us any jobs.  The richest will probably spend the same amount even after you have reduced their income by .5 percent.  And I highly doubt that this amount would affect any decisions on whether or not to put money into a business.  Businesses have enormous amounts of money that they are holding onto right now, and they will still not hire people.  Adding a small percentage of personal income tax on so called "job creators" will not change that.

As far as I'm concerned, the "job creator" lingo is just code for "Don't dare touch the rich".

Herman Cain's 999 Plan is Unfair to Poor and Seniors

I came across an interesting calculator on the internet, the Herman Cain 999 calculator, and I figured out what my taxes would be if this plan were implemented.  Last year Bob and I paid $335 in taxes.  Under Cain's 999 plan, we would pay about $8,500.   I was so upset I wrote an article "Herman Cain's 999 Plan Threatens Seniors".  The bottom line is that Cain's plan favors the wealthy and penalizes anyone who has to spend a large percent of their money on goods, since practically all new goods are taxed at the 9% rate.  The effective tax will be highest on those who don't make much money but have to pay most of their money out for goods.  Seniors are at an added disadvantage since Cain is taking away the payroll tax.  Those working would effectively get 6.2 percent more than those retired.  How is this fair?

If you want to check out Cain's plan to see how it will effect you, go to the Herman Cain 9-9-9 calculator.  I think that there will be many of you that will find out your taxes will be higher under this plan, not lower.

How We Can All Help Reduce the National Debt

Many of us in this country are disturbed and extremely concerned about the growing national debt in this country.  The super committee is now looking at ways to make reductions in our expenses and bringing in more revenue.  I myself support raising the taxes on the wealthiest, but it occurred to me that all of us could help out.  If a line item was added on our income tax form 1040 to contribute $3.00 or more to the "Reduce the US Deficit Fund" in the same way that we contribute $3.00 to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, I would readily donate, and I think the majority of other people would too, especially those that were getting money back.

The Tax Policy Center reports that there will be 155.1 million tax units in 2011.  If we collected an average of  $3.00 from all of them, that would bring in $465 million a year, and over 10 years would bring in $4.65 billion - not a trivial amount!  Individual contributions would be such a small amount that hardly anyone would miss it.  However, it would make us all feel as if we were helping our nation dig out from under the tremendous burden of debt that we are in, rather than feeling helpless and frustrated.  If the amount were left open so that we could contribute whatever we wanted, the amount would probably be even larger.

The bottom line is that most of us, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, love this country dearly, and if called upon to donate a small amount to help solve this critical debt problem, we would be more than glad to do so.