Friday, March 18, 2011

Republican Tea Party; Are You Serious About Reducing the Deficit

The current Republican Tea Party obsession with cutting programs like Pell Grants, Planned Parenthood and school lunches is really just a way to sneak in a stealth tax increase on the middle class and poorer segments of our country. Every dollar cut out of these programs has to be made up by increasing fees on average Americans. All these cuts taken together are a tiny fraction of one percent of our budget and are insignificant if you are actually trying to reduce the deficit. These cuts are nothing more than a phoney attempt to use the large deficit as an excuse to cut programs the Republican Tea partiers are against for partisan political reasons.

Hey Republican Tea party, if you are serious about reducing the deficit, here is an idea:
Do away with the proliferation of phoney tax shelters and raise taxes on income over $500,000 to 70%. After World War 2, we had a bigger debt than we have now as a percent of the economy and the world didn't end. We raised taxes on the wealthy to over 90% and guess what? The rich prospered along with the middle class. As it turns out the rich heavily invested in business creation in order to avoid the high taxes, and in the process created millions of new jobs resulting in increased tax revenue. A win-win-win scenario that resulted in decades of robust growth, high employment and low deficits.

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