In choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate, Governor Romney has fully embraced the conservative conceit that tax breaks for the rich really will produce jobs for the poor and middle class. Government, these new libertarian conservatives aver, doesn't and can't produce jobs, only the private sector can. To do so the benefactors of great wealth need only be unburdened of any obligation to pay taxes, since taxing them only robs them of the resources to put America back to work. Mr. Ryan is also a fan of vouchers, proposing to shift Medicare from a government to a private sector program in which we get vouchers to buy our own coverage from private vendors.
So let's put the premise of Ryan's libertarian economics to a test he can believe in: let's offer tax breaks to the wealthy in the form of jobs vouchers. For every (say) 25 thousand dollars deducted from a millionaire's tax bill (the approximate value of a job just above the poverty line), the beneficiary receives not a refund or reduction in taxes owed, but rather a voucher worth $25K that can be cashed in for its face value with the U.S. government by a worker for whom a new job has been created by the wealthy tax-payer. Want a $100,000 break? Create four new jobs. The tax-payer must prove he has actually created a new job, of course; not replaced one job with another.
With new jobs created, the wealthy taxpayer recycles his tax break in exactly the way Ryan insists he is going to -- using it to benefit the economy at large and unemployed job-seekers in particular. Since choice is what vouchers are all about, the tax break beneficiary will have three to six months to produce a job of his design on his own schedule. He gets his tax break, an unemployed worker gets a job and the economy overall is improved. Win-win-win. Call it mandatory trickle down.
However! (and it is a crucial 'however!') Fair is fair; and if the Ryan theory turns out not to work as described and the would-be job-creator fails to create a new job, the voucher's value is nil, and the tax break will automatically disappear along with the voucher. No job, no refund.
To give the wealthy a little extra motivation, and put a price on their promise, the government can also impose a penalty. If a job is not created within three to six months, not only will the voucher expire, effectively returning its value to the U.S. Treasury and costing the tax-payer his break, but a penalty will be assessed in the amount of the voucher. Kind of like a "double or nothing." Spend your tax break on a job and keep it. Break your promise and lose the break and pay the IRS an additional tax in the same amount.
It couldn't be fairer, penalty and all, since the only rationale for the tax break according to Messrs. Ryan and Romney is job creation. And as long as tax breaks for the rich really do lead to more jobs, we all benefit just as Ryan promises we will. It is only if the rich are kidding or lying, and what they really want is more for themselves and to hell with everyone else that they lose the break and pay the penalty.
Liberals can stop calling conservatives hypocrites or trying to rebut them. Let conservatives prove themselves right. Give them the benefit of the doubt and the breaks they altruistically crave, but with the proviso that they get nothing and pay double it doesn't result in jobs.
Conservatives should certainly welcome the principle of vouchers, which they have been proffering for a long time to the poor for education, groceries and housing -- and now, courtesy of Mr. Ryan, for Medicare too. The premise has been that a voucher prevents "irresponsible behavior" by those being helped, like buying drugs instead of groceries or a golf caddy instead of private schooling for the kids. It's a way to prevent the poor from getting all that "free stuff" Mitt Romney thinks they are always conniving to acquire.
So now the rich too can also be held to account: no "free" government hand-outs in the form of tax refunds for them either. Just the wherewithal to create the jobs they say will be their gift to the nation.
Win-win-win. Or pay up.
Follow Benjamin R. Barber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BenjaminRBarber
Noël Harmon: A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats
There isn't anything free market about the 1%. How about more work visas? How is that free market?
We tax Americans for the right to earn a living but we refuse to tax imports from slave labor communist China.
This whole issue reminds me a lot about the current flap about Akins and his rape abortion comments. Remember, the GOP's policy is NO ABORTIONS, for any reason. He was just telling it like it is, and some Repubs are up in arms, when in private they are telling Akins, "what are you nuts, don't mention this stuff!".
Geeeez, I still can't believe people can't see through all this hypocrisy.
Similar to my plan to segregate the country so that republicans have to breathe soot-filled air, drink mercury and chromium-6 saturated water, eat only GMO and pesticide soaked foods, have no birth control or immigrants, have no help with healthcare, FEMA, roads, police, fire, teachers, courts or otherwise, have endless wars that they alone fight and pay for, etc. Above all, they don't get any more Blue State welfare.
Time for these lunatics to see what the Lord of the Flies/Mad Max dystopia they are calling for really looks like.
It isn't clear to me what Bain Capital actually did. What I think I saw was a plan to borrow money and trick the companies that they bought with the borrowed money into paying it back. And charge them for the privilege of being bought and sold. Didn't build anything, manufacture anything, discover anything, just provided "management services" whatever that is. Some MBA want to explain this to me?
A few points:
(a) In the Ryan plan, the intent is to give consumers more choice. In your plan, the intent is to LIMIT the consumers choice of what to do with THEIR capital. The lack of choice distorts the market and reduces the economic value of the voucher by limiting it going to its highest-and-best use.
(b) Jobs are a byproduct of profit seeking. And it is the entrepreneurial drive that unlocks the value of capital and labor and creates jobs while producing profit. Want more jobs, reduce those factors that reduce profit margin.
(c) The rich do not deserve tax breaks in order to create jobs; they deserve tax breaks because the money is theirs. They earned it. Letting people keep more of their own money is not giving them anything, it is instead taking less from them. Extractive governments that prey on producers to support non-producers do not do well; Africa is littered with examples, as is Europe.
(d) Jobs are not a right in America, liberty as defined by property rights is. No one deserves a job at the expense of someone else’s property that is taken from them. That is just theft. Worse, forcing someone, whether rich or not, to work to create that property/wealth that is then taken and given to others for their benefit…is tantamount to slavery.
Why is slavery so appealing to you as a means to alleviate joblessness?
Kai
The issue with your point of view is the assumption that anyone with money truly has earned it.
You deserve your money...I assume you earned it. Please keep it...i have no right to it simply becuase you may have more than me.
Good luck.
Kai
Anyone that helped the rich achieve their fortune did so willingly and were ALREADY remunerated for their participation….they have no residual claim to anything that is made. More importantly, for common goods and services, which make up about 5% of the GDP, and about 1/3 of the budget….the rich have paid more than their fair share to support those goods and services.
If anything it is the poor, travelling on roads they did not build or pay for, to pick up welfare checks that they did not pay for, at a welfare office that they did not build or pay for who should pay more and owe more not only to the rich, but to the middle class.
The fact that the rich were able to better utilize the common goods and services that the government provides (and they already paid for) that you and others also had access to, does not mean that they need to have their wealth and property seized to ameliorate your failure.
Mutual responsibility to a common infrastructure, government, and security is one thing…mutual responsibility for others welfare is slavery.
The government should not be in the charity and insurance business.
You fail.
Kai
http://boingboing.net/2012/08/13/bain-capital-buys-profitable-a.html