Tonight is the first Republican presidential debate with all the top contenders planning to attend. And there is only question I want to see asked:
Why didn't the Bush tax cuts create any jobs?
Every candidate on tonight's debate stage not only continues to support the Bush tax cuts, but also proposes additional tax cuts for corporations and individual millionaires.
Tim Pawlenty wants to cuts taxes on the wealthiest from 35% to 25%, and on corporations from 35% to 15%.
Newt Gingrich proposes an "optional flat tax" of 15% which will surely be "opted" by every millionaire now paying 35%, as well as eliminating the estate tax on heirs and the capital gains tax on speculators.
Rep. Michelle Bachmann voted for the House budget, which slashed the tax rate for corporations and wealthy individuals to 25%, then argued that what we really need is higher taxes on the poor and middle class.
Rick Santorum criticized the bipartisan tax cut deal President Obama forged with congressional Republicans on the grounds it did not cut taxes on the wealthy enough.
Former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain calls for more tax cuts for the wealthy, but hasn't given specifics yet and also backs cutting the capital gains tax and eliminating the estate tax.
Mitt Romeny is calling for lower taxes on corporations but hasn't yet laid out specifics.
Yet none of them have been directly asked to explain why they support an extension and expansion of, according to the Wall Street Journal, a tax policy that produced "the worst record on record" on job creation?
Shouldn't they at least be expected to offer a reason why the Bush tax cuts didn't work?
How can we take them seriously if they can't learn a single lesson from recent history?
This is no longer an abstract debate. The Bush tax cuts happened.
Conservatives claimed they would boost the economy and create jobs. They didn't.
The fundamental truth of the failure of the Bush tax cuts should be front and center of any discussion about our future tax policy.
Any presidential debate that ignores this fundamental truth is doing a disservice to the electorate.
Originally published at OurFuture.org
Follow Bill Scher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billscher
Hence big corporations, technology, outsourcing and cheap imports cause unemployment. Now who will pay for retirement and medical for unemployed people - answer should be corporations and cheap imports. So government should raise tax on corporations which are making too much money on the cost of common man and then government should pay for retirement and medical from that money.
This is so simple to understand.
One additional thing before I post this. Fear any candidate that does not address the imbalance of our taxed citizenary. By that I mean, if the current tax contribution percentages are not aligned better, and additional programs like national healthcare hit, we will collapse. This should be a huge concern of every American because our deficit right now is the highest percentage of GDP than it has been but a wide margin since WWII. And has been for three years in a row now.
As far as corporate tax rates, democrats need to propose a law making it a crime for a corporation to relocate overseas, as that's the only strategy that will help retain corporations while attempting to be the highest corporate tax rate country in the world.. When the US corporate tax rate is second highest in the world, it is understandable why companies would want to relocate to a more tax friendly country. But, instead of adopting a strategy of competing with all countries about being the lowest tax rate so that maybe the US would become a destination for foreign corporations to locate thereby producing more jobs, they choose to try become the highest tax rate in the world? It's kind of like slapping somebody in the face repeatedly and being upset that the person getting slapped gets tired of getting hit, so they duck?
A good follow-up might be: "Why would corporate tax cuts cause a corporation hire more employees if the customers' incomes are falling? or "Overall, are not the employees and their families the customers of business?
Clarification: I'm not referring to the millions of small business owners who are also the customers of other small businesses.
The unemployment rate went DOWN after the Bush tax rate cuts got us out of TIF President Clinton's recession.
Revenue from income taxes paid to the US Treasury went UP after the Bush tax rate cuts.
Please get your facts straight.
bush created 3.5 million jobs in 8 years
Hummmm you must not be very good with numbers
This is the party line that none will cross for fear of losing their support. Blind faith in bad policy.
If I don't rob you today, did I give you money?
Clinton created 25 milloin jobs in 8 years.....
You do the math
"Shouldn't they at least be expected to offer a reason why the Bush tax cuts didn't work?
How can we take them seriously if they can't learn a single lesson from recent history?
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Please do not let anyone forget this.
Obama.
Or how about "The republican controlled house produced a budget which was voted down in the democrat senate 57-41ish. The budget the president presented was voted down in the democrat controlled senate 97-0. The democrats in the democrat senate have presented no budget at all. Do you think the senate which is legally obligated to prepare a budget should do so?"
I'm an uber lib who supported obama strongly, but I totally agree. He had his chance to do something about it, and failed. Someone needs to run against him from our side (or maybe just my side; don't know about you, shadow), because he sure as heck isn't a democrat in my view.
He got bin Laden when the previous administration didn't care (see Bush's "I don't care where he is" comment). That got swept under the carpet after a few days and the verbal attacks continued.
We need to be rebuilding our highway infrastructure and develop hi speed rail to create jobs that only the government can create. It's obvious that no major corporations are doing anything to create new jobs.