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Not true. I eagerly subscribe to Henry George economics and I think that's exactly what this country needs.
Hence the "By just about" part.
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Trickle-down economics doesn't work any more than it worked in the days of Marie Antoinette or Julius Caesar. If the rich were investing their funds in real enterprise, we wouldn't be in this "jobless recovery" in the first place.
So people who invested and continue to invest in any company aren't employing people? The people who invest in Google, Apple, Pepsi, etc are paying payroll and expansion. People don't invest for no return, and often not even for small return, especially when taxes threaten chances of getting a return. Greater risks have to be met with greater rewards, and the taxes on corporations (unless you're GE or other green energies) cuts into investors returns.
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If we have lower taxes for these people than ever before and no job growth to speak of, what is our basis for believing that lower taxes will correlate to their creating more jobs?
Our corporate tax rate is higher than most other equally developed countries. Which also causes another thing that cuts into employment - outsourcing.
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When we are talking about "the rich" we are talking about a basically invisible .1% of the population. The middle class is drained dry.
1 - We aren't an anarchy. The purpose of our government is to protect minorities from the majority. It doesn't matter if there is 1 guy with 70% of all capital in the country. It doesn't give the rest of us the right to soak him.
2 - Taking every cent the rich have still won't pay off much of our deficit. The top 10% of earners are already paying 71% of income tax.
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The rich have never enjoyed greater prosperity in either absolute or relative terms, and at this time are a greater expense to the government in the form of bailouts and services than ever before. How is it unfair to expect them to contribute more?
The poor have never enjoyed greater prosperity either. How many poor people in the US go without running water, electricity, some food and a roof over their head? Only in America do the 'poor' have tendency to be overweight.
Maybe that is because the tide that raised the rich people also raised the poor? Why do think Mexican's rush over here? I mean besides the entitlements we like giving illegal aliens? Because their poor wash their clothes on river rocks.
The government should not have bailed out anybody. That was a gross abomination of free markets. The companies should have been left to fail. They would have sold their assets, many employees would have been absorbed by competitors and the market would have been stronger for it.
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It's not that simple. Yes, life will go on, but it makes the US look like a banana republic and that will damage our interests. It also will cost money because the obligations are already set in stone and what will happen is a bunch of litigation and high-interest short-term IOUs.
How would the US getting it's financial house in order damage our interests? What obligations are set in stone? Entitlements? The things that are going to go are, well... shimp on treadmills.