In 1946 Congress drew up the Full Employment Act. Business interests gutted it and it no longer had any teeth ("Full" was even dropped from the name), but if we are to continue to be the strong country we have always been, we need Congressional action, and a public movement to back it up, to ensure that everyone who wants a job is employed and at livable wages.
There's plenty that needs doing and we have plenty of money to do it (if we increase taxes on the top 2%, ensure corporations pay both the federal and state taxes they should pay, and take significant amounts out the money spent on the military).
Comments (1)
How much do you think government can take from the top 2% without driving them to change their behavior? The top 1% pay about 40% of all Federal income taxes (if I remember correctly) and with state and local taxes, etc., many top income earners pay well over 50% of their income in taxes. What do you think is enough for them to pay? If you take it all, what will you do next year when they decide not to work or decide to move their businesses to another country and give up US citizenship?
Think this doesn't happen? It happens all over Europe because of their high taxes. And, rich people are moving from high tax states in the US to lower tax states ... look at the results of the recently enacted millionaires tax in Maryland ... the revenue from millionaires is down substantially.
What is needed are incentives for people to be more successful creating jobs in this country so more people earn a living doing productive things, not working for the government.
If you envy the rich, go do something that is valuable to lots of people and become rich yourself ... and then you can pay a huge percent of your income in taxes too.
By the way Corporations only pay taxes if they make a profit. They only make a profit if they provide products that consumers pay for ... thus corporations really don't pay income taxes ... their customers pay the taxes, the corporation only collects them.
So, when you raise taxes on US corporations, you raise the costs to the US consumers. You also make the products more costly and therefore less competitive with foreign products ... thus meaning the business is likely to have a smaller market share meaning it can employ fewer Americans.
And, no... I am not a high income person. You do not have to be rich to live very comfortably in this country ... at least not at the moment.