Republicans, you say you want to help the middle class. But the way you’re doing that is to give corporations huge tax cuts?
Republicans, you of all people know that borrowing money costs money. You guys have been complaining forever about how irresponsible it is to borrow money...how terrible it is that the debt limit has to be raised all the time, etc., etc. But now you’re falling all over yourselves to borrow really a lot of money. Like a *lot* of money. The current national debt is over 20 trillion (which means that every American’s share is over $61,000). But, Republicans, your proposal to increase it for this corporate tax cut is going to add another 1.5 trillion. That’s an increase of about 7.5%. That’s a huge increase! That’s another $3,597.12 for each American!
And how is the interest on this money going to be paid back? Well, we know, because you’re always, always, nagging us about it when you complain about the debt limit. Here is what you say:
Continually increasing the debt of the United States puts an undue and unfair burden on future generations of Americans. It is fair and just to unburden our children from the national debt.
those are the helpful Tea Party Patriots over at: www.teapartypatriots.org/…
Because future generations have to pay the interest. It’s fine to take out a loan if you’re buying something that makes your future better, but does this? Does it really? Are we borrowing money to:
- buy something that will make us more money in the future (good example: college education),
- or are we borrowing money to impulse spend on something that will make us happy now, but is maybe not such a great long-term investment (good example: a speed boat).
- Or are we borrowing money to spend it on something that is actually bad for us and which will end up leaving us in much, much worse shape (good example: cocaine).
You Republicans say this tax cut is the first thing, because this loan is going to indirectly put money into the pockets of the middle class. Which is an admirable goal (except for the beggaring-future-generations part). But is this really a good way to accomplish that admirable goal? Because there are a lot of moving parts that are all going to have to work perfectly for this to happen.
Republicans, why so many moving parts?
Let’s run through the steps that will all have to go right for this to work out:
1. corporations will have more money, that they used to have...this will cause the following:
2. corporations will decide to spend that money...this will cause the following:
3. corporations will spend the money to create more of the stuff they sell...this will cause the following:
4. corporations will need a way to make the stuff they sell, so corporations will, either directly or indirectly, cause humans, in America, to be hired to create that stuff...this will cause the following:
5. Americans who need money (i.e. middle class Americans) will have more money.
There are so many things that could go wrong with this scheme.
Step 1. Let’s assume, for the moment, that cutting corporate taxes will actually cause corporations to have more money. For now, the economy is not in a recession (in a recession, companies don’t make as much money...so cutting corporate taxes does not help their bottom line). We agree that, as long as the economy keeps chugging along, and companies are not pulling an Enron and cooking their books, or haven’t outsourced their profits so much that they don’t give a fig what US corporate income rates look like, corporations will actually have more money. OK, on to Step 2:
Step 2(a) What would happen if the people running the corporations decide to just keep the money (maybe it would make their financial statements look better, and then maybe the people running the corporations will think to themselves “I can either use this money doing a bunch of risky shit that may or may not work, or I can just keep it, and *instantly* make the company look better and also earn myself a big bonus”...what do you think they will do? what would you do?)?
Step 2(b) What would happen if the people running the corporations decide to just give the money to the people who own the company (i.e. stockholders)? That, after all, is what companies are supposed to do. It is, in fact, kind of their job. Well, some of that money will go to the middle class, but not a lot of it. Most of the money is going to go to people who already have so much money that they’ve stopped spending it on stuff they need, and have just socked it away so it can make even more money for them, by buying shares in companies. Even worse, a lot of those wealthy people are not even Americans. They’re foreign investors (that’s, like, 33 1/3% of the people who will benefit, in fact. Wow).
Step 2(c ) What would happen if, even if the corporations decided to spend the money, they decided to buy *other corporations* instead of creating jobs with the money? Wouldn’t that create less competition? maybe make what you pay for the things the corporations produce cost more? This also would not be good. It would in fact be bad. These last two options are looking a lot like when you get a lot of money from your dead Aunt and decide to spend it on blow.
Step 3 & Step 4 What would happen if, even if the corporations decided to spend the money, and even if they decided to create more jobs, what if they decided to spend the money overseas...to create these jobs in other countries, where people will work for cheaper? What if they just outsource the work? Or automate it? Yep, more paralyzed nasal passage territory here.
So do we even really ever get to Step 5? Probably not. Are the Republicans really this stupid? They are not. They don’t want to mainly help middle class Americans, not really. They know, just as well as anybody knows, that if they really wanted to put $4,000 into the pocket of every middle class American, they could just do that. 1.5 trillion dollars is a lot of money. They could give everybody who was in a targeted bracket a check (a speedboat). They could, you know, decide to bring free internet to everybody in the freaking country (college education).
But that’s not what they want.
This is a tax cut for the wealthy.
Here’s what actual humans will get, per the Joint Committee on Taxation:
Individual Tax Cuts:
+3.3 Trillion
Individual Tax Increases:
-3.0 Trillion
What do individual Americans get, net? A measly 300 billion dollars.
That’s $300,000,000,000.00
Well, this doesn’t include the 172 billion dollars the 5,000 or so individual wealthy dead Americans who die each year will get (which is so important to them, since they’re...you know...dead).
That’s $172,000,000,000.00
Let’s just emphasize this for a sec...5,000 dead Scrooge McDuck Americans will get more than 1/3 of all the total benefits accruing to all American individuals under this bill. So to the Republicans who have written this bill, 5,000 unbelievably wealthy, and dead former Americans deserve 1/3 of the benefits of this great tax bill, and the other 417,000,000 Americans can share out the other (less than) 2/3 of the benefits of this tax bill. Did I mention that the minute number who are getting more than 1/3 of this are, you know, dead? & so, you know, presumably have bigger things to worry about than how much their tax bill is going to be?
That’s crazy.
But here’s what’s even crazier
What do corporations get?
Business Tax Cuts:
+2.2 Trillion
Business Tax Increases:
-1.2 Trillion
What do corporate American and International non-human entities net?
1.0 Trillion dollars.
That’s $1,000,000,000,000.00
More than 3 times as much as individual humans.
So, if you’re keeping score, Republicans value corporations more than three times as much as they do actual living human beings.
And Republicans value 5,000 unbelievably wealthy dead human beings almost as much as they value all of the living American human beings they purport to represent.
Let’s do the math.
1 trillion/1.5 trillion: 67 %
.3 trillion/1.5 trillion: 20 %
.172 trillion/1.5 trillion: 11 %
Yeah, it doesn’t add up, Republican math never does.
80% to corporations and dead people.
One man, one vote? Yeah, sure, as long as you’re a corporation or dead.