Big business owns the lobby industry in Congress now, with over 12,000 lobbyists spending $3.3B in 2012. They have aggressively pursued their agenda of tax reductions, pork, entitlements, and reduced regulation since 1978, with the results Nick Kristof has described here. Among other things, stripping out the progressive tax system of the 50's and 60's has entirely changed the incentive of the boardroom and the uppermost management tier in American business since those decades. No business was about to pay a CEO $15M if 91% of it went to Uncle Sam. Consequently, the money was spent on R & D, capital investment, employee training, wages and benefits, and better quality employees. Long term growth was the goal. Now it's a race-to-the-bottom. Since every quarter has to show a good enough bottom line to justify the bonuses and golden parachutes the assets are sold off, pensions are eliminated, and work outsourced and offshored.
With lower taxes than any time in living memory, what has it done for job creation? Nothing whatsover - the reverse in fact - because jobs are created by a lot of people having enough extra money to spend that they buy consumer goods. When that happens, it creates demand and thus new business opportunities for startups. If the estate tax is removed, as the lobbyists wish, we will have a permanent entrenched upper class plutocracy/kleptocracy worthy of any third world nation.Douglas Minneapolis
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBig business owns the lobby industry in Congress now, with over 12,000 lobbyists spending $3.3B in 2012. They have aggressively pursued their agenda of tax reductions, pork, entitlements, and reduced regulation since 1978, with the results Nick Kristof has described here. Among other things, stripping out the progressive tax system of the 50's and 60's has entirely changed the incentive of the boardroom and the uppermost management tier in American business since those decades. No business was about to pay a CEO $15M if 91% of it went to Uncle Sam. Consequently, the money was spent on R & D, capital investment, employee training, wages and benefits, and better quality employees. Long term growth was the goal. Now it's a race-to-the-bottom. Since every quarter has to show a good enough bottom line to justify the bonuses and golden parachutes the assets are sold off, pensions are eliminated, and work outsourced and offshored.
ReplyDeleteWith lower taxes than any time in living memory, what has it done for job creation? Nothing whatsover - the reverse in fact - because jobs are created by a lot of people having enough extra money to spend that they buy consumer goods. When that happens, it creates demand and thus new business opportunities for startups. If the estate tax is removed, as the lobbyists wish, we will have a permanent entrenched upper class plutocracy/kleptocracy worthy of any third world nation.Douglas
Minneapolis