Raising+Taxes

Raising Taxes Pro/Con
-Economic Democracy provides individual economic security through full employment, fair wages and prices, benefits, retirement, a home, an education, care and recreation. -Without economic democracy, political democracy is far too vulnerable to scarcity and drift into wage slavery. =Raising Taxes: Con= -US economy is currently in “slow-growth mode”, and if we increase income and corporate taxes, we could be feeling the harmful effects for years -tried doing this during the Great Depression, the ‘70s, and the ‘90s, didn’t work -American businesses have the second-highest tax burden in the world, hurting the country’s global economic competitiveness, will damage job-creation (when unemployment is on the rise, this is especially important) -most individuals who earn more than $250,000 are small business owners that are taxed at the personal income tax rate, and raising their income tax will hurt business in an already difficult economic time -increasing taxes will encourage small business owners to close up and move into corporate America instead -top 1% pay nearly 50% of the income tax, and they make their money on stock options and bonuses, which no longer exist; the more we put the burden of our tax system on a few rich people, the more we will see massive and unmanageable swings in tax receipts -taxing an activity reduces the level of that activity and destroys incentives to work -higher taxes take away consumer purchasing power -**bottom line: raising taxes in this time of economic crisis has the potential to make the situation a LOT worse if done irresponsibly** =Raising Taxes: Pro= -could stimulate the economy if the additional immediate revenue is used for lowering the deficit, thus indirectly raising the value of the US dollar on world markets, indirectly increasing the amount of credit available to private business borrowers -Clinton prosperity due largely to the immediate tax increase when he was elected, because before he took office the national debt was increasing at a faster rate than the economy, which scared investors away from the US; tax increase cooled off the deficit and invited foreigners to invest again -key to raising taxes responsibly is to spend the extra revenue on getting rid of the deficit -we NEED to pay off our debts asap to get the ball rolling again -otherwise, anything that is done is merely a bandaid “Most politicians don’t understand macroeconomics; they fail to grasp the correlation between cause and effect in this area.” http://wiki-debate.wikispaces.com/Debating+the+Money+Question http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1102/1102economy.htm
 * Franklin Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights, State of the Union 1944: **
 * Rebuttal to any politician’s statement regarding taxes, on either side: **
 * Abraham Lincoln ** : you don’t level the playing field by hurting those who are investing and creating jobs