Corporate Loopholes My Foot (or Shoes)

Several years ago I needed a pair of shoes in the worst way.  Every woman out there knows what I mean.  The world had been treating me unfairly and I needed a pair of new high heels.  But, even in times of emotional distress I am still budget driven so I found some lovely brown suede pumps on sale for 50% off.  I took them to the check out and discovered that they were discounted yet another 50% at the register.  Bingo!

There is a morality lesson here.  Have you ever bought a sale item but asked to pay the full price instead?  Have you ever turned down a pay raise that was offered you?  Have you ever tried to get a promotion in pay, benefits and prestige?  Have you ever wanted more for you and your family?  In other words, as long as you earn your money and earn it honestly, what is wrong with having more of it?  Like Tevya says in Fiddler on the Roof, “I realize it’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honor either.” 

If all of this is true, why do Democrats consistently talk about, “the rich” as if you should spit after saying the word?  I have never been rich but I don’t think it would be a bad thing.  Ah, but I hear some of you saying, you expect the rich (whom ever those poor targeted souls may be) to get us out of this fiscal mess we are in.  Why not?  After all, they’ve got the money.  Do they?  And who are they?  And why should we hate them?

To make my point, I am going to use the numbers produced by President Obama in his proposed 2011 budget, a budget so out of touch with reality, by the way, that not a single member of his own party voted for it!

Washington’s money comes directly from us.  We pay $1.1 trillion dollars in personal income tax each year.  What about those mysterious tax loopholes for “big corporations.”  Well, corporate tax revenues amount to $297 billion.  That means that corporate income tax makes up only 27% of personal income tax.  It you closed every loophole and could double (triple, even quadruple) corporate income tax revenues you still would not even get to the level of the $1.3 trillion deficit, let alone what we have already spent beyond our income.   And what would corporations do if you quadrupled their tax burden?  What would you do if someone increased your taxes?  You would spend less.  So would businesses.  When they want to spend less they cut (just as our government should) at the big ticket items.  The biggest cost to any business is its employees, so they would lay people off.  This isn’t rocket science.  It is simple fact. 

If corporations are not the solution to the problem, and if attacking them would have devastating results, why bring up the specter of corporate laxity in tax production?  Why? Because the Democratic party still thinks its bread and butter is disaffected, ill educated, immigrant  workers that the ward bosses can manipulate by demonizes the, “boss” as the, “laird of the manor.”

            I have frequently said that I don’t entirely blame the Congress for our National Debt.  Frankly, if you gave me $1 trillion, I’d spend recklessly, too.  So, what do I blame Congress for—let’s see—how about duplicity, demagoguery and grossly underestimating the tolerance for both of the American public.  I predict that the lessons of the 2010 election are going to be repeated with an exclamation point in 2012.