Wiseacre
Retired USAF Chief
I hear the left saying it all the time - tax cuts for the wealthy doesn't create jobs, demand does. Which is fine, except it isn't the whole story. I think more demand is the primary driver, without that nobody hires more people. But then the question becomes how do you create more demand and then how do you create more jobs to satisify it.
The liberal approach is to redistribute the wealth - take money from those who earned it and give it to those who haven't, specifically the lower income folks. Sounds great, they'll spend the money and create demand and we get more jobs. Except for one thing, it doesn't work. Tax rebates have been tried, big stimulus has been tried, but it never works because it's temporary. I remember getting a couple of tax rebates during the Bush years, but IMHO it never moved the needle.
So, what about a tax cut? Now that's more permanent, and it did work for Reagan and also for Bush in 2003. The economy and employment picked up very nicely thank you, until the recession hit in 2008. Some say those tax cuts lead to the recession, which is total nonsense IMHO, there were several reasons why the recession happened, but the Bush tax cuts were not one of them.
So would tax cuts mean we'd get more jobs now? I think that's debateable until and unless our leadership comes up with a bi-partisan plan to deal with the debt and deficits, nobody is going to be overly optimistic about starting new businesses. Which is where about 75% of all new jobs come from. Gonna have to de-regulate somewhat too, it's too damn hard, expensive, and time consuming to startup a business in this country.
And one more point about new jobs - you need capital. Demand is the first priority, but you gotta have some money behind you, and tax cuts make that money more available. Tax hikes on the other hand make that capital less available, and in today's global economy money flows to where it gets the best ROI.
So, demand does create jobs, but not by itself. Oh yeah, the local supermarket or merchant will hire more people when more customers start coming in to spend money. But we need more than that, we need new businesses and expansions to existing businesses. And that means attracting more capital.
The liberal approach is to redistribute the wealth - take money from those who earned it and give it to those who haven't, specifically the lower income folks. Sounds great, they'll spend the money and create demand and we get more jobs. Except for one thing, it doesn't work. Tax rebates have been tried, big stimulus has been tried, but it never works because it's temporary. I remember getting a couple of tax rebates during the Bush years, but IMHO it never moved the needle.
So, what about a tax cut? Now that's more permanent, and it did work for Reagan and also for Bush in 2003. The economy and employment picked up very nicely thank you, until the recession hit in 2008. Some say those tax cuts lead to the recession, which is total nonsense IMHO, there were several reasons why the recession happened, but the Bush tax cuts were not one of them.
So would tax cuts mean we'd get more jobs now? I think that's debateable until and unless our leadership comes up with a bi-partisan plan to deal with the debt and deficits, nobody is going to be overly optimistic about starting new businesses. Which is where about 75% of all new jobs come from. Gonna have to de-regulate somewhat too, it's too damn hard, expensive, and time consuming to startup a business in this country.
And one more point about new jobs - you need capital. Demand is the first priority, but you gotta have some money behind you, and tax cuts make that money more available. Tax hikes on the other hand make that capital less available, and in today's global economy money flows to where it gets the best ROI.
So, demand does create jobs, but not by itself. Oh yeah, the local supermarket or merchant will hire more people when more customers start coming in to spend money. But we need more than that, we need new businesses and expansions to existing businesses. And that means attracting more capital.
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