Here are two great charts from two must read articles.

[SharksBreath]

Rich People’s Taxes Have Little to Do with Job Creation

By Michael Linden | June 27, 2011

Cue the quotes:

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH): “What some are suggesting is that we take this money from people who would invest in our economy and create jobs and give it to the government. The fact is you can't tax the very people that we expect to invest in the economy and create jobs.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: “With over 20 million people who are unemployed or who have stopped looking for work, the last thing we should be doing is raising taxes on job-creators, entrepreneurs, and small business owners across America.”

John Boehner, again: “A tax hike would wreak havoc not only on our economy’s ability to create private-sector jobs, but also on our ability to tackle the national debt.”

Apparently, conservatives believe that a key driver of overall job growth is the tax rate that rich people pay on their last dollar of income. They argue that these very rich people are the ones who “create” the jobs and therefore taxing them at even slightly higher rates will make them less likely to invest, expand their businesses, and hire more people. That sounds plausible, but it turns out to be completely baseless.

In fact, they are just as wrong about this as they are about the relationship between marginal tax rates and overall economic growth. In the past 60 years, job growth has actually been greater in years when the top income tax rate was much higher than it is now.

For instance, in years when the top marginal rate was more than 90 percent, the average annual growth in total payroll employment was 2 percent. In years when the top marginal rate was 35 percent or less—which it is now—employment grew by an average of just 0.4 percent.

And there’s no cherry-picking here. Pick any threshold. When the marginal tax rate was 50 percent or above, annual employment growth averaged 2.3 percent, and when the rate was under 50, growth was half that."




http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/marginal_tax_employment_charticle.html
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Michael has another great article on American Progress.

The Myth of the Lower Marginal Tax Rates
Conservatives’ Go-To Growth Solution Doesn’t Hold Up

By Michael Linden | June 20, 2011

If you asked any random conservative lawmaker the most important thing the federal government could do to promote economic growth, he would probably answer, “lower the top marginal income tax rate.” A few examples:

Speaker John Boehner: "We've seen over the last 30 years that lower marginal tax rates have led to a growing economy, more employment and more people paying taxes.”

Sen. Jim DeMint: "But we also need to just cut the top marginal rate for individuals and corporations so that we're more competitive and companies can look way out in the future and know they'll have a competitive tax rate.”

Club for Growth: “To stimulate GDP growth, a tax cut has to cut the marginal tax rates upon which the decision makers in the economy base their decisions to work and, above all, to invest.”

Cutting taxes for the wealthy has become conservatives’ one, and often only, response to any economic problem. Just one problem: History doesn’t bear them out. Not at all.

The top marginal income tax rate has ranged all the way from 92 percent down to 28 percent over the last 60 years. With such a large range, it should be easy to see the enormous impact of lower rates on overall economic growth, as conservatives routinely claim. Years with lower marginal rates should boast higher growth, right?

That’s definitely not what happened. In fact, growth was actually fastest in years with relatively high top marginal tax rates. Back in the 1950s, when the top marginal tax rate was more than 90 percent, real annual growth averaged more than 4 percent. During the last eight years, when the top marginal rate was just 35 percent, real growth was less than half that.



http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/marginal_tax_charticle.html


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Fiscal Conservatism is a complete myth.

[OHdem10]

1. Why are there no Democrats on TV shouting this from the top

of their voices??? They bought the myth????

[BobbyBoring]

2. Good Question

I'm so sick of hearing this. Bush cut taxes in 2001 the first time? That's 10 fucking years! Where are the jobs?

[JohnWxy]

4. Bush on jobs: Worst on record - Wall Street Journal

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/01/09/bush-on-jobs-the-worst-track-record-on-record/

[JohnWxy]

5. The aughts the lost decade for American economy and workers - WaPo

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101196.html">Aughts were a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers

[JohnWxy]

3. also, companies are sitting on mountains of cash &not hiring. They don't need investors they need

....buying customers.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703766704576009501161973480-search.html

Corporate America's cash pile has hit its highest level in half a century.

Rather than pouring their money into building plants or hiring workers, nonfinancial companies in the U.S. were sitting on $1.93 trillion in cash and other liquid assets at the end of September, up from $1.8 trillion at the end of June, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. Cash accounted for 7.4% of the companies' total assets—the largest share since 1959.

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The buildup has a big downside for companies, which get little return on their money because interest rates are low, but it reflects the relatively few opportunities they see to deploy their cash more creatively.
(more)
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To put this in perspective with $1.9 Trillion they could hire 7.7 million people at $50,000 per year for FIVE YEARS!

...they don't need investment dollars, they need buying customers.