Democrats want to give tax breaks

To the people! The majority of the people. As opposed to the republican philosophy that tax cuts are just for corporations and wealthy people.

Washington is largely in bipartisan agreement that some sort of tax relief should be a part of the solution to the current problems facing our economy. It’s great to see them mostly agree on something.

Of course, the devil’s in the details. So let’s look at the basics of the differences.The democrats propose plans that would provide tax relief for middle to lower income Americans. Meaning most Americans. Some republicans are in favor of this as well. But naturally, the more conservative republicans in congress (meaning a lot of them) believe that the economy would be better served by giving these tax breaks to corporations, rather than citizens.

Now, its one thing if that is simply their opinion based on sound advice from a diverse pool of independent expert economists. But I heard one of these congressmen on the radio the other day, and it sounds like it’s just another ill-advised republican maneuver that protects Corporate America at the expense of American Citizens.

You know how republicans like to wrap complex issues into little catch phrases that have nothing to do with the practical reality of the matter…

Well here’s how this congressman wrapped up this one. He said that he’d like to see that tax relief go into paychecks rather than welfare checks. Clever little catch phrase. Now let’s examine how disconnected from reality it is. First, he’s suggesting that out of the generosity of the corporate heart, tax breaks for corporations would result in more or larger paychecks for workers. That really is what he's suggesting. The second part of his handy little catch phrase labels tax relief for the non-wealthy as being nothing but welfare. His words… He actually called it welfare.

On the first point, let’s look at the history of corporate behavior during hard times. What is the first thing that corporations do when they get nervous? Do they examine the possibility that they may be top heavy at the executive level? Not so much. Do the highest paid executives bite the bullet and take a little pay cut for the greater good? Heavens no. Why get crazy, when you can just lay off a large part of the work force. Sure, all the families of the laid off workers suffer and middle management has to work a lot harder to keep the wheels turning, but they don’t need to see their families. Right? Not to mention the hits that local economies take when a bunch of people get laid off. And when you’re listening to financial news shows, and you hear about a big corporation having a profitable quarter — is it followed by news of how those profits were put into bigger or more paychecks for workers ? No. In fact news like that is often accompanied by reports about raises and massive bonuses for the top executive of the company. And that’s fine. The people making the big decisions should be compensated for good results.

But please! You republican congressmen really need to stop assuming that Americans are so stupid that they would actually believe that tax breaks for corporations will result in bigger or more paychecks for the working class. You're selling a fantasy to people who are not as delusional as you are. This idea that a company's surplus revenue will trickle down the corporate stream into the pockets of it's worker is quite unfortunately, a non-reality. It's simply not the nature of business. It's like the story of the fox and scorpion.

As for the point made in the second part of the congressman's cute little catch phrase — the part where he refers to tax breaks for working Americans as “welfare”… Well, that is such a flagrantly arrogant and condescending insult to the majority of Americans — that it really speaks for its self and I need not say more.