To the Editor:
“Tax the rich” makes for a great sound bite as headlined by the liberal mainstream media. In fact, the top 10 percent of all earners in this country pay an enormous 70 percent of all federal taxes by their business activities that grow our economy and increase our standard of living.
How do they do this? Through saving and investing, they provide capital to our free market system that allows entrepreneurs to create jobs and grow our economy. This system works so well that over 50 percent of all wage earners in this country save and invest in plans like IRAs and 401Ks in order to benefit themselves through economic growth.
President Obama and his Democratic colleagues don’t have much faith in the rich and those working to become rich. His Keynesian ideology stipulates the government can do a better job of allocating capital resources than our free market system.
According to this ideology, big government is uniquely qualified to allocate $800 billion in stimulus money to “favored constituents” through redistribution of wealth. The problem is government is painfully inefficient at growing the economy and creating jobs. After 18 months of Obama’s economic policies, we still have 9.6 percent national unemployment and are suffering through a jobless recovery.
The Heritage Foundation has stated the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will increase the tax on the rich and slow down the country’s economic growth and job creation even more. They predict that all income earners will be hurt and another 7 million jobs could be lost over the next decade.
Instead of raising taxes on the rich and effectively restricting the flow of capital into job growth, we need to have big government step back a bit. Let the free market system do its thing: create jobs and jump-start the economy. We need a fresh perspective in Washington that favors smaller government and lower taxes so our economy can grow. We need Dean Scontras for a fresh start.
Pete Blanton, Walpole
