Is cutting taxes immoral? Some people are arguing that extending tax cuts to the wealthy is just that. Was supporting Obamacare and taxpayer-funded abortion moral then?
Please, get off your high horse and don’t fall on the way down. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana), who was bought off by the Obama Administration with a $300 million Medicaid deal, voted for Obamacare and is now railing against the proposed compromise with the GOP on tax cuts, calling the plan “almost morally corrupt.” Kirsten Powers, who formerly served in the Clinton administration, went a step further and called the deal “absolutely morally corrupt.”
For good reason, Republicans stood their ground and forced President Obama to extend the Bush tax cuts. Now all the liberals are crying foul, apparently unaware they got shellacked in the last election by the American people, who obviously are sick of how they are running the country into the ground.
It is certainly moral to help get our country back on the right track in this dire economy. The wealthy, small businesses and entrepreneurs create jobs and hire the rest of us. If taxes rise for “the rich” (although I know many small businesses that are just struggling to survive), then everyone feels the repercussions. Businesses invest money and create jobs, which trickles down all the way through society. This is a radical idea embraced by such conservative firebrands as John F. Kennedy.
It was JFK who influenced Arthur Laffer of the famous Laffer Curve while he was a student at Yale. The Laffer Curve demonstrates that obscene tax increases can actually hurt tax revenue; at a certain level they just hurt economic growth and cost jobs — all of which can cut tax revenue. Of course, this is a very simplistic explanation, but it’s important to note that not all Democrats have always believed that raising taxes on successful people is a good idea.
Why do today’s Democrats despise the wealthy so much? A survey of Census data in 2009 found that Democrats represent 57 percent of those 4.8 million households making over $200,000 a year, which would be classified as very well-off. Democratic members of Congress aren’t doing so poorly either. Seven out of the top ten richest members of Congress in 2010 were Democrats, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) herself estimated at a net worth of nearly $22 million.
Maybe they just don’t care if their taxes go up because they have so much money to begin with. I wouldn’t know.
But, let’s face it. The bottom line of the current tax debate is this: If the liberals let the Bush tax cuts expire for everyone, then President Obama and the Democrats will be responsible for one the largest tax increases in history. The child tax credit will be cut in half, and the death tax and marriage penalty will be re-instituted. Almost everyone’s taxes will increase. Notice that real women and real families will be hit the hardest. Ann Hettinger, State Director for CWA of Texas, said that if the tax cuts are not reinstated, then her family’s bill will be about one-third higher next year. She said that her daughter and son-in-law have a business that the tax increase will hit hard.
Then there’s CWA member Marcena Springer from Fort Worth, Texas. Springer has worked hard so that her children will inherit the ranch land where she lives. She says her ranch isn’t worth a lot, but if the death tax goes back up to the stratosphere (up to 55 percent), then the Springer heirs would have to sell the property just to pay the death tax on it! This is one reason we hear so many stories about the disappearance of the family farm.
The Democrats are being reckless in their pursuit of failed liberal ideology instead of sensible economic policy. Led by President Obama, they are driving this country into bankruptcy. Their massive tax increase is cruel: it makes a mockery of saving “women and children first!”
There is no reason to raise taxes on families and businesses. Now is when we need them to spend, invest, expand, and create jobs. American businesses and individuals — let alone America’s moms — know better how to spend their own money than the government does. JFK knew that women and families would benefit from lower taxes at all economic levels. This is not a new idea, nor it is morally corrupt, but it is a proven one.
Penny Nance is CEO of Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s group.