Elizabeth: TAX THE RICH…or not!
This year the national deficit will top $1.1 trillion! This year also happens to be the fourth consecutive year that the national deficit has topped that 1 trillion dollar mark. Our national debt currently stands at $16.1 trillion and literally grows by the minute! However, the president’s only plan to tackle our national debt and deficit is to raise taxes on the wealthy or on those earning more than $250,000 a year.
Doing away with the Bush era tax cuts for the “rich” – which Obama continuously touts as his big plan – would only create an additional revenue of $850 billion over the next 10 years, or to put it in more understandable terms, it would only pay off about 5% of our CURRENT national debt.
Unfortunately, the American public is buying into the “tax the rich” propaganda that has been shoved down our throats for the past four years. According to a recent poll, 58% of Americans believe that the rich don’t pay enough taxes.
I can see how many uninformed Americans might believe that taxing the rich at a higher rate is an easy fix to getting America out of debt, and helping get our country on the road to recovery. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
During last week’s vice presidential debate Paul Ryan shared a shocking statistic. He said “If you taxed every person and successful business making over $250,000 at 100% – you could only run the government for 98 days.” Ninety-eight days. In fact, confiscating all the money of the so-called “rich” that Obama keeps talking about would only run our government for a measly three months!
Paul Ryan also pointed out during the debate that putting a greater tax burden on the wealthy will not help our economy, it will actually hurt our economy. Many upper-income earners are small businesses who file their taxes as individuals, and by raising taxes on those businesses – although it would have a very small impact on the national debt – would have a huge impact on those small businesses. Small businesses are the creators of two-thirds of all new jobs in our economy. Raising taxes on those small business would be catastrophic and could create a domino effect in which those business create fewer jobs and in turn put our economy into a deeper recession.
What is even more shocking about President Obama’s plan, or lack thereof, is that these increases in revenue aren’t even meant to cut down on the national debt – most of these revenue increases are meant to pay for more spending increases.
The national debt and deficit cannot be reduced or erased by simply raising taxes – the government has to cut spending! Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan understand this and they actually have plan to do that very thing.
Can we really afford four more years of President Obama’s mathematical incompetence and economic stupidity?
To watch Paul Ryan’s powerful words click on the link below:
