My letter to the White House

Dear Mr. President:

I urge you, I beg you not to water down your original, reasonable position on taxes, namely: extend cuts for the working class and let the cuts for income above $250,000 expire. This is the overwhelmingly popular position with the American People. It makes sense.

Compromising with the Republicans, however, will not entice them to compromise with you. It will not encourage them to work with you. It will not foster bipartisanship. It will only encourage their endless threats to hold their breaths until they get their way and to treat you like a pushover. You will gain zero respect from Republicans and zero respect from Democrats. I doubt you will win many moderates either.

Please, please, please stand up to the GOP. Don't damage our economy for the benefit of the very few, who do not need such a benefit.

I cannot express this more strongly and remain civil. Your standing with the Democratic base is already shaky and my hope in change wanes with every unreasonable compromise.

Please step out of the bubble and hear what the American People are saying.

Thank you.

[I requested a response and will add it in an update.]

--the BB

Some grown ups respond

One of the "haves" responds to Ben Stein's whining.



h/t to Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars

Garrett Gruener, a venture capitalist, chimes in with an op-ed at the LA Times:

Instead, Congress should let the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans and use the additional tax revenues that are generated to invest in infrastructure and research. "Invest" is the right word. Putting money into infrastructure — such as roads, bridges, broadband, the smart grid and public transit — as well as carefully chosen research initiatives provides a foundation for future growth. As important, it puts funds in the hands of those who will spend them, generating demand that will pull us out of our economic crisis and toward a new cycle of growth.

No one particularly enjoys paying taxes, but one lesson we should have learned by now is that for the good of the country, we need to tax people like me more. At a minimum, we need to return to the tax rates of the Clinton era, when the economy performed far better. Simply taxing the wealthiest 2% of Americans at the same rates they were taxed before the Bush tax cuts could reduce the national deficit by $700 billion over the next 10 years. Remember, paying slightly more in personal income taxes won't change my investment choices at all, and I don't think a higher tax rate will change the investment decisions of most other high earners.

What will change my investment decisions is if I see an economy doing better, one in which there is demand for the goods and services my investments produce. I am far more likely to invest if I see a country laying the foundation for future growth. In order to get there, we first need to let the Bush-era tax cuts for the upper 2% lapse. It is time to tax me more.

Nice to see folks step up to the plate.

--the BB

98.1% of small businesses need not fear

You've heard the GOP bogeyman about how letting the upper income tax breaks expire will seriously harm small business, right?

How many of them will be affected, really?

1.9%

And it's really only marginal income that would return to a higher rate, so they'd have to rake in really big bucks IN PROFITS (tax is not based on revenue but net taxable profits) to even feel the effect.


So I'm not going to lose sleep over small businesses in America.

And I'm certainly not going to lose sleep over the billionaires.

But I do worry about the working class and the poor.

And now you have some facts you can pull out when anyone starts the small business song and dance.

h/t to TPM

--the BB

From the pen of David Horsey

You can see his work here.
--the BB