Tax the Rich

As our State begins a shutdown due to the pigheadedness of Republicans, it’s time to understand who they are fighting for. I have heard a thousand times “Don’t tax the job creators”. But let’s think about that statement. We are suffering from unprecedented unemployment, corporations and banks are swimming in money, but they are not creating Jobs, why? Because consumers are tapped out, the middle class is cutting back because so many of us are unemployed or under employed we’re not spending any money. The rest of us are afraid we’ll lose our jobs next. Business is having a hard time finding customers. In spite of the improvements in manufacturing, we’re still at about 80% of capacity. If I owned a business I wouldn’t hire anyone if I didn’t think I could keep them busy.

The problem is not that businesses don’t have the money; the problem is that there is no demand.

So if Consumers can’t feed the economy and business can’t or won’t invest, who will make the investments to keep the economy going? Like it or hate it, the only institution able to kick start the economy is the government.

So the idea that 90% of the people in our state should suffer higher tuition, poorer roads, less police & firemen, larger class sizes, less help for the elderly, higher property taxes, have to cut back our family budgets further, and lay off thousands of state workers, so some fat cat can keep a couple percent of income tax is stupid.

To be fair, not all business owners are swimming in money. Many are existing hand to mouth just like many of us. Also, not all, in fact MOST of the wealthiest Minnesotans are NOT business owners. So to tax the wealthy will not affect most businesses and we can create a mechanism to filter out those that are businesses.

So write your legislators and encourage them to move on the budget and stop protecting the wealthy at the expense of the remaining 95% of citizens.