Why not let the middle class, however the President chooses to define middle class, keep more of what is earned by that middle class rather than having the government take it to pay government bureaucrats and administrators, and then by spending what's left of what is taken on "stimulating" the economy through government redistribution programs and government selected "investment" projects?
In other words, instead of taking more money from the middle class by taxing more of middle class earnings, just have the government refrain from taking it away in the first place. Life could be so simple if only the real objective of government was to better serve We the People. But it's not.
Accordingly, that's not the way government does things. It wants all the power it can get over people's lives, and that starts with confiscating more of the money we earn by raising the percentage of those earnings taxed. It's never enough.
Obama Says Income Gap Is Fraying U.S. Social Fabric says this in pertinent part:
"In a week when he tried to focus attention on the struggles of the middle class, President Obama said . . . “If the economy is growing, everybody feels invested,” President Obama said in an interview last week in Galesburg, Ill. “Everybody feels as if we’re rolling in the same direction.”
Upward mobility, Mr. Obama said, . . . “was part and parcel of who we were as Americans.”
“And that’s what’s been eroding over the last 20, 30 years, well before the financial crisis,” he added.
“If we don’t do anything, then growth will be slower than it should be. Unemployment will not go down as fast as it should. Income inequality will continue to rise,” he said. “That’s not a future that we should accept.”. . .
Without a shift in Washington to encourage growth over “damaging” austerity, he added, not only would the middle class shrink, but in turn, contentious issues like trade, climate change and immigration could become harder to address. . . .
“I will seize any opportunity I can find to work with Congress to strengthen the middle class, improve their prospects, improve their security,” Mr. Obama said. But he added, “I’m not just going to sit back if the only message from some of these folks is no on everything, and sit around and twiddle my thumbs for the next 1,200 days.”. . .
The priority, he said, should be spending for infrastructure, education, clean energy, science, research and other domestic initiatives of the sort he twice campaigned on.
“I want to make sure that all of us in Washington are investing as much time, as much energy, as much debate on how we grow the economy and grow the middle class as we’ve spent over the last two to three years arguing about how we reduce the deficits,” Mr. Obama said. He called for a shift “away from what I think has been a damaging framework in Washington.”. . .
The president’s latest campaign for his agenda began as national polls last week showed a dip in his public support. The declines were even greater for Congress and Republicans in particular, in their already record-low ratings.
Mr. Obama said he would push ahead with a series of speeches that lay out his agenda ahead of the fights this fall with Congress. “If once a week I’m not talking about jobs, the economy, and the middle class,” he said, “then all matter of distraction fills the void.”"
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So here's my idea about how to help save the middle class, create more jobs, grow the economy and thereby help save the rest of us Americans that you don't choose to define as middle class Americans, Mr. President. It's a simple one that could easily be explained in one simple speech to all Americans, including your political opponents.
Instead of more government spending and government "investment" by the government knows best gang of elitists, how about just cutting income tax rates dramatically on the middle class, however you and the rest of the politicians may choose to define middle class and by however much you may choose to reduce their tax rates on earnings?
That would "stimulate" the economy and provide jobs and growth. It would also replace the dumb and already thoroughly discredited idea of government spending as the road to salvation and economic growth. In other words, just let the middle class keep more of the money earned by cutting taxes. Now.
And if that were to happen, maybe we could then begin to have a serious conversation and resolution about what to do over the longer term with respect to entitlements, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and ObamaCare. And corporate taxes, too.
Reducing middle class tax rates would leave people with more money to spend, which in turn would provide needed jobs, growth and increased tax dollars, thus leading to a better budget result in the form of reduced fiscal deficits.
Especially if we then have the guts and god sense to tackle government waste now and entitlement programs later after the economy gets rolling again.
The only problem with this simple and workable approach to middle class salvation, jobs and solid economic growth is that such a common sense approach doesn't fit the Obama administration's playbook. That playbook has the government playing the leading role and not the middle class or anyone else. And that's a losing game plan, as the evidence of the past several years has made abundantly clear to anyone willing to face the cold hard facts.
So being a good damn-the-rich Democrat and not a good leader truly interested in making things better for the middle class and the rest of Americans, President Obama will continue to keep up the rhetoric and continue to pretend to "feel our pain." In other words, he'll keep on talking the talk and not walking the walk.
Meanwhile, the U.S. economy will continue to "go slower" than it should as government spending keeps on growing.
And the middle class will continue to suffer. All 99% of us.
That's my take.
Thanks. Bob.
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