John Boehner : Tax-Cuts Extension as "Cure" for Economy? Give me a Break!

Boehner, wake up!

Rep. John Boehner (the current House Republican leader) is back on the road today (in Cleveland, Ohio) making the typical Republican case for extending the Bush-era tax cuts.

I am no fan of taxes, but GIVE ME A BREAK: IF THESE BUSH-ERA TAX CUTS WORKED / WORK, WHY ARE THEY NOT WORKING NOW - THEY ARE STILL IN EFFECT!!

That seems to be the one question that Republicans want to avoid and/or just make excuses for.  It is supposedly the fear of these tax-cuts expiring that is keeping them from working?  (yeah, right)

The tax-cuts in question overwhelmingly were tax-cuts that favored reducing taxes most dramatically on the upper-end of income-earners in America.  By definition, there are not many people making that "upper end" income.  In fact, the biggest "winners" of that tax-cut were the top 1% of earners; thus, there are very few reaping huge rewards from the tax cut, though that is the group Boehner wants to rescue from the prospect of increasing taxes.

OK Boehner, if those Bush tax cuts work(ed), why are they not still working?
They are STILL in effect.

Are we to blame current Obama policy for why the historically super-low tax rates on the top-earning persons in our society, though unchanged during Obama's tenure, are not producing the economic benefit you and other Republicans claim they should?

It is not the individual-tax-code that is screwing this country; it is the constant outsourcing of our jobs to overseas locations.  It is the built-in disincentives to keep jobs in the USA that is screwing us.  It is the effects of globalization, and what I see as a worldwide "averaging" of wages; and, with the USA being near the top in wage-rates, we have only one way to go (down!) if there is no incentive for businesses to keep jobs in this country (or, alternatively, no disincentive to not keep jobs in this country).  

Republicans: you want to fix the economy? Forget tax-reductions for the wealthy and bring on protectionism beyond the selective protectionism you have given to select businesses and individuals! (e.g., big banks and other corporate giants with great lobbying budgets)

Give me Protection; Forget the Tax Cuts!
Give me, the small business owner, a change in heck of "competing" against cheap imports and outsourced service providers!  Give me protection against intellectual property theft.  Give me a reason to actually create a new product or service here that will not just be instantly stolen, reproduced cheaply overseas, and imported within a month or two of my "innovation's" launch, only to put my new business and employees out of work.  

Give me protection against the fact that I have to pay a real wage to American workers, plus potentially health-care costs, plus adhere to other labor laws and environmental laws, when my foreign "competition" can ignore all those things and just dump cheap knock-offs here in the USA created in a less-than-level playing field where all these regulations and costs can be averted by simply moving production overseas.  

With a level playing field, I can make more money... and, regardless of the tax-rates in effect, I will net more money.  Taxes only mean something to those MAKING money, and making enough of it to be subject to any "higher tax rates".  So, unless American individuals and businesses have the chance to make more money, what point are "tax cuts" (well, aside from rewarding those who make huge profits by exploiting that cheap overseas production and outsourcing -- a FEW do make money on this).

Increase Taxes

I want to see more taxes; taxes that level the playing field worldwide for employers, giving USA companies a reason to keep employees in the USA and not just move work overseas:

• An environmental-equivalence tax: if products coming into this country are made cheaper than they can be made here because of dodging environmental regulations in the USA, then apply an import duty on such products that is equal to the cost incurred by US environmental regulations. E.g., if I produce a product here that must be painted, and that painting process must keep the air clean during and after the process, and that costs $X/unit in the way of air-filtration, water-filtration, low-VOC technology, etc... and my "competition" from overseas does not have to abide by such things, then apply that $X/unit cost as an import duty!  Give me a reason to consider keeping jobs here instead of just skirting enviro-regs by moving production overseas!  This also includes the cost of waste-disposal in accordance with eco-regs; if a foreign firm can simply dump toxins everywhere, then they should be dutied heavily to quit rewarding such actions (we all breath the same air and drink the same water eventually).
• A minimum-wage-equivalence-tax: if we have US Federal and State laws that have decided a person's minimum earnings should be $X/hr., then why is it OK to import all sorts of products and services from sources that do not pay even a small fraction of that rate?  How can we compete on "productivity" when we are shackled with minimum wages that our competitors are not? Place some type of leveling-duty on items that are being produced with labor that is compensated at barely above zero/hr.
• A health-care-costs-equivalence-tax: if we are to be forced to cover health-care costs of employees in the USA, then imported products produced by foreign firms that are not providing health-care (private or government-subsidized) should have a duty applied, if even a very small one just to reflect this disadvantage USA business have when compared to *some* other countries.
• Dumping-tax: fact is, some countries are "dumping" products here cheaper than they could ever be produced (one only needs look at items that can be created almost entirely by automation, but yet even a fully automated production line in the USA can not be price competitive with the same one in a foreign country that is getting government, or other, subsidies).  I see this practice as nothing short of economic warfare that is attempting to destroy *real* productivity and competition at any cost.
• Others... along the same line.  If there is some fundamentally imbalanced playing field that can lead to exploitation by 

Decrease Taxes

I want to see less taxes in certain areas... and NOT personal income-tax reductions to the wealthiest Americans alone:

• Remove all corporate income tax. Period.  Such taxes are pointless.  Any corporate taxes are just passed on to consumers in one form or another.  But, tax all distributed income at the RECEIVER'S tax-rate.  When salaries or dividends are paid, the recipient should pay tax on that money, but that money should be a total write-off for the corporation.  But, that tax-free income must be distributed in dividends and/or otherwise reinvested within a set period of time to remain tax free (perhaps a rolling-5yr period?), so as to prevent corporations from just amassing trillions of tax-free dollars with little benefit to society.
  
  But, with this change must come the removal of the preferred-taxes on dividends that would otherwise favor those in the upper-most income brackets; there is no reason that an individual's income from dividends should be taxed less than the "earnings" from work.  The insane justification for lowering taxes on dividends (i.e., the "double taxation" logic) will be fixed with the removal of all corporate income taxes and thus tax-free distributed dividends.
  
  Note: OBVIOUSLY "S-corp" and such pass-through-income type corporations would not extend the zero-tax-rate to the individuals who receive that income;  again, they would be taxed at the receiver's rate.
  
• Make all corporate expenses immediately deductible and remove depreciation.  What a waste of productivity tracking all sorts of asset-classifications and depreciation curves.  Just make every purchase a true "expense".  If a company wants to purchase 20 cars, and they have the money to do so: fine... instant write off.  And, since all of the company income is tax-free, there is no concern for re-capturing lost-taxes should that same company sell those cars off before they would have otherwise been depreciated.  The only checks-and-balances I can immediately see needed here is preventing companies from buying stuff tax-free and giving it to (or "selling" way below true value) to individuals in the company... any such disposal of assets should incur a 1099 to the recipient that includes current fair-market-value, and the receiving individual should then pay taxes on the item at their effective individual tax-rate.
  
• Reinstate the full write-off of "meals and entertainment" expenses.  What is really being saved by the 50% write-off rule anyway?  This could be quite a boon to the restaurant and entertainment industry and stimulate all sorts of economic activity.

Boehner: offer REAL change -- not that same old rhetoric!
So Mr. Boehner, quit whining about tax-cut extensions that ARE NOT WORKING, and get to work on some truly innovative fixes to what is going on with our economy!

Implement just the total removal of corporate taxes that I have described above (and allow those Bush tax cuts to "expire", as they are scheduled to regardless of Obama) and watch business start booming in America!  Then, consider some of the other things I have mentioned and see where we head (though, being a Republican, you will of course whine about "protectionism" even if the playing-field is so askew that there is no hope for real competition).  We CAN fix this economy!