Take this as you will. Does it fit today?
The Lewis Powell Memo: A Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy
Power to the people.
Poor people.
Originally Posted by eccieuser9500
I wholeheartedly agree with the quote, but I'm probably taking it out of context. I'm interpreting it to mean the politicians he refers to are from the left.
I'll give you a couple of examples. The first example disregards the problems we're having with Covid 19.
Trump and a Republican Congress cut the federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Add back in the average state income tax on corporate income and you get to about 25%. This is competitive with other countries. The 39% (including state income tax) is not. I believe every country in the developed world had a lower corporate tax rate.
The 25% tax rate means more is left in the hands of the corporations for investment in expansion. Expansion means more jobs. "More jobs" has resulted in perhaps the lowest unemployment rate in U.S. history. Workers have more bargaining power, and for the first time in quite a while you're seeing the % of income being earned by hourly workers and the middle class growing faster than the % earned by the higher earners.
Many condemn that instead of all the tax savings being used for expansion, part is used for dividends. I say so what. The shareholders use the dividends to invest in other businesses that often have better uses for the money than the original one. Or maybe the shareholder puts the money in the bank, which loans it out to a business that will use it to grow or someone who wants to buy a car or house. Not a bad use of the money.
Second example is the capital gains tax. When Biden wins the presidency and Democrats take over the Senate, there's a good chance the capital gains tax rate will be raised on upper income earners. First, this actually may decrease government revenues. The business owners or shareholders will just keep their assets and never sell them, so they won't have to pay the 43.4% tax. Less government revenues means everyone is worse off. Yeah, maybe it increases income equality, but it does so by making everyone poorer.
Also, the higher capital gains tax rate reduces economic efficiency, and growth and jobs, by encouraging owners to stay invested in mediocre businesses instead of allocating the capital elsewhere.