We Absolutely Must Raise Taxes On The Rich…

 

By Peter Kirsanow

. . . to avoid the fiscal cliff and to address, in part, the $1.2 trillion deficit, circumstances directly attributable to the fact that George W. Bush lowered tax rates for billionaires, millionaires, and other corporate-jet owners, leading to the financial collapse that he could’ve avoided had he just listened to experts such as Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, both of whom helped President Obama engineer the current robust recovery, perpetuation of which requires the top tax rates on the wealthy go to 39.6 percent, a move that will generate at least $70–80 billion in revenue annually but, admittedly (and through no fault of President Obama) still leaves us $1 trillion in the hole each year and will cause the national debt to surpass $17 trillion next year, the interest on which will exceed $280 billion, which is more than three times greater than the federal government will receive by raising the aforementioned tax rates on the rich while doing nothing to address the consequent increase in federal spending because said tax increase will leach money from job creation; thereby reducing federal revenues, further increasing the deficit (and therefore the debt) and resulting in annual Medicaid and Medicare expenditures in excess of $745 billion as more people will drop out of the labor market and placing even more than the current 48 million people on food stamps while helping to maintain or increase the present foreclosure rate, causing a softening in the housing market and weakening related sectors of the economy even more, further stifling hiring, especially among the low-skilled and recent grads who won’t be earning income to pay off their student loans that total $930 billion (bound to skyrocket); so that eventually there will be demands for a bailout, leading to an even greater deficit; primarily because the top 1 percent pay only 40 percent of all income taxes, an amount that we all know isn’t close to being their fair share and won’t remotely cover the gap between federal spending and tax revenues, which means the federal government will have to borrow over $1 trillion a year for the foreseeable future; which is why President Obama needs unlimited authority to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally, because there’s no telling how high the national debt will go presuming, of course, that the Chinese and others continue to lend us trillions of dollars, which they almost certainly will do because they, like the rest of us, can see that the untold trillions we’ll save when Obamacare finally kicks in will rescue the country’s economy and put us on a path to health and prosperity forever and ever, amen.

Forward.