“Job Creators” –That Lying, Orwellian Phrase Fox New Loves

From “In Talks, G.O.P. May Have To Just Say Yes,” Robert H. Frank, NYT:

“That realization appears to have led some Republicans to resurrect their time-honored claim that because many top earners own small businesses, higher top tax rates would severely compromise job creation.  But that argument flies in the face of the basic cost-benefit test that governs rational hiring decisions.  As every economics textbook on the subject makes clear, a business will hire additional workers whenever, and only whenever, their contribution to the bottom line promises to exceed their pay.  If that criterion is satisfied, hiring makes economic sense, no matter how poor the business owner might be.  And if it isn’t, no hiring will occur, even if the owner is a billionaire.”

Since it doesn’t sound good to oppose raising taxes even slightly on the rich, Fox News doesn’t call them “the rich,” they call them “job creators.”

But this economically false notion prevents us from having an honest debate about what’s fair for the top two percent of earners to pay.

 

Hey, Jindal, Brown Called and They Want Their Diploma Back

GOP Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, one of the 2016 hopefuls, has a degree in biology from Brown University and was a Rhodes Scholar.

Yet, even with his Ivy League education and Oxford experience, he signed the Orwellian “Louisiana Science Education Act,” which in fact has nothing whatever to do with science, but brought creationism to the state’s biology classes.

He also lets state vouchers be used for tuition at bible-based private schools, where kids are taught that The Flintstones is history, not a cartoon.

Um, Bobby, you’re looking kind of cartoonish yourself.

Clean-up on Aisle Ryan

Right after the Ryan pick was announced, Republican congressmen got an email from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) telling them to watch their language.

Specifically, the Orwellians at the NRCC decreed that members must not say “entitlement reform, privatization, every option is on the table.”  Or their mouths would be washed out with soap.

Approved words include “strengthen, secure, save, preserve, protect.”

Mittens isn’t just going to lose, he’s going to take a bunch of House and Senate seats with him.

 

 

If You Believe It, You Deserve It

Mitt campaigned in Colorado today (good luck with that, since the marijuana ballot initiative will bring out young voters) and slammed President Obama’s plan to extend the Bush tax cuts only for those making less than $250,000:  “For job creators and small businesses, he announced a massive tax increase.”

That’s not true, and it drives me crazy to hear it, but I’ve decided that if voters are dumb enough to believe it and Mitt wins, they will get what they deserve.

First of all, most small business owners don’t earn over $250,000.  In fact, Obama’s plan would not affect 97% of small businesses.

Second, Frank Luntz recognized that arguing against raising taxes on the rich to help with the deficit was a tough, losing slog and suggested that instead of calling them the rich, the GOP should call them “job creators.”   He deserves an enormous bonus from the Koch Brothers.  That’s evil genius at its best.  I tip my hat in admiration and frustration at Luntz’s gift for the Orwellian.

But the rich are not job creators.  Some of them are employers, but employers don’t create jobs, consumers do.  If you have a little ice cream shop, and you can handle the traffic yourself, you don’t hire anyone else.  Your tax rate has nothing to do with it, you’re just going on how much demand there is for your product.  If demand increases when school lets out, you may hire a high school kid part-time to help out.  If the line is out the door all day long and people are walking away rather than waiting, you’ll hire more people so you don’t lose those customers.  But it’s people wanting ice cream cones and hot fudge sundaes that dictates your hiring, not the IRS.

That’s why our periods of highest growth and greatest prosperity since WWII have come when marginal tax rates on the rich were much higher than they are now.  Consumers had money in their pockets to buy ice cream cones — and cars and carpet and clothing.

If the Obama campaign can’t get this very basic economics across to people, and the GOP gets away with their “job creators” BS, Obama deserves to lose.