Why Steve Forbes is a right wing hack.
First, listen to Steve Forbes on Obama’s Tax Plan
I had to laugh at his silly rhetoric.
Often you will hear well meaning, but mentally stunted, right wingers try to explain why “taxes” are bad and “incentives” are good. It is sad that Forbes is not mentally stunted, but depends on the stunted mentality of the right wing to get his lies across.
He discussed “incentives” in this speech. If you want to read a story of incentives and communism, I suggest Animal Farm, where we learn why communalism doesn’t work, or more accurately, totalitarianism and authoritarianism doesn’t work. But that’s not really what Forbes or I’m talking about here.
Forbes says that “taxes” are the price of success, the price you pay for taking risk. Shame on him for shoveling crap at the masses – he is simply wrong.
Taxes are the price you pay for taking resources from our country and the community.
Let me say that again in a different way …
As a person who has a life and family in this country, I have a house, phone, car, etc. And I work and store equity in the form of currency as I add value to goods and services. That’s right, my work adds value to products and services and I can exchange my stored up value for other goods and services through currency.
In order to live the way I want, I must pay for things like food, housing and a phone. I cannot go out and steal them, and I cannot make my own car with iron ore from the ground and an iron processing plant in my backyard. Also, I cannot make my own roads, grow my own cows in the backyard, etc. I also need fire and police protection.
Taxes pay to replace the resources I remove from the community — they represent my share of the commons. And once a person has earned an amount that provides value (equity) above the amount necessary to live an average lifestyle, then that person is receiving an unequal share of benefit and thus is responsible for paying more.
How much more should this person pay?
This is a simple questions to answer: The amount necessary to pay the bills. Just like your household, you must pay for what you use.
The right wingers say, “Why should I have to pay more just because I make more?” And the answer is, “You pay more because you’re taking more.”
“Oh,” they say, “That will make people not work.”
Get over it.
In our country, if you don’t work and you’re not born into wealth, your life is pretty rotten. There is an incentive for working. So the idea that Steve Forbes will suddenly go on welfare, shut down his businesses, start eating out of a soup kitchen and live under a bridge in a box is pretty lame. I know for sure that if Steve Forbes was taxed at the Eisenhower rate of 91% over 3.2 million per year, he would continue to think and act pretty much the way he does now. And then he would be paying for more of what he is taking from America, her labor, her laws, her resources, her roads, her court system, etc. And middle America would have more, and would spend more, and in turn Forbes would be much wealthier.
The truth is simple: Companies should be taxed on profits, and taxed heavily to create incentives for them to re-invest in their company. If you re-capitalize, the money isn’t taxed. This creates stable companies for the future, but cuts down on short term windfall profits to people like Forbes. The FTC should prevent over consolidation of corporations in our country to keep businesses competitive and innovative (large, monopolistic, multinational corporations, do not innovate – they work toward maximizing profits by being non-innovative and prevent competition).
So, this is what I say to Forbes: To create the strongest economy, we must protect U.S. businesses and U.S. workers. Tariffs were once the mainstay of revenue in this country and I recommend that they should be re-employed again. Simply put, we all know that a country that trades against its own factories cannot survive when the rest of the world community is protecting their own industry (as they do). This is a simple truth. Don’t believe me? Try selling a U.S. made car in Japan or Korea and see how that works out.
It is much like running a farm: A good farmer has to have good animal husbandry. A farmer knows that reaping short term profits by selling seed corn and butchering the diary cows will lead to economic disaster. Likewise, failing to support a strong middle class, where a 50 hour week can support a family of 4 in a middle class lifestyle is the same as selling the seed corn and killing the dairy cow. A good farmer knows that rotating crops, developing good soil, and caring for his livestock will cost him in the short run, but lead to profits and a stable business.
This is how America worked from the mid 30’s to the mid 70’s when Regan unbalanced the equation. And we have been paying for it ever since.
Can’t Steve Forbes see this truth?
Of course he can. He is simply a greedy, rich, liar who cares little for our country or its people. He cares mainly about Steve Forbes. He could care less about good economic husbandry. It’s not his farm, after all. Who cares if it gets driven into the ground?
Unlike the Bush Zombies, he understands the facts, but dupes the zombies that listen to him. Thus I have much more respect for the Zombies than I do for Steve Forbes.