How did American companies get tax breaks for moving jobs overseas? [View all]

[kentuck]

Wasn't that a royal screwing of the American people?

If we traced our present economic problems back to its roots, we will probably find that they began with the free trade treaties. We were led to believe that getting everything produced overseas would somehow help the workers of this country? Were we morons or what??

The most obvious consequence of these trade treaties was that it drove the price of labor down in this nation. It drove the profits up of those that chose to make their products in China and elsewhere. And the biggest problem we face at this time is not necessarily the debt we owe these nations because we do not have the tax base to pay for our programs anymore, but rather, the impact it has had on jobs and wages. Something has to change.

We have become a nation for the few, rather than the many. We all must now sacrifice for the good of the top 1%, the so-called "job creators". They are not job creators but capitalist profiteers. More than 60% of all jobs created in this country are by smaller businesses. The top 1-2% of income earners do not create jobs. Over 96% of them only create wealth for themselves. Something is wrong with this picture??

Under the guise of saving the SS system, FICA taxes were raised on workers wages during the "big fix" of Social Security by Ronald Reagan. The wealthy were content to let the workers pay for all the programs we needed, including a defense department with a voracious appetite. But, when companies were moving overseas and we were losing jobs here, the SS fund started to shrink. In kind, the deficits went up proportionally to the number of unemployed.

We have now come to a meeting of the minds. In less than a dozen years, we went from a balanced budget to over-whelming debt. There are so many loopholes nobody can count them. We have a useless, and mostly destructive Congress to block anything that might be proposed. We have really screwed the pooch with this Congress.

So the decision is ours. Do we want a country for the few or do we want a country for the many? The time is now to make that decision. We hope the Democratic Party will be up to the task? But many of us have our doubts. Nobody seems ready to tackle these problems?

I hate to sound too negative but that is the way I see it...