The 1% Solution
September 17, 2003
By Curt Morey

On Meet the Press with Tim Russert this past Sunday, The vice president, Dick Cheney, emerged from his bunker to defend the president's policies. When Russert confronted Cheney about the $87 billion Bush is asking from Congress to support the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tim stated that 6 in 10 Americans oppose that spending.

In addition, Russert went on to say that according to the Congressional Budget Office, repealing the Bush Tax Cut for the top 1% of the population would more than pay for the $87 billion appropriations request in just one year!

And not to be steamrolled by Cheney's perpetual spin, Russert challenged the effectiveness of the tax cuts saying that they have not produced the job creation effect that Bush had promised, and in fact 2.7 million jobs have been lost since Bush took office.

Now I won't go into the spin that Cheney put on those striking numbers - I'll just give you my take on the matter.

The fact that the Bush tax cuts have yet to generate job growth as promised is proof that trickle down economics is a failed and discredited economic theory. It truly is "voodoo economics." What we have seen is that the rich and the Corporations who have benefited so heavily from the Republican tax cuts have not invested in job creation activities, but have instead participated in one of the oldest of American hobbies: profit taking!

Nothing wrong with rich folks putting money away or buying luxury items, instead of going out and using that money as venture capital and starting new businesses. After all, it is their money, right? And there is nothing wrong with Corporations taking the tax breaks and returning it in the form of dividends to stockholders, instead of expanding their work force and starting new business development projects. After all, it is the stockholders money, right?

What is wrong is that Bush and his administration continue to peddle the tax cuts as a means of creating jobs, when in fact the tax cuts are simply a vehicle for paying back the constituencies that elected this elitist administration.

Anyone in business knows that companies will hire new staff only after they have identified an unmet market demand and have developed a marketing plan that has strategies for harvesting the potential new profit. Companies will go after markets whether or not conservatives are giving them tax cuts and even if liberals are making them pay their share.

As a side note, Wisconsin Corporations are now paying 50% less of the State's tax burden than they were 30 years ago, dropping from 9.2% to 4.5%.

Buhs's tax cuts for the rich come at a time when this president is spending more money faster than any president in modern day history. This president has yet to see an appropriations bill that he would not sign, and has yet to use the power of the veto to curtail spending.

In addition, he has now declared, in his recent speech to America, that "...we will spend whatever is necessary to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror..." That is code for, "we will spend whatever we want, whenever we want, on the military, and if you object, we will accuse you of being unpatriotic."

This liberal contends that the patriotic thing to do would be to go to the polls in 2004 and elect a candidate that is not a warmongerer, that is not prone to pandering to the rich and to Corporations, and who does not hold the American public hostage to his messianic visions which are causing the deaths of American lives daily in the Middle East, and deficits at home that will crush any economic gains they claim to promote.

In 2004, it is our duty to recall this president and start anew.