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Imagine what would have happened to the economy if Congress had extended the tax rates permanently instead of just for two years.
Imagine what would have happened if the payroll tax holiday had been for a year for the employee and the employer, and for the full 12.4% Social Security portion.
Imagine if the Democrat-controlled Congress had lost its collective mind and actually reduced the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%.
Imagine no taxes on repatriated profits that companies are going to just leave in other countries anyway to avoid double taxation. Imagine a cap gains tax rate of zero!
Plenty Of Jobs
Imagine an economy so robust that everyone who wanted to work could find a job, and some people could even find a new career, or start a business.
You can say I'm a dreamer, but that's the way I am.
When President Reagan signed sweeping tax-cut legislation in the 1980s, total tax revenues increased by 99.4%. Even though the tax cuts were working, the Democrats continued to say they were not working, and that "trickle-down economics" only benefited the rich. What a familiar tune even today!
This administration and previously Democrat-controlled Congress did just enough to tickle the economy in the closing days of the 111th Congress, instead of bold consumer-direct stimulus solutions.
Extending the current tax rates for two years wasn't even a tax cut, and the 2-percentage-point payroll tax holiday for employees will be barely noticeable in their paychecks. So a major boost to the economy is unlikely.
Are We Stupid?
The administration and its media allies are now telling the American people to get used to systemic high unemployment, which is now a resounding 9.4%. Also, the administration has invented new terminology to create the perception that we are in an economic recovery — calling it a "jobless recovery."
How stupid are we supposed to be?
When an economy is not producing any significant net new job growth, it is not recovering. It's treading water. This so-called jobless recovery is really reflective of huge productivity improvements made by American businesses over the last three years to survive ineffective economic policy.
I saw it first-hand at the three corporations where I serve as a director.
Most businesses have tightened their operations to the bone by upgrading their technology and maximizing how they deploy their human capital. But businesses can't continue their productivity blitz indefinitely without cutting into the bone of their operations.
Imagine the Saturday morning of congressional aide Mark Kimble. Kimble told of going to a Safeway for a typical meet-and-greet event with his boss, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Kimble said he went into the store for coffee, and as he came out, Giffords was talking to a couple about Medicare, and ...
The biggest political "lie" of 2010? The winner is: the Republican assertion that ObamaCare is a "government takeover of health care." A website called PolitiFact based this on the votes of 4,000 of its readers. ABC's "Nightline" featured PolitiFact's editor, and "Nightline" reporter Jake Tapper ...
The past is not always a prologue to the future. But looking at some of the big winners and losers of 2010 does provide some strong hints of a positive 2011. The biggest winner last year was the Tea Party, which shellacked President Obama in the election. Obama becomes the biggest loser. And the ...
As Americans struggle to make sense of a devastating succession of financial crises — from teetering banks to a collapsed stock market to bankrupt car companies to underfunded public employee pensions and now exploding state deficits — we can see in each the malignant expression of a ...
Just when it looked like employers were getting less fearful about what President Obama might do next to worsen the business climate, the National Labor Relations Board (now with its first Democratic majority in a decade, thanks to Obama's appointees) has announced that private employers will be ...
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