Image via WikipediaI spent five minutes or so listening to Pat Buchanan defend the Republican struggle against any kind of tax increases for big businesses on Morning Joe this morning, and it really did the trick to snap me out of the lazy, relaxed mindset of a long holiday weekend and launch me head first into the frustrations of the real world that is the work week.First of all, any debate regarding the Debt Ceiling is meaningless. The Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling 19 times while Bush was in office, so there really isn't any logical argument as to why they would suddenly be so against doing so now that isn't purely politically manipulative. They're just trying to screw with Obama, and they're using the threat of completely shit-canning the global economy as leverage to get their way.
The regular voting public doesn't really know enough about the debt ceiling, which is more economic theory than anything else, so how do they sell the voters on their anti-tax tantrum? By going on pseudo-news shows and holding press conferences claiming that any kind of increase in the disgustingly low tax rates on big businesses and corporations will drive all of these companies overseas to countries that aren't as gun-shy about slave wages and child labor as us stupid, greedy Americans. Their threat to the American public is simple and straight forward: Tax the rich people who pay us, and we'll take away your jobs.
The argument, or at least the threat, is completely invalid. You can give all the tax cuts you want to the few manufacturers we have left in this country of Wal-Mart Greeters and K-Mart Shoppers, it will still be cheaper for them to move their operations to countries that don't keep them from paying employees $10 a week. This was never a huge problem in the past, but ever since the US has virtually eliminated all tariffs on imported goods, there's really no cost incentive whatsoever for manufacturers to stay local.
This is why the Republicans are lying when they say that tax increases will drive companies overseas, and it is the same reason they are lying when they say tax cuts for these same companies will create new jobs. And when Pat Buchanan tells the Morning Joe audience, of which I was briefly a member of this morning, that taxing the corporate jet manufacturers will destroy jobs and weaken the economy, he is stunningly full of shit. Marketplace opportunism that manipulated trade regulations and tax policies, the unwavering greed that drove government officials to create a system in which companies and corporations could squeeze as much profits as possible out of a rigged system that will eventually collapse like the pyramid-scheme that it is, that is what has already destroyed jobs and crippled the economy. What could be more Republican, or even American, than that?
What a great way to start the week.
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