First comes this recent report from The Wall Street Journal:
First, more Americans have jobs today than at any other time in history. Second, over the past two decades or so, the U.S. has created more than 40 million jobs — twice as many as Europe and Japan combined. And third, the U.S. has one of the lowest jobless rates of all developed nations.
It was only a year ago that John Kerry was blasting the “jobless recovery.” Lou Dobbs was flogging “outsourcing” every night on CNN as a sign of peril for the American workforce. That criticism now looks wildly off base. The 5% jobless rate today is almost a percentage point below what it was during the same stage of the business cycle during the vaunted “Clinton expansion.”
In the past 24 months 3.5 million more Americans have found work, which is the equivalent of a new job for every worker in the entire state of Indiana. Every single job that was lost during the bursting of the technology bubble and stock market collapse of 2000-01 has been matched by a new job, often in a new industry. As the nearby chart shows, the bottom of the jobs recession hit in mid-2003 — and the recovery began at the very point that the Bush marginal-rate tax cuts were enacted into law….
Part of the explanation for this success is that, especially compared to Europe, the U.S. has imposed fewer taxes and regulations (even though we have plenty) that make it onerous for employers to hire and fire workers. A unique feature of the U.S. economy is that Americans move in and out of jobs — usually to rise up the income elevator — at a rapid and persistent pace. This is the key to the Great American Jobs Machine, and it explains why Europe and Japan should be more like us, and not the other way around.
And if you thought that wasn’t enough, apparently this economy is even better than Clintons was at helping unemployed Latinos. Latino Pundit reports:
July 1997
- 4.2 = unemployment among whites.
- 9.4 = for blacks.
- 7.9 = for latinos.
On the other hand, there’s this:
July 2005
- 4.3 = unemployment among whites.
- 9.5 = for blacks.
- 5.5 = for latinos.
Which is no different than several previous months, for example, see this…
Than, if you remember, I reported this news a month ago:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Higher-than-expected tax receipts and the steadily growing economy have combined to produce an improved picture for the federal budget deficit, congressional analysts say.
The deficit for the current budget year, which runs through September 30, should be “significantly less than $350 billion, perhaps below $325 billion,” according to the Congressional Budget Office. The agency produces nonpartisan estimates for Congress and will put out a full update August 15.
…
The biggest factors for the improving deficit picture are higher tax receipts from corporations and individuals. The economy is performing slightly above earlier administration expectations.
So again, three cheers for the Bush tax cuts!!!
Increasing employment isn’t necessarily a good thing for Americans working at the bottom of the economy. In fact, I hereby predict that both homelessness and demand on food banks will soon increase noticeably.
How can this happen? you ask. It’s very simple. Increasing employment produces increasing rents - this is well known in the real estate community. Millions of Americans work for minimum wage or something close to it. These workers will be squeezed when their rent goes up and their wage does not.
In my area, rents have already begun to increase. If they have not done so in your area, they will soon.
Republican policy toward the working poor? Forget about raising the minimum wage. Forget that it has lost 20 percent of its purchasing power since it was last increased. Never mind the fact that your standard of living is declining. Food is on the way!
Oh, damn, how could I have been so dumb, I see what you mean now!! Let’s all work together to decrease employement than, that my friends, is the true way to help the poor, the true democratic party way!!
No, all we need to do is to de-tax and de-regulate the poor. I earn minimum wage and pay taxes I can’t afford. Rush Limbaugh says the poor aren’t paying enough taxes. After all, conservatives tell us that the more you tax something, the less you get of it. So if Republicans could just tax the poor some more, Rush would be happy and poverty could be practically eliminated. Republican governor Bob Riley proposed de-taxing the poor in Alabama and his fellow Republicans thought the idea was nuts.
LOL. I am all for reducing taxes in general, and I am all for less regulation among the poor.
But a lot of conservatives really don’t want to de-tax the poor. They complain that if people are de-taxed, they won’t be concerned with keeping taxes low for everyone. The Wall Street Journal has editorialized on this, calling the de-taxed “Lucky Duckies.” Go ahead and google “lucky duckies” and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
I think tax breaks and other government goodies should be directly tied to work. A childless adult gets a $30 earned income tax credit for working full time at minimum wage…and $300 if they work only half-time at minimum wage. That’s really nuts.
There has to be some level of taxation for the poor, they too use government services.
But in general, I tend to like flat taxes (or consumption taxes, for that matter) more than progressive taxes, but I have my qualms with flat taxes as well.
Consumption taxes as currently proposed would redistribute many billions of dollars upward from low earners to the rich and middle class. This is because as proposed, some forms of consumption are more equal than others. I like an overall flat tax, but since state and local taxes tend to be regressive, a federal flat tax must have some progressivity (which it does by exempting a certain amount of income) to create overall flatness.
State and local governments often use regressive taxes on the poor to subsidize tax breaks for the middle class and the rich. (Remember, states are in competition among themselves for more rich residents and fewer poor residents.) For example, in Michigan a bipartisan group of legislators proposed cutting school property taxes to 0.7 percent on all property. This was obviously too fair and balanced to prevail. Under the final outcome, rental property was taxed at 1.2 percent in order to give homeowners the low, low rate of 0.3 percent. Specifically, there was a universal school property tax of 0.3 percent, and a separate 0.9 percent tax on rental property. This separate tax on my rented home was more than $1000 a year. Tax-and-spend homeowners eagerly voted for this tax because it represented to them free money. Where was the conservative or libertarian outcry? There was none; the tax was a Republican creation.