President Bush yesterday urged Congress to make the tax cuts permanent, on grounds that it creates jobs and creates economic growth.
Perhaps capital gains tax cuts do create jobs - I don't know. But I think it's interesting to note that while the jobs arguably are being created, and the median salary is (arguably) going up, the mean salary is going down. Wal Mart (for example) might bring in a lot of minimum wage jobs to the marketplace, but they don't increase wealth by paying a salary so low that people can't afford to buy health insurance and live at the same time. Providing capital gains tax cuts to the folks who run Wal Mart so that they can pay a couple more people 6 bucks an hour doesn't seem to be the answer, instead, it looks to me that it creates a demographic dependant on federal assistance to get by, which would be more difficult if taxes remain cut so that the CEOs, CFO, COOs, and whatnot can write off more on taxes.
Now, the democrats who argue that tax cuts primarily aid the wealthy are basically spouting a given. Since the wealthy are the ones who pay the bulk of the taxes, any tax cut necessarily are going to benefit them more than the poor, so I don't completely buy into that argument, but I'm also not convinced that creating more minimum wage jobs is the right way to go, either.
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