Originally Posted by mynameisjim

People are missing the larger point. When Obama and others ask that the wealthy "pay their fair share" it's not just about a simple numbers calculation.

Over the past decade, the average American has seen their standard of living stagnate or decrease while the wealthy have seen their lifestyles increase at an accelerated rate. The wealthy have made those gains AT THE EXPENSE of the average American. By outsourcing jobs in order to lower costs, investing in emerging markets instead of investing in America, and gambling on risky financial products which caused a collapse in both the housing and stock markets which wiped out the Average American's 401k plan and any equity they had in their homes.

So this isn't about simple math and graphs. It's about the wealthy making money at the expense of the average American.

Originally Posted by mynameisjim

I do agree that Obama clearly doesn't have all the answers and he's definitely making mistakes.

We have to realize that there are short term issues and long term issues, and we have to address them separately. Any ideas to create jobs short term get attacked because they don't fix the long term problem, and any idea to fix things long term are attacked because they don't create jobs right now.

One of the short term fixes is raising taxes on the rich. They have enjoyed historically low taxes for over a decade, even during the longest two wars in American history which is TOTALLY unprecedented for a country to lower taxes several times during war. So asking for an extra 1% or 2% is not all that much. Take that money and use it for infrastructure projects.

Taxes are raised and lowered based on needs all the time, so this is not that crazy of an idea. When we had a budget surplus, we lowered taxes, so taxes will come down when the country gets back on it's feet.

But that's the problem, when people bring up the tax debate, it opens up all this debate about food stamps and currency rigging and all sorts of things. We have to take it one thing at a time. Some short term, and some long term.

So my short term solution would be to raise taxes 2% on those making over 1$ million dollars and use that money for immediate infrastructure projects to get people back to work. Construction projects are great because they employ such a wide range of people, from unskilled laborers all the way up to engineers and scientists.

Originally Posted by mynameisjim

I won't say how much money I have made in my lifetime. But I would gladly pay an extra 2% this year if it was going towards infrastructure projects.

I've been a businessman for nearly two decades. I'm smart enough to know that when the average American's lifestyle goes up 1%, my lifestyle goes up 5% because I'm a little higher up on the food chain. So anything that will get Americans back to work, I'm all for it.

If I sacrifice 2% extra in taxes and it gets unemployment to start going down, I'll make that money back several times over as Americans have more spending money to buy the products I sell.

That's why the super wealthy don't want to raise taxes because they don't make money like I do or anyone on this board does. They make money by investing in emerging markets or investing in crazy derivative schemes so they could care less about unemployment.