From the Mouth of a Billionaire -- Lowering Taxes Won't Do Shit for Hiring

The problem is if the people don't have appropriate education and skills and an economy that can sustain their employment... you can throw all the money at the billionaires and it won't help. This lowering taxes for the rich is insidious in the sense that the government is trying to offload the problem of social responsibility to the super-rich. That's not their role, their role is to run successful businesses and employ suitable people. Sure some corporate social responsibility blah blah blah helps but government's role is education, healthcare, skills, a sensible economy and a general safety net for everyone. Otherwise tell me WTF the government is for. Forget the conservatives, I'd leapfrog over them in wanting to disband the govt completely if the govt is not fulfilling their basic purpose.

Malaysia is a classic case whereby the Malaysian government has essentially offloaded not just the welfare, but *employment* of the 30% non-Muslim minority to non-Muslim conglomerates and multiple non-Muslim small-businesses. It's an economy within an economy. The government has more or less said, well, as long as we pump enough cash into the non-Muslim conglomerates the non-Muslims can fight for the scraps... We'll take care of "our own". Yes, there has only been one Malay-Muslim political party in power since independence. In the past decade they've not really even tried to keep up the facade that they give a shit about non-Malay-Muslims.

Who is mark Cuban anyway?

Isn't this one of the same billionaires who just locked out a bunch of millionaires because they might have to give a little more than half the revenue to the guys who do the actual work?

Tell him to just cut a check for however much more in taxes he feels he needs to pay and then he can feel free to keep everyone on his payroll after adding a good 10-20% to his tax total.

Talk is cheap.

Wait...what makes us think Mark Cuban knows anything about what will stimulate the economy...just because he's rich? That's like asking someone on food stamps to explain the intricacies of the social welfare system.

And BR...what do you think CAN be done to stimulate growth and help hiring? We've seen lowering taxes work. I'd like to know your opposition to it.

We've continually lowered taxes since 1980. Originally it provided a bump after the recession of the late 70's. We have lower taxes than ever. We have more unemployment than ever.

If lowering taxes works, it works only temporarily. That's the problem.

"Wealth creation", whatever that is, doesn't seem to help with unemployment, either.

GE filed a 57,000 page tax return and paid no taxes on $14 billion in profits.


What's this? Companies doing business overseas to escape ridiculous U.S. tax law and meddlesome government? Surely you jest.


What's this? The government's own tax policy allows companies to pay no taxes in an arrangement that benefits those in positions of political and economical power? The same government that you expect to fix the problem?

How can we take Cuban at his word? He's a greedy capitalist asshole. He shouldn't have even had that money in the first place and wouldn't have if not for exploiting the poor!

Listen only to the masses. They know what is right. These outliers should never be considered for the solution.

This is simply not true. There was a large tax decrease under Reagan, which spurred enormous growth, which in turn spurred revenue growth. Taxes have risen steadily since then, going up under Bush 41 and under Clinton significantly. Under Reagan the top bracket was at about 28%. Under Clinton it was nearly 40%. Bush reduced that to about 36%, and lowered other brackets as well. So no, taxes have not been going down steadily.

And realize that this only addresses personal income taxes. The fact is that government at all levels is taking too much money and spending too much money. It is affecting economic growth, because our consumer-based economy doesn't have enough fuel. On the flip side, our corporate tax system and regulation is not encouraging production to stimulate the supply-side.


I really don't know what that means. It's temporary in the sense that it can restore and stimulate growth. Like anything, cutting taxes can't be taken to extremes for obvious reasons.


That's such a vague concept that I don't think it even has a place here. It's not like we have a "wealth creation" system now.

Could it be a case of FYIGM?

Yea GE does business in other countries and THAT is a tax dodge.

Jesus, of course we're not talking about personal income taxes as a subset of taxes in a thread about corporate taxes. FFS!