Letter: Tax rates benefitting 1 percent haven't helped rest of us

To the Editor:

Republicans’ trickle-down economic policies promise us if we allow upper-income individuals and corporations to create more wealth through lower taxes, then economic growth will flow down, create more jobs and benefit the middle class.

The stock market is re-approaching record high levels. Corporate profits have increased over 13 percent over a year ago. During the slow recovery, 93 percent of that growth went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers, an 11.6 percent average increase. Thirty-seven percent went to the top 0.1 percent, a 21.5 percent increase.

Adjusted for inflation, in 2010 the top 1 percent received an average annual pay raise of greater than $1 million; the bottom 99 percent averaged $80. That’s not a trickle. It’s not a drip. That’s not even an increase in humidity.

The effective tax rates are as low as they have been in 60 years. But Romney and Ryan continue to insist if we cut taxes for the higher income level, we will see job growth. How high does the increase in upper-level incomes have to become before the trickle down begins?

As they are so quick to point out, unemployment is stuck around 8 percent — despite this record income growth for the top 1 percent. So where are the new jobs?

One problem is too much of that income is not reinvested in the United States. Too much is tucked away in tax shelters in the Cayman’s or Switzerland until another capital investment opportunity comes along where Romney can buy up another company and bleed whatever profits are available before shutting it down and laying of the employees.

Romney’s supporters will be quick to say his investments and tax avoidance are legal. They are. But:

1) are they ethical?

To rant about Obama’s neglect of the middle class while pulling hundreds of millions out of the USA economy seems more than a little hypocritical.

2) the tax code that allows such tax avoidance did not appear magically.

It was created by Congress basically in response to generous contributions to create such exemptions that provide unparalleled redistribution of wealth from those who work to create it to those who think they are entitled to it because they already have some money.

Apparently for those who feel entitled, more is never enough.

Mark Ryan

Red Wing

Tags: opinion, letters