The American Spectator

The Public Policy

Is This What Our Economy Needs?

By Peter Ferrara on 3.7.08 @ 12:08AM

(Page 2 of 2)

-- The top marginal income tax rate will increase from 35% to 39.5%;

-- The capital gains tax will increase by 33% from 15% to 20%;

-- The tax on the dividends received by many seniors will more than double from 15% to as much as 39.5%;

-- Taxpayers with children will lose 50% of their child tax credits;

-- The federal death tax will go back up to its original level after being phased out in 2010;

-- Married taxpayers will suffer the return of the marriage penalty.

This $2 trillion tax increase is just the beginning. Both Obama and Hillary have proposed to increase taxes on corporations in the name of fairness, and further increase taxes on the wealthiest investors.

But our nation's economy is already suffering from one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Counting federal and state corporate income taxes, American corporations face an average top rate of 40%. The average corporate tax rate in the European Union was 24% in 2007, down from 38% in 1996. How is America to compete not only with these countries, but with the emerging giants of India and China, given this crippling tax disability?

The corporations bearing this tax burden are supposed to provide working people with jobs, better incomes, and long-term prosperity. That is not going to happen with the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world.

The economy is already tanking towards recession because of the specter of these ultraliberal left tax-and-spend policies. What is needed to restore economic growth, and ultimately create a long-term economic boom, is just the opposite of the policies proposed by Obama and Hillary.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Education, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Entitlements, United Nations, Energy