Sometimes having people who are close to you can put another perspective on things. Other times, it spawns the discussions that strengthen your own viewpoints. I had a brief conversation like that last weekend.
I've mentioned before that my parents are Union Democrats. They hold ideals that are more conservative in today's world, but they've been told since the 60s that anyone who has an R next to his name wants nothing more than to put their jobs out of the country and take all the money away from anyone. After halfheartedly listening to Meet the Press, I commented against some progressive guest expressing the proposed tax cuts are only for the rich. I commented that we really need to get these tax cuts through so we can start getting people back to work and making jobs. My father turned and said that cutting the taxes on business leaders would never get people working. The only way to employ people would be to abolish welfare. After I was done reeling about how the modern Democrat socialists would take that, I pointed out that we need to have the jobs to put people into when the welfare goes away. Both of my parents then reminded me that all of the papers and the the internet were full of McJobs waiting for people to get off of welfare and take the jobs, and I didn't respond.
Now, I would love to see welfare go away, as would most people in the conservative camp, but there is a trade-off. I want welfare to be gone because nobody needs it anymore. I'm fighting and working every day to make our economy strong enough that it's more profitable to go to work than it is to be on welfare. I understand that you can't just end welfare without having something to take its place, and McDonald's jobs are not going to cut it. I know from experience that low paying jobs don't do anything for you. I spent a year working $12 an hour, 25 hours a week, and I was refused a raise for the 2 years that followed no matter how I worked, even though I was allowed to go back to 40 hours a week. While it's much higher on the horse than fast food and restaurant jobs, I was a mechanic, and had a massive tool payment to go along with it. I can tell you from personal experience that having a low paying job and no options to further yourself over an extended period of time can actually make the situation worse for people. I agree that people on welfare taking the low paying jobs would be a good start to getting the economy moving, but it's a short term gain. At best, having welfare recipients take all of these McDonald's and other minimum wage jobs will serve as resume builders, but we, as a country, need to make the moves to create middle level jobs for these people to move into. Realistically, getting these people into $7 an hour jobs won't do anything to add to the federal budget. The only thing it will do will take away some of the deficit.
That brings up the other point. Every mainstream journalist loves to proclaim that the tax cuts are for "the Rich", and frankly...they are. But the reality of it is that this is nothing more than a play on numbers and words. Of course a series of tax cuts are only going to benefit the top 50% of earners in the country. The bottom 50% don't pay any income taxes currently. The only way at all that you can benefit the bottom 50% would be to use the tax money paid by the other half of the country to give a refund bigger than what they paid in across the year. With a $20 trillion debt, that would be a level beyond stupidity. Bernie Sanders has even gone so far as to say that the "Trump" tax plan will hurt the poor. After looking through the little bit of the tax plan that has been leaked, the only thing I can find to corroborate this is that a series of mid level jobs will be created, bringing many people out of the tax bracket that doesn't pay taxes and putting them into the bracket that does. Now, I spent most of my life in the bracket that didn't pay any taxes, and in the 2015 tax year, I entered the bracket that does for the first time in my life. I can say, again from experience, that getting a bill from the Federal Government for the last couple years has been a nuisance (I follow the W4 to the letter, so 2 exemptions: 1 for single, 1 for no one else can claim me as a dependent.), and I hated having to scramble around for that $300 this year. But it sure was nice bringing home a weekly check that lets me have a roof over my head in a good neighborhood, and finally buy a nice truck. Having Auto Insurance is kind of nice, too. My yearly income for 2016 compared to 2012 is over twofold, so giving a rather paltry number to the government to keep their lights on and the military funded seems like a fair trade-off to me.
The bottom line is that this economy is beginning to roll in the right direction, and I feel like there are going to be a lot of people this year that are going to be paying taxes for the first time ever, or at the very least, for the first time in a few years. As I mentioned before, I know quite well what it's like on that first year when your $1500 refund turns into a $38 liability. I know that we can't move the bar so that they continue to not pay taxes, but the decent thing would be to not completely punish these new taxpayers for their newfound success by beating them with a huge tax bill. Bring the rate for the lower middle class, and frankly, everyone down. Free up money to get invested into businesses small and large, and free up even more money to get spent on the products that come out of these investments.
If you want to discuss the point further, be sure to comment, and subscribe. I will be opening up a comment section through twitter and I hope to get more discussion going there. As always, find a lot of sources of information, look at all the facts, and draw your own conclusions. Never take a journalist or a blogger's word as gospel. That's the concept that brought you this blog
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