Monday, July 09, 2012

"job creators"

this press release from the romney campaign reminded me of one of my current pet issues. at some point in the past few years, people on the right started referring to rich people as "job creators." it comes up whenever anyone proposes raising taxes on wealthy individuals, or (in this case), letting a tax cut on the wealthy expire.

the term drives me crazy because it's wrong. wealthy people are not the same as "employers". most jobs in this country are created by businesses, not individuals. you could argue that cutting the taxes that a business pays would give that business more money to hire people. but other than domestic servants, wealthy people don't hire a lot of people using money out of their personal income. and yet when republicans trot out the "job creators" line in response to the president's proposal to let a personal income tax cut expire, they are not talking about getting america back to work by turning the unemployed into butlers and house cleaners. it's just a line they use to fool people by blurring the line between wealthy people and the corporations they own.