San Diego Union Tribune: Trickle down and out economics

[question everything]

By Glenn Solomon
August 23, 2004

The Bush tax cuts are costing us jobs and wages.

When they were enacted in 2001, they were introduced as an economic stimulus that would create jobs. Because of the way the tax cuts were structured and the economic environment in which they occurred, they are having the opposite effect.

(snip)

Citizens for Tax Justice calculated that by 2010, when the tax cuts are fully in place, 52 percent of the cuts will go to the richest 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers. Those among the top 1 percent received about $12,000 in 2002 with another 80 percent of their windfall still to come... Obviously there is an extraordinary incentive for those in the richest 1 percent to take advantage of the tax cuts by taking income now and as the tax cuts increase. One way that has been used by business to generate income for the super rich has received remarkably little attention.

Large corporations have fired people to generate profit. Money from labor costs has been transferred to profit by eliminating jobs or outsourcing them. We are seeing the sacrifice of long-term profitability for the sake of short-term, tax advantaged profits. Corporate "restructuring" (laying people off) means higher profits for shareholders and greater compensation for executives.

This transfer of money from labor to profit helps in part to explain why the stock market goes up when unemployment rises... Yet some economists and business pundits have said that this is the best economy in a generation. If you are among the tax advantaged, it is. If you are among the working poor, it is not... Competition for jobs has left workers vulnerable to attacks on their rights and benefits. The recent battle over overtime rules is a symptom of downward pressure on wages from job losses.

More..

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040823/news_mz1e23solomo.html

Solomon, an employment law attorney, is the author of "You Could Be Fired For Reading This Book" (Berrett-Koehler, April 2004.) He can be reached via www.youcouldbefired.net.

[Skittles]

1. simple rule: if republicans are for it, the workers get SCREWED

we have seen this time and tima again