Americans Want Government to Spend for Jobs, Send Bill to Rich

[ChromeFoundry]

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Americans want their government to create jobs through spending on public works, investments in alternative energy or skills training for the jobless.

They also want the deficit to come down. And most are ready to hand the bill to the wealthy.

A Bloomberg National Poll conducted Dec. 3-7 shows two- thirds of Americans favor taxing the rich to reduce the deficit.

Even though almost 9 of 10 respondents also say they believe the middle class will have to make financial sacrifices to achieve that goal, only a little more than one-fourth support an increase in taxes on the middle class. Fewer still back cuts in entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare or a new national consumption tax.

These long-standing contradictions in voters’ attitudes toward taxes, spending and the deficit are intensified as the U.S. grapples with the most severe economic crisis in decades, says J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., a Des Moines, Iowa-based firm that conducted the nationwide survey. The rich have become an especially inviting target as the combination of a bank bailout and big bonuses stoke resentments, she says.

“People are hurting,” Selzer says. “They want anything that can help and not hurt them more.”

“It’s hard enough just to get by,” says poll respondent Trevor Wofsey, 32, a postal carrier in Big Pine Key, Florida. “We’re being cut at every level: There are less hours at work and they want us to pay more into medical. Food is up, gas is up.”

More: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=awkrRPMONDW8

[AllentownJake]

1. Not going to happen

We might do part A. However, doing part B would be socialism. We are going to send the bill to the children and grandchildren. Hopefully they won't be too upset.

[KansDem]

2. If we had a Congress that represented the people and not the corporations...

This would have happened already.

[OhioChick]

5. True. n/t

[C_Lawyer09]

3. How about leaving the rich that pay their taxes alone

And closing the loophole that allows corporations to maintain overseas addresses in places such as Barbados, while they are still geographically in the U.S.? We are missing appx. 200b in annual tax revenue. That should be the first step, because it is morally right.

[Travis_0004]

4. Correct me if I'm wrong

If a good is made in America, it will be taxed.
If its sold in america it will be taxed.

So the only thing that a company gains by setting up shop in a tax haven is avoiding taxes on goods made oversees, and sold oversees, correct?

If this is the case, why should the US be taxing them at all, if no part of the product is made or sold in America?

[C_Lawyer09]

6. Read my post again

Or reference "Pigs at the Trough", by Ariana Huffington. The corporations are actually in conus, not overseas, the products are made in America and sold domestically and overseas, as with almost any large corporation. So, incorrect, A corporation can set up a shell in any tax friendly country, and avoid the tax burden, even though they leverage much of what is domestic (right here) paid for by other US tax payers.

[Goldstein1984]

7. Government of, by, and for Wall Street

Ever since Reagan was elected president, U.S. citizens have been fed a steady diet of Milton Friedman deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy, privatization and free market nonsense. Trickledown doesn't work. Somewhere between social Darwinism and complete socialism there has to be something like socially responsible capitalism.

The government of, by and for Wall Street showed its colors when it bailed out banks and big businesses before the American people. The banks sat on the money to improve their balance sheets. The auto companies downsized and laid off workers. Nothing trickled down.

If our elected "representatives" start spending money on creating jobs for the masses they may find out that mansions burn just as easily and shanty towns. The rich have grown richer while a peasant class emerged, and funding job creation is in their interest.