The Big Con

In their apparently successful effort to continue tax cuts for upper income taxpayers the GOP managed to pull of a con job Bernie Madoff would be proud of. It seems they've convinced a majority of Americans that all these folks with incomes over $250,000 per year (and that's after exemptions and deductions) are "job creators." and if their marginal tax rates return to the levels of the 1990s they'll be unable or unwilling to create enogh jobs to get America back on its feet.

Of course they offer no evidence that a slightly higher marginal rate will have this effect, nor do they see a problem with the millions of folks in these tax brackets who will never create jobs under any circumstances - think Wall Street traders with their multi-million dollar bonuses, or corporate executives who earn enormous salaries while exporting jobs overseas. But they too will continue to enjoy the lowest tax rates in over 50 years because we must protect those "job creators."

My question is this: why can't we reward "job creators" when they live up to their name? Why not provide a tax credit for documented job creation? That way real "job creators" are rewarded, while folks who merely make a lot of money pay taxes at the same rate they did in the "good old days" of the 1990s.