A New York Times/CBS news poll out yesterday found that 2/3 of Americans oppose tax cuts for corporations. And in a clear demonstration of why the same poll found that the public’s approval of Congress is at an all-time low of only 9%, U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, Dave Camp (R-Michigan) proposed yesterday to cut corporate income tax rates by over 28%.
Mr. Camp says that his proposal is meant to create jobs. The only problem is that U.S. multinational corporations are already sitting on trillions of dollars that they could be investing in job creation right now. So why does Mr. Camp think that piling up more profits for these corporations is going to result in a different outcome (the definition of insanity, don’t you know)?
Instead of making illogical proposals to curry favor with corporate campaign contributors, Mr. Camp would do better to read the James Livingston opinion editorial also in yesterday’s New York Times. Mr. Livingston is a professor of history at Rutgers and an expert on economic history.
Mr. Livingston says that “the best-kept secret of the last century” is that “private investment…doesn’t actually drive economic growth. Consumer debt and government spending do.”
Mr. Livingston lays out the proof for his conclusion that we need to be promoting consumer and government spending to revive our economy. That’s what I’ve been saying.