The Republican Myth that Raising Taxes is a "Job-Killer."

Shortly before Christmas last year, the Republican Party held millions of unemployed Americans hostage. They were able to accomplish this by refusing to extend unemployment benefits to Americans who lost their jobs primarily because of economic policies implemented by President George W. Bush. The GOP demanded a ransom in the form of a commitment from Democrats that they would agree to extend the Bush tax cuts to the top 2% of the wealthiest Americans. Republicans threatened to refuse an extension of unemployment benefits to the millions of poor and middle-class Americans who would have been cut off right before Christmas.

Republicans at the time blamed uncertainty about the Bush tax cuts being extended for the lack of job creation. They told us, once again, that the wealthy were scared to create new jobs, because they were worried that their taxes would go up. Democrats cowered and agreed to pay the ransom, which meant that millions continued to receive their unemployment checks in time for Christmas. The Republicans got what they wanted, an extended 3% tax cit for the so-called “job creators” in or economy, people like Charlie Sheen, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and their billionaire patrons, the Koch brothers.

It is now almost that time again—one year later and in August of 2011, NO JOBS WERE CREATED! The private sector managed to generate an embarrassing 17,000 new jobs, but the government sector shed 17,000 jobs, resulting in zero job growth. Just to show a trend, in July of this year, unemployment managed to fall by a tenth of one percent—hardly a robust job recovery.

Congressional Republicans have been telling us that the “job creators,” the people with all the money, were just uncertain about their tax rates. But those were extended for another two years so why aren’t they using that money to create jobs?

Also, remember that these tax cuts were originally put into place way back in 2001, so why have they not been creating jobs since 2001? If those tax cuts spur job growth we should have seen an increase in jobs during the Bush administration, but instead we saw massive loss, especially leading into 2007 and 2008.

Members of Congress receive a salary of $174,000 a year and almost all of them have additional income that puts them in the top income bracket, earning over $250,000 per year. How many jobs did members of Congress create, bolstered by their Bush tax cuts? If they actually succeeded as “job creators’ why then are they not bragging about how they are using their sheltered income from taxes to reinvest in the American economy thereby creating jobs?

The hard cold truth is that taxes make absolutely no difference in the jobs equation. Taxes are based on subtracting costs from revenue and if a company has profits after costs have been covered, then that income should be taxed—just like the rest of us. Taxes in the corporate world, such as they are, are not calculated until well after hiring decisions have been made. This way, a business does not lay off people to meet their tax obligations.

Customers coming in the door to purchase—that is what creates jobs.

Lots of people having money to spend is what creates jobs and businesses. That is the basic idea of demand-side economics and it works. A consumer-driven economy, such as the American one, is designed to serve people with money in their pockets. That is what keeps us going. It is also important to recognize that the equal opportunity of democracy with its reinvestment in infrastructure and education and the other fruits of democracy is fundamental to keeping a demand-side economy functioning.

When almost all the money goes to a few at the top everything breaks down. Taxing the people at the top and then reinvesting that money into the democracy is fundamental to keeping things moving forward.

In a democracy the rich are supposed to pay more to cover things like building and maintaining the roads and schools because these are the things that enable their wealth. They actually do use the roads and schools more because the roads enable their businesses to prosper and the schools provide educated employees. But it isn't just that the rich use roads more, it is that everyone has a right to use roads and a right to transportation because we are a democracy and everyone has the same rights. And as a citizen in a democracy you have an obligation to pay your share for that.

A democracy is supposed have a progressive tax structure that is in proportion to the means to pay. We do this because those who get more from the system do so because the democratic system offers them that ability. Their wealth is because of our system and therefore they owe back to the system in proportion.

Interestingly enough, history has taught the lesson that great wealth opposes democracy, so in its defense, democracy must control the accumulation of great, disproportional wealth. In other words, part of the contract of living in a democracy is your obligation to protect the democracy and high taxes at the top is one of those protections.

The conservative anti-tax and “job-killer” philosophy is fundamentally at odds with the concepts of democracy and should be understood and resisted as such. Taxes do not take money out of the economy, they enable the economy.