Robert Reich on the facts behind Obama's tax proposal

As usual the conservatives are downright lying about the President's recent proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts for 98% of Americans. As we've seen with recent posts though lying is the accepted way of doing business for conservatives so there's no surprise in that. Instead of repeating the lies here are the facts from Robert Reich:

"Everyone receives a continuation of the Bush tax cuts on the first $250,000 of their incomes. Any dollars they earn in excess of $250,000 will be taxed at the old Clinton-era rates. A small business owner earning $251,000 would pay the Bush rate on the first $250,000 and the old Clinton rate on just $1,000. Fewer than 3 percent of small business owners would even reach the $250,000 threshold. The only people who’d have to pay substantially more taxes under Obama’s proposal are those earning far in excess of $250,000 — and they aren’t small businesses. They’re the fattest of corpulent felines.


"The real reason businesses aren’t creating more jobs is American consumers — whose purchases constitute 70 percent of U.S. economic activity — don’t have the money to buy more, and they can no longer borrow as before. Businesses won’t invest and hire without consumers. Even as executive pay keeps rising, the median wage keeps dropping — largely because businesses keep whacking payrolls.

"I don’t remember the economy suffering under Bill Clinton’s taxes. I was in Clinton’s cabinet, so perhaps my memory is self-serving. But I seem to recall that the economy generated 22 million net new jobs during those years, unemployment fell dramatically, almost everyone’s income grew, poverty dropped, and the economy soared. In fact, it was the strongest and best economy we’ve had in anyone’s memory."