Tax Rates and Business Investment

You and I have been hearing lots of rhetoric about the risk to small business if tax rates go up on people earning a quarter million or more. The expressed concern is that small businessmen won’t be able to invest and create more jobs. Of course in this world of sound bites it’s hard to get everything clear and correct. But this one is largely misleading. Tax rates and business investment in job producing enterprise are much less closely related than much of the commentary would make it appear.

Taxes and the Price of Success

With a deal in process about state taxes amid shouts about which state’s taxes are highest, let me point out some basic facts. New York is expensive. My employers had to pay me well when I worked in New York City so that I could afford to live and work there. Same when I worked in Boston. Why? Taxes? Actually that’s not the big issue which is real estate.

The Economy has hit a Republican Wall

Did you hear Republican Senator Pat Toomey’s recent weekly Republican radio address. He announced that “the economy has hit a wall.” Exactly. It hit a Republican wall. Everything our government has done to bring us out of recession for the last eighty years he and his fellow Republicans have said “no” to.