I recently highlighted Fareed Zakaria’s support for the “do-nothing” approach to the Bush tax cuts. If Congress does nothing before the end of the year, they all expire.
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan offers the opposing argument in a column for Human Events:
When we are struggling with a feeble ?recovery,? almost 10% unemployment, and anemic growth, the worst thing we could do is raise taxes on any part of the economy.
Democratic leaders who want taxes to rise on incomes over $200,000 are not talking about the super-rich like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. To get the revenue they want, they propose taxing the main engine of our job creation machine, successful small businesses. Fifty percent of those who pay top tax rates are small businesses that file as individual taxpayers, not corporate filers. Twenty to 30 million people have jobs that depend on them. Roughly 60% to 80% of new jobs are estimated to come from new small businesses.
Right now when our economy is performing too poorly to generate healthy business growth, tax hikes on entrepreneurism will only slow down this ?jobless recovery.? Raise taxes on employers paying at individual rates, and you end up taxing working Americans out of jobs.
U.S. taxes on business are higher than almost any country in the world. When we tax our employers more than our foreign competitors? tax theirs, they get jobs we should keep at home, and we lose in global competition. I have never understood the thinking that will spend $862 billion on a jobs stimulus scheme but refuse to keep tax rates at a low level to stimulate job creation. It seems like loving job creation while punishing the job creators.
Today there is growing uncertainty about the future tax burden. Those who would build businesses and expand employment hold back when the tax future is unpredictable. These taxpayers need certainty that they will not face a huge wave of tax increases in 2011 and another one in 2013.
