"Hey buddy, loan me a job?'

I take great issue with the term 'job creators' being used for wealthy people.

'Job Creators' may be wealthy, or they may not be wealthy. On the other hand, wealthy people may create jobs, or they may not create jobs.

The claim that "we can't tax the job creators" was first enunciated by President Bush II when discussing "The Bush Tax Cuts".  Mr. Bush recently weighed is on that moniker, memorably saying “I wish they weren't called the Bush tax cuts, if they were called some other body's tax cuts, they're probably less likely to be raised.”  Precisely.

Regardless of whether we're disussing the Ryan budget or the 'G-W' tax cuts,  the idea that 'sending money' to wealthy people via lower tax rates or deductions will spur job growth or stimulate the economy is highly suspect.

First, the evidence clearly suggests otherwise. We cut taxes dramatically during the Bush years, yet even before the recession started we had very anemic job growth. The ongoing lower tax rates didn't manifest themselves in either higher job growth, nor increased government revenue from the supposed 'stimulus' to the economy.

Simply put, we tried it and it didn't work.

Second, logic should indicate the folly of this line of reasoning. Wealthy people already have money. If they want to 'create jobs' (which essentially means investing in companies via the stock market or venture capitalism), they can do so at any time.

Making the claim that they will do so only if they get lower tax rates is to assume that they use the tax rate as a primary indicator of whether or not to invest. While a favorable tax situation is certainly one of the factors, the primary incentive to invest is whether or not they will make a profit.

No level of taxation will spur someone to invest if they don't make a profit (leaving aside exotic investment tricks, or buying a company in order to destroy it, neither of which 'create jobs').

But the easy way to see the fault in this line of reasoning is to imagine giving that same money to people one level lower on the income scale. To believe that the wealthiest are the only  'job creators' is to assume that the 'almost-wealthy' won't invest the money should it be directed to them.

Continuing along this path of reason should show you that until you reach the level of income where people simply don't have enough money to live (god forbid we direct any money to them!), any segment of society that has money to invest will do so, thereby 'creating jobs'. In fact, if creating jobs is the goal of tax policy, directing that money to people who would be opening a business except that they don't have the money is a far better way to achieve that result.

We can pause in the middle of our musings to give a nod to the recently departed middle class. For those who remain at this income level, that same money would go towards things like home ownership, college costs, and a host of other stability-enhancing family expenditures that solidify the center,  which brings confidence to the markets, which, come to think of it, actually IS one of the factors that people use in making investment decisions. Trickling-up, if you will.

At the far end of this mental journey is the 50% of the population who are either poor or on the edge of being poor. With those same funds directed to them, they most certainly would not make stock market investments nor open a small business. What they would do is pay bills, buy food, or take care of health care issues that they have been ignoring for months or years. Regardless of how they spend the money, they would spend it, stimulating the economy the old-fashioned way, by buying things. Even if, as is far more likely, the money came their way via benefits such as job training, pre-natal  counseling, or preventive health care, the money goes directly into the economy  juicing the GDP  and spurring job growth from the bottom up.

Finally, making the claim that 'if only they had this additional money' the wealthy people would be creating jobs is a slight on those very people. Under this scenario, these people who are already wealthy beyond most people's wildest dreams are sitting back, petulantly crossing their arms in defiance, refusing to invest money to 'create jobs' until they get even more of the nation's wealth in their pockets. I don't think this is a realistic assessment of the top 1%, despite how well it might play at Occupy sleep-overs.

The most direct way to use tax policy to create jobs is to put the money in question into subsidies and loan programs designed specifically to put people to work. Investing into construction projects to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure will do more to stimulate the economy and put people to work than will giving people already sitting on piles of money, waiting to invest that money until the economy picks up and they can make a profit in said investment.

So a few moments reflection on the best way to direct government spending shows us that directing it to the very wealthy is the least effective way to jump-start the economy or create more jobs.
Keeping in mind that we aren't talking about a return to the outrageous tax rates of the 70s, but rather a re-thinking of the now-discredited idea that more tax cuts are the solution for all of our economic ills.


In the end, the true 'job creators' are the American people themselves, whether through directly opening small businesses or simply by being an active participant in a thriving economy.

So go spend some money! It's the American thing to do.