Explaining the difference in opinion on the issue of letting the Bush era tax cuts expire on the wealthiest Americans.

I would like to provide the service to the American people of explaining the difference in opinion on the issue of letting the Bush era tax cuts expire on the wealthiest Americans.

It is really quite simple. Though everyone knows that letting these tax cuts expire will in no way balance the budget by itself, everyone knows that it would help. Most Americans want the wealthiest Americans to help. The wealthiest have seen their incomes rise prodigiously as the rest have mostly seen wage stagnation, assuming they still have a job. A large percentage of the wealth in America is concentrated in the top tier wealthy and continues to flow in that direction.

So, given these facts, what is the source of the difference in opinion? It is NOT that the average American thinks that by letting the tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans expire will balance the budget. And it is NOT that the wealthiest Americans think that tax cuts cost American jobs, because these tax cuts will hurt the “job creators” to the extent that they will reduce hiring, or worse yet lay off those that they currently employ. No, these are not the reason for the difference of opinion on the tax cut expiration issue. So, the question remains, what is the reason for the difference of opinion?

Well here it is:

The reason that congress is locked in a battle over the expiration of these tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans is because the average American is feeling like the rich are getting richer and that they are in a state of economic stagnation at best or, worse, in a state of continued decline. They want the wealthy to help the country by paying more into the country that has provided the means for them to achieve the wealth that they are enjoying. They want the wealthy to pay. They do not want the employees of the wealthy to pay. They do not want the companies that the wealthy own that employ people to pay. They want the wealthy to pay. Out of their own personal income. Yes that extravagant income which has the net worth of the wealthy growing so much over the past few decades, while the average American has been stuck in stagnation. They want them to pay, take a financial hit just like the rest of us, not pass it on to their employees (assuming they are indeed job creators).

The wealthy, meanwhile, see as an obvious reality that if their tax rates revert to what they were before the Bush era tax cuts, then they would obviously not pay those taxes in a way that would diminish their own personal income and net worth. They would obviously take it out on their employees instead. So they would reason: no employee raises this year (again) because I need to use that money to offset the increased taxes I might have to pay. I need to keep my own income growing so screw them, I'm the job creator. And if that is not the way they think, it is the way they act and the way they are seen to think. I am talking perception here.

To state it more concisely, average Americans want the wealthy who have benefited the most from the economy of the last few decades to pay more of their own income wealth in taxes to help our country's fiscal problems, while the wealthy want to continue to hold the cards and protect their wealth while blackmailing the rest of us into protecting their interests.

That, my friends, is why there is a difference in opinion on the issue of letting the Bush era tax cuts expire on the wealthiest Americans.