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to reanimate the weakest parts of the economy!
SPEND MONEY on the safety net to make sure the poorest and weakest will survive and be okay. Every dollar you spend directly on help for poor people goes directly back into the economy and circulates, creating more than $1.50 in economic stimulus. This is one of the most effective ways to stimulate the economy.
SPEND MONEY to create jobs, and create work programs. Directly put people to work. Contrary to what republicans keep insisting, the Government IS ALLOWED to hire people, and IS ALLOWED to be an employer. Government does have a lot of expertise in a vast number of fields, and can employ and train a vast number of people, which can greatly help the workforce.
SPEND MONEY on infrastructure improvements to ensuring markets for the businesses that have created those jobs, and to ensure there are places for businesses to do business, and places where they need to buy and use products, and places to put people to work. Government has the ability to be not only a huge employer, but also a massive customer for products and services of all kinds. As schools and hospitals and parks and roads and highways and administrative buildings and bridges and recreation centers get repaired the government can provide a huge business boom for companies throughout the nation, and all of that business, and all of that circulated money can stay within the United States.
RAISE TAXES on unearned income. There is no moral or ethical justification for people to pay a lower tax rate on income that they did nothing to earn, and receive simply because of wealth they already own, compared to the higher tax rate on money that people pay on income they have to work to earn. Morally and ethically, if you have to work to earn your money your tax rate should be lower than the tax rate on unearned money.
One economic justification was supposedly that unearned money would be put back into the economy, and therefore there was a justification for the lower tax rate. But unearned income is usually only put to use to earn the owner more money. It is not put to use in any way that help society or the economy as a whole. Earned income, on the other hand, circulates much more directly throughout the economy as people spend it on necessities. Earned income truly benefits the economy, and therefore deserves a lower tax rate if helping the economy is going to earn any kind of tax benefit.
Another economic justification was that unearned income would be re-invested, and a lower tax rate was a reward to encourage this. But any profit people can make from reinvesting their own money is its own reward. Given the damage wall street has created, and layed upon the backs of small investors while rich investors walked away free, the tax benefits that add up to a significant amount only for the rich are not justified. Let the lower tax rate go to earned income, so that those who work for a living can be shown that their work is valued in our society. Unearned income is not the foundation of our economy.
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