Raise taxes, taxes is what keeps your streets in tack. It gives you everything, include police, social security, and your rights. If you took economics, you'd know that Bush tried lowering the taxes and as a result we are now in a recession. If taxes are lowered government spending will have to decrease otherwise we would have a deficit of tax money, and wouldn't be able to pay for the roads/police/and any other government service. Where does health care come from? TAXES, foodstamps? TAXES. Everything supplied to you comes from taxes, what pays the government to keep researching flu shots? TAXES. Bush already tried lowering taxes to try and delay the recession. Obama wants to raise taxes, and increase government spending, and that is how an economy gets out, by increasing it's GDP. If anything the government should raise taxes, If any of you lived in chicago, you'd notice that there was no street cleaning during the winter, nor salt trucks, that's the result of the lowered taxes. America's huge debt? America has the most credit in the world, it is the only nation that has always payed their debts. 95% of it's debts are to the people of it's nation.

Raising taxes will help the economy. Why?

Taxes are what pays for what we are provided with. It is the taxes that pays for schools, education, social security, police departments, hospitals, ect.

If we lower the taxes, where would we get the money to continue those?

Where do we get the money from?

Other countries. And that would cause us to go into an even BIGGER debt.

But if we raise taxes, and I mean raise taxes on everyone; it will help the economy bit by bit as a WHOLE (rather than doting on the rich to pay for most of our taxes.)

Because whats left is to pay off this debt.

And if you think lowering taxes is still good...

How many of you would go out of your way to pay off the nations debt out of the goodness of your heart?

“If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end - people like myself - should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it.” This is said by Warren Buffett, the fourth richest man in the nation.

Today I am going to look at three areas of analysis:

First, it has worked in history.

Second, taxes allow for investment in future economic development spending cuts don’t allow.

And lastly, most people want taxes on the wealthy.

My first point is that taxes on the wealthy have worked in the past. According to Robert Reich from Market Place Commentary stated that when Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealth in the 1990’s the economy produced faster job growth and higher wages than it did after George bush cut taxes on the rich. According to the American History Association, we learn history because we learn from our past. We learn from our losses and from our victories. In school, why do we learn? We are supposed to apply the knowledge to our lives. So, if this has shown recently that it HELPS our economy, should we not apply it again?

This leads me to my second point that we can reform society with taxing. According to Forbes a soda tax would generate billions in revenue. If something as simple as taxing soda generates such revenue, what will more creative ideas produce? Simple taxes can have large effects. We don’t have to largely increase taxes on income and social security but crack down on luxuries that aren’t a necessity for a person to survive. Instead we can use the money to reform our schools which is the basis of everything we know. According to New York Times the US is in 48th place in education. Spending cuts do not generate more money than there already is. If we took spending cuts and put them into education then we wouldn’t be able to lower the deficit. This is why tax increases are necessary because the actually create revenue. With spending cuts we are not able to kill two birds with one stone, for example, education and the deficit. If we want to help our children learn, which would then set us up for the future, we have to overlook the debt that the country is accumulating. We can’t better teach our children if we focus on the debt. This is why we need taxes. So we can generate revenue that can help both situations.

On to my third point, most people agree we should tax the rich, even the rich. According to an article in the wall street journal the MAJORITY of Americans think its right to raise tax rates on wealthy people. According to Market Place Commentary Robert Reich stated that when Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealth in the 1990’s the economy produced faster job growth and higher wages than it did after George bush slashed taxes on the rich. A majority of wealthy Americans want to be taxed higher. According to the New York Times, some 120 wealthy Americans, including Warren E. Buffet, George Soros, and even William H. Gates, are creating a position urging Congress NOT to repeal the estate tax. The petition says that ''repeal of the estate tax would be bad for our democracy, our economy and our society.'' They even stated that they would agree with raising taxes on themselves. The rich already have enough money to live a great lifestyle; it won't hurt them as much to increase their taxes as much as it would hurt the poor and the middle class. Again, American’s want this tax on the wealthy.

Today, we have looked at three areas of analysis.

First, taxes on the wealthy have worked in the past.

Second, taxes allow for investment in future economic development that spending cuts don’t.

And lastly, most people want a tax on the wealthy.

“If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end - people like myself - should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it.” This is said by Warren Buffet, the fourth richest man in the nation

As an outside observer, I am convinced that the U.S. government is obliged to "raise" taxes, especially on the rich. This is not to say, as a blanket argument, that it is always better for any government to raise taxes. It all depends upon a case-by-case analysis. In the case of the U.S., the widening gap between rich and poor and the failure of health care system are damaging social integration and even threatening the lives of so many Americans.

Any international comparison reveals America is utterly failing in narrowing the rich-and-poor gap. Of course, if you raise taxes too much, then the economy may run the risk of losing steam, and falling into a recession or stagflation due to ever-decreasing disposable income.

But that should not be the case for America, which is notorious for its lowest tax rates amongst major developed economies. All the U.S. government should be concerned about is that the tax rate should not be raised abruptly. It should be done gradually and carefully every step of the way.

As long as you are balanced enough to keep in mind the cautionary tale of the "Swedish type of too much tax, depressing their own economy at the end of half a century", you can find an optimal level of taxes on the rich and on the middle class.

Given the size, economic might and the rapid rise of China, the nuclear/terrorist threats from roguish evil nations such as Iran, North Korea, Syria and others, and the shocking gap between rich and poor, tens of millions of the latter of whom do not even have any health care coverage as in any failed state in Africa, America has no other choice but to raise taxes on the rich and the upper middle class as well.

This observation is so commonsensical that very few world citizens would dare to rebut it except for American republicans. Whenever they speak for lower taxes, I am always reminded of a word, "Dogma". Those communists besieged by Marxist dogma literally self-destroyed the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.

What is happening in American politics seems to be exactly the same in nature as what those communist countries had committed in and around 1989. Extremism can, from time to time, prevail on both ends of the ideological spectrum. American Republicanism in its economic sense has gone to the other end of extreme. American conservatives only do not know they have fallen a victim to "Too much pride from past successes, leading to a petrified dogma, destined to be dealt a final blow to its most potent pride" phenomenon.

If you are happy with the scenario of China forcefully and condescendingly waking the U.S. up to the harsh realities in a matter of twenty years or so, you can go on without major structural changes in American system. (I think brief successes of neo-liberalism in the 90s and early 2000s have inflated your ego too much.) But if you are not, try to diligently learn from German or any other better performing economy, all of which are regarded to have been much better role models as a developed economy for the rest of the world.

HI

I BELIEVE THAT TAXES SHOULD BE LOWERED TO THE PRIVATE SECTOR WORKER AND RAISED FOT THE PUBLIC SECTOR WORKER. ITS THE PRIVATE SECTOR THAT CREATES JOBS NOT THE PUBLIC SECTOR. I THINK THAT THEY SHOULD LOWER CORP, TAXES.

I THINK THAT THERE SHOULD BE A FLAT TAX FOR THOSE WHO MAKE OVER LETS SAY 500000.00 PER YR SO IT WOULD TAKE AWAY THERE TAX SHELTERS.

THANK YOU

If you lower taxes you have raise other specific taxes so that you can pave potholes or pay a policeman. If you cut taxes you have to then fire people but then you just pay them in unemployment so lowering taxes is a silly notion. There is no fire department who are you going to call. Get out into your garden and get the hose out eh. If you are interested in Economics (like I am), you would know that Bush tried to lower taxes to delay the recession. And where did that put us. In a even worse recession. When Bill Clinton raised taxes in 1990 the economy raised productivity and a new job rate that has never been recorded in the history of America ever again. Raising taxes would also reduce the amount of large projects such as road construction. These projects could not be taken up by smaller companies as they either are not big enough or can’t afford to take on these projects. Lower taxes will also hurt the most vulnerable people in the country as they depend on the programs funded by taxpayer dollars to SURVIVE, like social security and even food stamps. As the saying goes: The poor stay poor and the rich get richer.

Many people argue that raising taxes and government spending limits economic growth. Problem is they ignore basic economics when making such claims. Economics is based on movement of money, not available money. If money is not moving the economy declines, if it moves a lot it grows. Money is a representation of real goods, so if it is not moving no one is producing goods needed by others (Basic Supply and Demand).

First, the problem with tax cuts for large businesses and rich people:

1) They tend to "sit" on money, for any number of reason. The more people have and the less they need, the more likely they will put it aside for a rainy day, or the "potential" project of the future. This declines economic growth. Companies are the same, Microsoft, Apple, Google all have billions stored up for the next big investment, this is good, because they are more likely to take risky investments and progress long term economics on the successes, however short term economics are hit hard. As of now the balance is too much in savings due to fear of economic stability, so we need to stabilize the economy before they will spend that money.

2) Smaller companies and poor people spend what they have, and often live in debt. This means they can't invest in large scale projects or take risks. And tend to spend everything they have to keep going.

This provides two benefits to short term economic growth and stability. First they will spend money on the same things each month: Food, Utilities, Car, Gas, etc... This grants a stable market for those items, allowing companies to cut costs in storage or loosing it due to over/under purchasing. In other words it stabilizes the economy.

While the government is fairly large, it's problem is not a surplus problem, but a debt one. Meaning ignoring the cost of debt (as that has little effect on the economy directly) we can look at the probability of that money moving from a tax increase. More or less government money may sit for periods of time, but rarely more than a few months or a year.

More importantly, the government allots that money ahead of time, and outside of natural disaster allows companies to predict demand from the government spenders. This means a more stable and growing short term economy.

More importantly the government is always spending on long term projects that even huge corporations will not take on. NASA has produced day to day technology that these large companies have profited from, because unlike businesses the government does not demand to be paid back. Ballpoint pen, asbestos free high heat elements, LEDs that make your computer screen light and small, and so on. Some would have came from other needs eventually, but face it, we owe these government projects for our very economic existence (Even the post WW2 golden age would not have happened if the government did not get funding to manufacture weapons).

Short answer, if we want a future in the world, we need a strong economy, stable economy, reliable economy, and a government able to support it. Without taxes we cannot achieve success.

We should raise taxes because taxes go to our government who pay money for roads, NASA, police, basically the whole economy what does lowering taxes do just making you pay less. But the thing is that the purchases don't go to the government the go to they company and if the taxes are only a dollar a purchase and there one hundred million purchases per day thats only like 36.5 billion dollars per year thats not enough for our basic needs like a military, education, and health care.