Top Dollar

It is about time some of the argumentation behind the lower taxation rates for rich Americans get questioned. The reason capital interest gains on investments are taxed lower, is that this spurs economic growth. The extra return on investment allows our captains of industry and entrepreneurs to create more jobs and increase general welfare. But it also allows people like mr. Lauder to increase inherited capital having it invested for him by others. This has nothing to do with American enterpreneurship being boosted.

Then consider the extra money flowing into these people's pockets. Where do you think these dollars are invested? Many of them on foreign stock exchanges and in foreign companies, surely. And if invested in American companies, I am certain these companies use them increasingly to fund outsourced production units abroad. It would be very interesting to see how many of the dollars extended to the top layer of the income bracket actually flow back into America.

For venture capital companies in Silicon Valley or Massachusets, capital gains might make a lot of sense. But enriching Americans that don't know where to put there money, in order to increase the welfare of marauder companies, that will set up shop wherever they make most bang for the buck hardly seems hardly worth the lurching gap between federal income and expenditure.

Imagine what these billions of dollars could do in education, infrastructure or deficit reduction instead and the long-term gains seem a lot more evident, than those of bankrolling corporations and billionaires awash in cash.