Jobs Party

Sometimes I read the Huffington Post.  I'll make a few comments there too, from time to time.  One idea that keeps cropping up is this idea of a Jobs Party.  I suppose it is a reaction to the Tea Party.  Maybe the left is mad enough at Obama and his lack of progress on the jobs front to either force him to the left, or to break with him altogether.

Evidently, one of the Jobs Party ideas is to raise taxes way up there again, to the rates that were in effect during the Eisenhower years.  How does Eisenhower fit into this, by the way?  This so called progressive tax schedule was implemented as a part of the New Deal.  I think the Eisenhower years were remembered as especially prosperous.  These folks want to link that era and its tax schedule to a proposition they hope will be a winner at the polls.  This redistribution from rich to poor is hoped to work in the same way that it did during those nostalgic years.

I am not persuaded that a punitive tax is necessary nor desirable.  No doubt that certain "rich" people got a lot richer while the rest of the country suffered.  Take those on a case by case basis.  It is doubtful that all rich people are guilty just because they are rich.

We do need a growth policy though.  The only way out of the financial mess is either by growth or by default. There are no other possibilities.  This income redistribution says nothing about growth.  In the end, all it would do is to spread the misery.  Without growth, the misery of debt and bankruptcy will only increase.  A growth policy will enable the economy to service the debt and create new wealth and new jobs.  This should be doable without imposing a punitive tax.