‘Paying for’ the Extension of the Bush Tax Cuts Negates the Benefits of Extending Them
Middletown, CT. – September 21, 2010 – Warren Mosler, Connecticut’s Independent Party Candidate for US Senate, says that his opponents, Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Republican Linda McMahon, have shown that, in this time of economic emergency, they are unqualified for the job of U.S. Senator by agreeing with each other that tax cuts in one place need to be ‘paid for’ by raising taxes in another.
“We are in a financial emergency. This is not the time for amateur hour. Richard Blumenthal and Linda McMahon’s belief in need to ‘pay for’ any tax cuts is backwards. It works to destroy jobs, not create them. ‘Paying for’ extending the expiring Bush tax cuts would prevent the creation of millions of badly needed jobs,” says Mosler, an internationally renowned financial and job creation expert. “If you need heart surgery, don’t let any of us do it. But if you want 20 million new, good paying private sector jobs, I’m the professional with the experience and knowledge to get it done.”
Virtually every serious economist, from Arthur Laffer on the right to Paul Krugman on the left, understands that, in today’s fiat currency system, the practical purpose of Federal taxes is to regulate the economy like a thermostat, not to raise dollars to fund programs like it was back during the days of the gold standard. “We need 20 million new jobs yesterday! This is not the time for the Federal Government to be taking extra money out of this economy by raising taxes of any kind,” Mosler emphasized.
Mosler has also been proposing a full payroll tax (FICA) holiday for employees and employers since August 2008 when the economy first started to go into recession. After two years of economic decline, leading economists are finally beginning to recommend it, and President Obama today indicated he would also be open to that suggestion. Mosler believes that Washington needs to stop pursuing the failed top down approach of funding the banks and insurance companies with trillions of dollars, and instead, create jobs with his bottom up approach of a full payroll tax holiday.
About Warren Mosler
Warren Mosler is running as an Independent. His populist economic message features: 1) a full payroll tax (FICA) holiday so that people working for a living can afford to buy the goods and services they produce. 2) $500 per capita Federal revenue distribution for the states 3) An $8/hr federally funded job to anyone willing and able to work to facilitate the transition from unemployment to private sector employment. He has also pledged never to vote for cuts in Social Security payments or benefits. Warren is a native of Manchester, Conn., where his father worked in a small insurance office and his mother was a night-shift nurse. After graduating from the University of Connecticut (BA Economics, 1971), and working on financial trading desks in NYC and Chicago, Warren started his current investment firm in 1982. For the last twenty years, Warren has also been involved in the academic community, publishing numerous journal articles, and giving conference presentations around the globe. Mosler’s new book “The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy” is a non technical guide to the actual workings of the monetary system and exposes the most commonly held misconceptions. He also founded Mosler Automotive, which builds the Mosler MT900, the world’s top performance car that also gets 30 mpg at 55 mph.