Stephen D. Foster, Jr. posted this video on June 3, 2012 on AddictingInfo.org:
“Remember when The Daily Show destroyed anti-tax guru Grover Norquist with a think tank of twelve-year olds? In that segment, a group of kids were asked about the feasibility of pledging to never raise taxes under any circumstances, even if the country needed to. The group of twelve-year olds agreed that Norquist’s pledge is irresponsible and damaging to the nation. It seems that adults are now following in the lead of these children. Republicans such as Steve King (R-IA), Tim Johnson (R-IL), Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), Charles Boustany (R-LA), Mike Simpson (R-ID), Frank Wolf (R-VA), among many others have all blasted the pledge, and earlier this week, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush also rejected the Norquist pledge.
“The general consensus among this group of Republicans is that the Norquist pledge ties the hands of members of Congress, preventing the necessary compromise that moves the country forward. Such a pledge also creates dead-lock and fierce partisanship that puts the nation in danger as it did during the debt ceiling debate last year when Republicans refused to accept any plan that included even the slightest tax increase on the wealthy. Even closing tax loopholes has been rejected by Republicans. Jeb Bush told the House Budget Committee that by signing such a pledge, Republicans have “outsourced their principles” and are beholden to one man instead of the American people as a whole.”
Finally, some degree of sensibleness in governing.
Some conservative thinkers have acknowledged the damaging results of a laissez-faire ideology, which furthers the concentration of productive capital ownership. They are floundering in search of alternative thinking as they acknowledge the negative economic and social realities resulting from greed capitalism. This acknowledgment encompasses the realization that the troubling economic and social trends (global capitalism, free-trade doctrine, tectonic shifts in the technologies of production and the steady off-loading of American manufacturing and jobs) caused by continued concentrated ownership of productive capital will threaten the stability of contemporary liberal democracies and dethrone democratic ideology as it is now understood.
Without a policy shift to broaden productive capital ownership simultaneously with economic growth, further development of technology and globalization will undermine the American middle class and make it impossible for more than a minority of citizens to achieve middle-class status.
Tax policy should provide tax incentives for our business corporations and companies to finance their future growth while simultaneously broadening private, individual ownership of future productive capital assets. The tax incentives should encourage full-dividend payouts to corporate stockholders, or alternatively dictate through charter reform that from now on 100 percent of all corporate profits be paid out fully as dividend payments to stockholders (thus, eliminating the corporate income tax), and be subject to progressive individual taxation rates during the short term. This would effectively prohibit retained earnings financing of new productive capital formation (reinvesting the corporate earnings already earned). The government could also limit debt financing by imposing some ratio formula to annual revenue under which a corporation could debt finance new productive capital formation with borrowed monies. Both retained earnings and debt financing only enhance the ownership holding value of the existing corporate ownership class and do nothing to create new owners. Thus, the rich get richer systematically and capital ownership concentration is furthered, facilitated by financing further productive capital acquisition out of the earnings of existing productive capital.
