Letter: 'Job creator' claims at GOP debates
Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks during the Republican presidential debate airing on CNN in Last Vegas. (Oct. 18, 2011) Credit: Getty Images
If I hear the words "job creator" even once more during a GOP debate, I'm going to be sick ["Perry insists he can beat Obama in debate," News, Oct. 31]. Politicians are not job creators, nor are corporations, as much as they'd like to think they are. The only job creators are individuals who create demand for more goods and services.
As an example, if you cut the tax rate of Ford Motor Co.'s chief executive to zero percent, and also cut its corporate tax rate to zero, you still won't create even one new job, because there will not be any corresponding increase in demand for new automobiles.
If, however, projects are approved to update our nation's badly deteriorating infrastructure, and these projects put the currently unemployed to work, just as after World War II, an expanding middle class flush with newly earned money will have an extremely high pent-up demand for new products and services. In this scenario, even if you raised the tax rates of Ford and its chief executive, those companies would still respond by adding jobs.
The theory of trickle-down economics never worked, but the GOP wants you to believe it is the answer to your prayers.
Leonard Cohen, Wantagh
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