Letters
The wealthy are not driving growth in jobs
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson wants to perpetuate the myth that wealthy people create jobs in America. She says wealthy people deserve lower taxes because they invest in companies that hire workers.
In the next sentence, she says that small businesses create most of the jobs in America.
Which statement is true?
There are 197,000 mid-sized companies in the U.S. They create jobs. Hiring grew by 2.2 percent in the past year, which was greater than any of the 500 companies on the Standard and Poors.
Big corporations answer to shareholders, so they cut jobs to build profits. Between 2007 and 2010, most midsized companies survived the bad economy and added 2.2 million jobs. In that same period, 97 percent of big companies survived as they cut 3.7 million jobs.
Republicans like to praise small business because small businesses create 70 to 80 percent of all new jobs. However, small business owners are not the wealthy elite class in America but Republicans prefer tax cuts for the wealthy class who do not create jobs.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics consistently shows that small businesses create jobs. So, why do Republicans insist on tax breaks for the megawealthy like the Koch brothers? The University of Maryland economists confirmed that small businesses create more jobs than big corporations.
Why do wealthy corporate investors deserve those tax cuts?
In 2001, the Bush administration signed tax cut laws that benefited wealthy people to the tune of $1.3 trillion. Republicans said that the tax cuts would create jobs.
The Bush tax cuts had little impact on job creation. Yes, those tax cuts did spark part-time employment but the tax cuts in 2001 had little effect on full-time employment for 10 years.
A recent study by Kaufman Founda-tion showed that real job growth is only created by "start-up" firms. While new firms add about three million jobs in their first year, older companies lose one million jobs annually.
With this information about job creators, why would Republicans like Hutchinson insist on tax cuts for the wealthy and ignore the real job creators? Maybe Republicans are looking to the wealthy folks (Koch brothers) to hand out money to finance their next campaign. After all, small business owners cannot afford to toss millions into the GOP political campaign.
Robert Wesolowski resides in The Villages.
Gerrymandering destroys democracy
In our politically polarized nation, we face a future of gridlock on a scale not seen before. The main cause of our gridlock is that we have become a nation ruled by the minority.
The main reason for minority rule is gerrymandering. Florida is a poster child for how gerrymandering destroys our form of representative democracy. In a state in which registered Demo-crats outnumber Republicans by some 600,000 voters and have won the last two presidential elections and the last U.S. Senate seat, consider why the Democrats have only 10 of the 27 U.S. House seats, or 37 percent of the seats.
On the state level it becomes even worse. The Democrats have 14 of the 40 state Senate seats, or 35 percent. The state house has only 41 Democrats out of 120 seats, or 34 percent.
The 2010 election with its low voter Democratic turnout nationwide had devastating effects on our democracy in which Republicans gained control of several key state legislatures. This allowed them to gerrymander state and federal legislative districts in their favor in key Democratic states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.
In Florida, we elected a governor who only received the vote of 22 percent of the registered and was able to use his own wealth to buy the governorship.
The effect of this gerrymandering is evident in the total votes for the U.S. House in 2012 nationwide, in which Democrats received close to a million more votes and wound up with only 44 percent of the House seats.
The U.S. Senate is another example of minority rule in that the 20 senators from the 10 largest states represent more people than the 80 senators from the next 40 states.
The only reason the Democrats control the U.S. Senate is that it cannot be gerrymandered. There is a movement on the right to correct this by abolishing the 17th Amendment, which created the direct election of senators. Without the 17th Amendment, the Republicans would have control of the Senate by having gerrymandered state legislatures appoint the senators as pre-17th Amendment.
The presidency is also an office that does not fall prey to gerrymandering now but look for attempts to change that.
In the key battleground state of Ohio, legislation is being prepared to change the way states' electoral votes are awarded. Electoral votes statewide would be awarded to the winner of each gerrymandered congressional district with the overall statewide winner receiving the electoral votes allocated to the two senators.
If that scheme had been in place for the 2012 election in Florida, Romney would have received 17 electoral votes and Obama 12. Romney would also had more electoral votes in the key states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The U.S. Senate is the best example of rule by the minority in that it takes 60 votes to pass any major legislation giving the power to block any bill with the minority's 41 votes. Also, each senator has the power to block appointments and some legislation with his lone vote.
Marvin Jacobson resides in Clermont.
Friday, February 01, 2013 - www.dailycommercial.com/3feb2013letter