America Needs a Take-Home Pay Raise

Newt Gingrich's weekly email | July 29, 2009 | Newt Gingrich

[trussell]

America Needs a Take-Home Pay Raise by Newt Gingrich (more by this author) Posted 07/29/2009 ET

It’s a frustration I hear all the time.

With the mainstream media, Washington insiders and the so-called “experts” in elite universities all singing off the same leftwing song sheet, there is a desperate need for the facts and the arguments that support time honored American values and principles that lead to safety, prosperity and freedom.

The Left can rely on the mainstream media to put out the spin it needs.

Meanwhile, Americans are exposed to far fewer voices that explain why America has been an exceptional nation, and how to keep it that way.

For the Left, “Stimulus” Means Bailing Out Politicians and Paying Off Big Business Through Big Bureaucracy

Take just one example: the economic stimulus bill. President Obama and his allies in Washington and the elite media rammed through a $787 billion bill, asserting that the best way to get our economy moving again is through economic “stimulus,” which means giving politicians more money to pay off big businesses through big bureaucracy.

But what the economy really needs is a plan that gives small businesses more resources and more incentives to create good, permanent, well-paying jobs.

The Left argues that “stimulus” is how you grow the economy, but most Americans know that you grow the economy by creating the conditions for better job creation.

So how do Americans, in the Margaret Thatcher tradition of “first you win the argument, then you win the vote,” make the case for growing jobs when Washington and the elite media are busy making the case for growing government through “stimulus”?

I think we’ve found a way.

President Obama Doesn’t Get It – Energy and Health Care Taxes Kill Jobs

I spent most of last weekend talking with local groups of small businessmen and women in New Jersey and Ohio about the need for jobs. The concern among the people I met with was clear and undeniable.

Everyone I spoke to was outraged that Washington is considering job killing health care policies -- just after passing a job killing energy bill -- when federal officials are forecasting 9 and 10 percent unemployment for the next five years.

President Obama and his team don’t seem to grasp what every American I met with implicitly understands: New energy taxes will kill jobs. Health care taxes will kill jobs. Meekly accepting automatic tax increases will kill jobs and put off economic recovery.

Jobs Here, Jobs Now, Jobs First

At American Solutions, we believe it’s time for a fundamentally different approach -- a plan for creating jobs that you can apply to your own family or business budget and decide if it works for you.

We’ve boiled it down to a simple phrase: Jobs Here, Jobs Now, Jobs First.

It is a step-by-step program that you can share with your friends and the small business owners you know.

Read it here and use it to tell Washington politicians that their number one priority ought to be job creation.

Use it to convince small business owners that we need a jobs creation program that is real, that works in the world market, and that creates permanent, long-term economic growth.

Use it to tell your friends and neighbors that a pay raise may not be possible in this economy, but a take-home pay raise is within our reach.

Four Very Bold “Reagan-Style” Tax Changes

Jobs Here, Jobs Now, Jobs First consists of four very bold tax changes.

1. A 50 Percent Cut in Payroll Taxes for Two Years

For workers, this means cutting Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes in half for two years –a substantial take-home pay raise for every person who has a job.

For employers, a 50 percent cut in the Social Security and Medicare tax match means more money to hire new workers and invest in new technology.

For the economy as a whole, it would bolster small businesses and lead to an explosion of jobs.

2. Abolish the Capital Gains Tax

To compete with China for news jobs and investment we need to match their capital gains tax: It’s zero.

If we want our children and grandchildren to live in the most productive country in the world, we need more than short-term, government make-work jobs. We need the investment required for new factories, new companies and new technologies to create long lasting jobs.

Abolishing the capital gains tax would produce such investment.

3. Reduce the Corporate Tax Rate

The Left loves to demonize corporations, but when you add together state and federal taxes, American corporations pay the highest taxes in the world.

We believe that by matching the Irish corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent, America would become the most desirable economy in the world to open a factory, create a new job or develop a new production.

And that means more jobs for American workers.

4. Eliminate the Death Tax Permanently

By taxing Americans a second time after they die, government does a fundamentally immoral thing: It tells us that it wants us to work all our lives, save all our lives, and provide for our families. And then it takes the fruit of that hard work when we die.

If we want to be a pro-work, pro-savings and pro-family nation, it’s past time we stop punishing Americans who work, save and provide for their families.

Workers Understand What a 50% Cut in Payroll Taxes Means for Their Families

When I explained the Jobs Here, Jobs Now, Jobs First plan to people in Ohio and New Jersey this weekend, they instantly understood that this plan would be good for them personally, but also for the economic competitiveness of the country as a whole.

Employers in manufacturing, services, large and small businesses understood that this would allow them to invest more and create new jobs.

And workers understood in very real terms the difference a 50 percent reduction in payroll taxes would make for themselves and their families.

If you’re interested in learning more about Jobs Here, Jobs Now, Jobs First, just go to www.americansolutions.com. Tell your friends to do the same. Sign our petition and help send Washington the message that America doesn’t work if Americans aren’t working.

Let the other side make the case for job-killing higher taxes and “stimulus” that has big politicians paying off big business through big bureaucracy. We’ll make the case for jobs.

This is one debate we should be eager to begin.

Your friend, Newt Gingrich

[trussell]

Sounds like a plan to me, too bad our current politicians are unwilling to consider this option.

[epluribus_2]

yeah but if things continue the way they are heading (steaming) then they won’t be current politicians for long...

[Arthur McGowan]

I am so opposed to the TEMPORARY aspect of this plan that it’s almost enough to make me oppose the whole thing.

If these tax changes would be good for the country, make them PERMANENT.

Better yet: The FAIR Tax.

[Uncle Ike]

” The Left loves to demonize corporations, but when you add together state and federal taxes, American corporations pay the highest taxes in the world. “

Wrong...

Corporations don’t *pay* taxes — corporations *collect* taxes from thee ‘n’ me....

‘Corporate Taxes’ are a ‘cost of business’ and are passed along to customers with a markup.....

[Venturer]

I would like to look at the cost of Newt’s plan compared to the cost of Cap and Trade and Health care.

I am pretty sure which is the best plan but I wonder which will cause the biggst increase in the deficit.

[lakertaker]

No tax cuts without meaningful spending cuts. Taxes are an issue but worse is all this out of control spending