A Heartfelt Appeal to the Unemployed

I am writing this letter as an appeal to all of the unemployed and underemployed people of this nation to contact your elected officials and demand that they vote for an extension of the Bush Tax cuts. We must help our government to make the difficult choices that will promote economic growth in the future. One of the most crucial decisions of Congress is to choose which sectors get heavily taxed and which sectors get heavily subsidized.

If you are an unemployed private sector worker, then I am sure that it is troubling to realize that your job was deemed unimportant by our politicians but you must understand this is all part of the “invisible hand” of government that will lead us to a higher standard of living in the future.

Quite frankly, no one in my circle of friends is unemployed. But I do read the Wall Street Journal so I understand the “rough patch” that our country is going through.

My friends and neighbors are highly paid government administrators, health care workers, lobbyists, university professors and Wall Street professionals.

We work as employees for the healthcare sector, the government sector and the finance sector. Our government subsidized salaries are increasing faster than GDP growth so we are the growth industries. Our pay is growing much faster than the salaries of the unimportant jobs in the private sector.

We must continue the Bush tax cuts because of the high salaries for the important jobs in government and the financial sector. Many of these employees are paying a lot of money in taxes. The workers in these growth industries will be the driver of consumption in the future. It is imperative that they continue spending lavishly.

I know that even with this perfect logic there are some naysayers.

My accountant Earl says that directing money toward rich government and financial sector employees does not create jobs. To create jobs we need targeted tax credits or direct subsidies for new hires in the private sector. Higher individual taxes and lower corporate tax rates will also promote job growth. He says in this way money goes directly to create jobs without rewarding people that don’t deserve it.

Now I ask you, who is he to say who deserves the money? I told him that even if he doesn’t want money to go to the rich government and financial workers, what about the rich farmers and the rich small employers? They create most of the jobs in this country.

Earl just blathers about how almost no small business owners in this country have wages of more than $250,000 a year, which is the lower income limit on the Bush tax cuts. Earl thinks that by lowering individual tax rates and raising corporate tax rates it just gives incentive for a handful of rich business owners to raise their own salaries and lower the wages of their employees – just like government administrators do as they ratchet up their own salaries and layoff police, teachers and firefighters.

I feel that Earl is just bitter and I take exception to his jibe against government administrators like me.

Earl is self employed in the heavily taxed private sector. He only makes $100,000 a year. Neither he nor his employees are subsidized at all. The government must feel that he has a very, very unimportant job. I have tried to explain this economic fact to him but he won’t listen.

He could make twice as much working for the government itself in a midlevel administrative job or four times as much in the government run financial sector. This pay would be remuneration for doing the same amount of work that he does now! Why would anyone choose to work in the private sector? It just doesn’t make any sense.

But Earl is very stubborn.

He talks about how if we removed the government subsidies from the non productive sectors there would be plenty of money for the productive ones. He says the government’s misdirected subsidies “crowd out” private sector investment. And that most of the small businesses that he works with could hire extra employees if the government got rid of some of the constantly changing and crazy financial, economic and regulatory laws that make it impossible for small employers to compete with the big corporate and foreign employers.

I think Earl belongs in the low paying private sector. He just doesn’t understand economics.

I would like to reaffirm to you little people that if you consider the extension of this gift to the rich, that in the long run it could create more jobs. Honey Poo and I are too busy with golf and “the club” to consider any new business endeavors. But with the continued tax breaks and my government subsidized salary increases my wife is planning to hire her own eyebrow and nail specialist and an additional au pair for Shitake, our beloved Shih Tzu.

This will be two new jobs to help the economy.

Also Honey Poo and I have made a pledge that we will continue to live well so that our spending will trickle down to help the people in need.

Thank you for continuing the Bush Tax Cuts.

Yours Truly,

Charlie Husen

Tax Home

Charlie Husen owns a tax accounting business in Pleasant Hill California. You can contact him at charlie@incometaxhome.com.