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I've seen this letter reprinted everywhere and every time I see it, it irks the hell out of me. He throws around a lot of gravitas and some big numbers and the

I've seen this letter reprinted everywhere and every time I see it, it irks the hell out of me. He throws around a lot of gravitas and some big numbers and then goes, "Oh poor me, these taxes are crushing me." without providing any real objective proof of it. So you paid $288k of taxes for that quarter. That was out of how much revenue? how much profit? hm?

jedc 18y ago
The other half of it is what he got from paying taxes. * He could hire his employees because they were educated (paid and/or subsidized by taxes.) * He could take on loans and other debt because the financial system is regulated to ensure investor confidence. * Companies can get their products to customers efficiently because of roads/bridges/etc. I'm not saying taxes are too low, or even just right, or even sensible at all, but they have to be considered in context. He pays quite a bit in taxes, but how does that relate to what he puts into the economy and what he takes from the "commons" of the economy?
- blackthought286 18y ago
  that is the perfect rebuttal. thank you for bringing pure, simple logic to the discussion.the rate that we tax people may not be perfect but taxes are necessary. Guys like this seem to live for the glory years of Reagan's trickle down economics but they forget the results of that policy. The first George Bush had to break his main campaign pledge of no new taxes to offset all of the "Trickle down effects" that we were bombarded with.
- corentin 18y ago
  Let's eliminate both taxation and public sending and we'll know the answer.
- 3pt14159 18y ago
  He could hire educated employees because they paid for education; it is a engineering company, not McDonalds. While it is true that the government pays for most primary education, the vast majority of these funds do not come from federal or state taxes, but rather property tax. If the government really wanted to create "security" in the financial system they would increase the reserve limit for banks to 25% and print bills to the difference in the money supply. Roads, bridges, etc... do allow companies to move products - most employers are very happy to pay for these developments. Most of these, however, are paid with gas taxes and tolls (at least here in Canada). The three points you mention cost money, but make up a tiny percent of the American budget. The main money leaches are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt, and the military. The author of that letter mentions welfare, but this minor in the scheme of things. Don't get me wrong, I think that sending a letter like that is completely unwise, but I agree with the spirit of his letter.
  - sethg 18y ago
    He could hire educated employees because they paid for education; it is a engineering company, not McDonalds. And where did these engineers go to school? Did they attend a public or private university? Was the school subsidized by land grants from the government? Did the students benefit from government-guaranteed student loans? Was the school able to attract professors because of government-sponsored research? Etc., etc.
    - astine 18y ago
      If your family could have afforded to send you to college, It is reasonable to presuppose that they could have afforded a private school, the one is generally far more expensive than the other. If there were no public school system, then they would cost even less. - not to say we shouldn't have schools.
      - eli 18y ago
        You think private schools don't get government funding?
        astine 18y ago
        Only some do. My schooling certainly didn't, and my folks weren't rich by any stretch of the imagination.
  - andreyf 18y ago
    Then why didn't doesn't he start the company in a country with lower taxes? Last I checked, Russia has a significantly lower corporate tax than the US, and yet you don't see businesses thriving there as they do in the US... "The spirit" of his letter is a naive oversimplification - the idea that "lower taxes always increase innovation" is simple to justify, but has little evidence in the real world.
- yummyfajitas 18y ago
  This guy is complaining about proposed new taxes, not old taxes. The proper items for you to list are what he would get from proposed new spending (e.g., bailouts for detroit and irresponsible state governments, marginal state construction projects).
- caseysoftware 18y ago
  I've read his letter, I see nothing about any of the things you note. In fact, I see criticism of the financial bailout and people who lived beyond their means. Are you supporting that behavior?
  - redrobot5050 18y ago
    His major complaint, to quote the article is this: "Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check?" What he apparently doesn't know is that 75% of the (American) economy falls under "Consumer Spending". That is, if you and I don't blow our paycheck buying clothes and cars, we don't have an economy. So really, the government is doing The Right Thing(tm) by stimulating the economy. It just upsets this guy because he feels that "Trickle Down" is better, because then the economy is sitting around waiting for this guy to buy/lease another Mercedes.
    - gaius 18y ago
      Except that he states he'd use the tax money to hire more employees - who would be both consumers and producers.
      - redrobot5050 18y ago
        No, he wouldn't. The fact of the matter is, if he had the business, he'd hire the employees, as they would be making him money. Just like the myth that he'd "pay his employee's more" if he didn't have to pay their payroll tax. Odds are, he'd pay his employees the going rate for their labor. Or, if he believes his employees deliver an above-the-market quality of labor, he'd pay them at what is an appropriately scaled competitive wage. The rest he would pocket. You hire someone because you need someone to do a job. You don't have a mythical set of employees doing nothing/odd jobs simply because you have a "tax surplus".
        18y ago
- spkthed 18y ago
  That's assuming things that aren't fair. There's many people in the US educated by alternative schooling systems. Homeschooling produces excellent students as do private schools. Not everybody needs the government to help them succeed. Indeed, in America you're limited by you and you alone.
  - Retric 18y ago
    I was home schooled and I feel the public school system is horrible. However, I still think the public education system is one of the few things keeping chaos from breaking out. Consider the 80/20 rule the first 20% of public school money provides the vast majority of the benefit after that it's far more expensive the keep things moving. School could be year round with 3 cycles of children, and each child going every other year and we would spend far less money and still get most of the benefit from teaching reading, writing, basic arithmetic, basic heath etc. Or we could have vouchers and mandatory testing etc. But, removing any from of public school system would be a bad idea. PS: The real question is always what point do diminishing returns kill the gain. I think we could double the amount of money we spend on education and still come out ahead.
    - spkthed 18y ago
      Ditto and I agree, it is awful.
  - nihilocrat 18y ago
    I agree that alternative schooling systems produce students that are on par, if not better than their public counterparts, particularly at the lower grades. I scoff at the idea that "in America you're limited by you and you alone". It's an idealized extrapolation of our less regimented society, true, but if you grow up as a poor black boy or girl in the ghetto, the forces that are going to keep you there far outweigh the forces that will allow you to leave. See Hurricane Katrina: most of the poor folk that didn't evacuate were too ridiculously poor to even afford to evacuate. The same goes with someone who grows up in a rural town; if they want to leave town and go to college or otherwise make something of themselves, all of the factors in their environment are working constantly against them. I'm tired of people born into privlege (me included) feeling that growing up in an environment where the only barrier to success is your own motivation somehow applies to everyone else. I mentioned in another submission about how one of the greatest misconceptions of the past 50 years is that our environment is somehow completely unrelated to our well-being and the choices we feel we have. I'm not about to say people can start blaming their bad judgement on their environment, but the other extreme is no better a way of understanding our country.
gaius 18y ago
Ermm, you only pay taxes on profit. Economics 101.
- caseysoftware 18y ago
  Actually, you pay payroll tax just for having employees and various business registration fees for continuing to exist and taxes on equipment just for continuing to own it. None of those are dependent on profit. Reality 101.

jedc 18y ago

The other half of it is what he got from paying taxes. * He could hire his employees because they were educated (paid and/or subsidized by taxes.) * He could take on loans and other debt because the financial system is regulated to ensure investor confidence. * Companies can get their products to customers efficiently because of roads/bridges/etc. I'm not saying taxes are too low, or even just right, or even sensible at all, but they have to be considered in context. He pays quite a bit in taxes, but how does that relate to what he puts into the economy and what he takes from the "commons" of the economy?

blackthought286 18y ago
that is the perfect rebuttal. thank you for bringing pure, simple logic to the discussion.the rate that we tax people may not be perfect but taxes are necessary. Guys like this seem to live for the glory years of Reagan's trickle down economics but they forget the results of that policy. The first George Bush had to break his main campaign pledge of no new taxes to offset all of the "Trickle down effects" that we were bombarded with.
corentin 18y ago
Let's eliminate both taxation and public sending and we'll know the answer.
3pt14159 18y ago
He could hire educated employees because they paid for education; it is a engineering company, not McDonalds. While it is true that the government pays for most primary education, the vast majority of these funds do not come from federal or state taxes, but rather property tax. If the government really wanted to create "security" in the financial system they would increase the reserve limit for banks to 25% and print bills to the difference in the money supply. Roads, bridges, etc... do allow companies to move products - most employers are very happy to pay for these developments. Most of these, however, are paid with gas taxes and tolls (at least here in Canada). The three points you mention cost money, but make up a tiny percent of the American budget. The main money leaches are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt, and the military. The author of that letter mentions welfare, but this minor in the scheme of things. Don't get me wrong, I think that sending a letter like that is completely unwise, but I agree with the spirit of his letter.
- sethg 18y ago
  He could hire educated employees because they paid for education; it is a engineering company, not McDonalds. And where did these engineers go to school? Did they attend a public or private university? Was the school subsidized by land grants from the government? Did the students benefit from government-guaranteed student loans? Was the school able to attract professors because of government-sponsored research? Etc., etc.
  - astine 18y ago
    If your family could have afforded to send you to college, It is reasonable to presuppose that they could have afforded a private school, the one is generally far more expensive than the other. If there were no public school system, then they would cost even less. - not to say we shouldn't have schools.
    - eli 18y ago
      You think private schools don't get government funding?
      - astine 18y ago
        Only some do. My schooling certainly didn't, and my folks weren't rich by any stretch of the imagination.
- andreyf 18y ago
  Then why didn't doesn't he start the company in a country with lower taxes? Last I checked, Russia has a significantly lower corporate tax than the US, and yet you don't see businesses thriving there as they do in the US... "The spirit" of his letter is a naive oversimplification - the idea that "lower taxes always increase innovation" is simple to justify, but has little evidence in the real world.
yummyfajitas 18y ago
This guy is complaining about proposed new taxes, not old taxes. The proper items for you to list are what he would get from proposed new spending (e.g., bailouts for detroit and irresponsible state governments, marginal state construction projects).
caseysoftware 18y ago
I've read his letter, I see nothing about any of the things you note. In fact, I see criticism of the financial bailout and people who lived beyond their means. Are you supporting that behavior?
- redrobot5050 18y ago
  His major complaint, to quote the article is this: "Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check?" What he apparently doesn't know is that 75% of the (American) economy falls under "Consumer Spending". That is, if you and I don't blow our paycheck buying clothes and cars, we don't have an economy. So really, the government is doing The Right Thing(tm) by stimulating the economy. It just upsets this guy because he feels that "Trickle Down" is better, because then the economy is sitting around waiting for this guy to buy/lease another Mercedes.
  - gaius 18y ago
    Except that he states he'd use the tax money to hire more employees - who would be both consumers and producers.
    - redrobot5050 18y ago
      No, he wouldn't. The fact of the matter is, if he had the business, he'd hire the employees, as they would be making him money. Just like the myth that he'd "pay his employee's more" if he didn't have to pay their payroll tax. Odds are, he'd pay his employees the going rate for their labor. Or, if he believes his employees deliver an above-the-market quality of labor, he'd pay them at what is an appropriately scaled competitive wage. The rest he would pocket. You hire someone because you need someone to do a job. You don't have a mythical set of employees doing nothing/odd jobs simply because you have a "tax surplus".
      - 18y ago
spkthed 18y ago
That's assuming things that aren't fair. There's many people in the US educated by alternative schooling systems. Homeschooling produces excellent students as do private schools. Not everybody needs the government to help them succeed. Indeed, in America you're limited by you and you alone.
- Retric 18y ago
  I was home schooled and I feel the public school system is horrible. However, I still think the public education system is one of the few things keeping chaos from breaking out. Consider the 80/20 rule the first 20% of public school money provides the vast majority of the benefit after that it's far more expensive the keep things moving. School could be year round with 3 cycles of children, and each child going every other year and we would spend far less money and still get most of the benefit from teaching reading, writing, basic arithmetic, basic heath etc. Or we could have vouchers and mandatory testing etc. But, removing any from of public school system would be a bad idea. PS: The real question is always what point do diminishing returns kill the gain. I think we could double the amount of money we spend on education and still come out ahead.
  - spkthed 18y ago
    Ditto and I agree, it is awful.
- nihilocrat 18y ago
  I agree that alternative schooling systems produce students that are on par, if not better than their public counterparts, particularly at the lower grades. I scoff at the idea that "in America you're limited by you and you alone". It's an idealized extrapolation of our less regimented society, true, but if you grow up as a poor black boy or girl in the ghetto, the forces that are going to keep you there far outweigh the forces that will allow you to leave. See Hurricane Katrina: most of the poor folk that didn't evacuate were too ridiculously poor to even afford to evacuate. The same goes with someone who grows up in a rural town; if they want to leave town and go to college or otherwise make something of themselves, all of the factors in their environment are working constantly against them. I'm tired of people born into privlege (me included) feeling that growing up in an environment where the only barrier to success is your own motivation somehow applies to everyone else. I mentioned in another submission about how one of the greatest misconceptions of the past 50 years is that our environment is somehow completely unrelated to our well-being and the choices we feel we have. I'm not about to say people can start blaming their bad judgement on their environment, but the other extreme is no better a way of understanding our country.

gaius 18y ago

Ermm, you only pay taxes on profit. Economics 101.

caseysoftware 18y ago
Actually, you pay payroll tax just for having employees and various business registration fees for continuing to exist and taxes on equipment just for continuing to own it. None of those are dependent on profit. Reality 101.