Americans Know Corporations Don't Pay Enough Taxes

The Republicans in Congress are still wanting to lower the "tax burden" on corporations. They claim it is too high, and lowering it will create jobs. That is a lie. Corporations are already making record-breaking profits, and are sitting on more than a trillion dollars in cash -- and they are creating large numbers of good-paying jobs. In fact, they are still sending good American jobs to other countries where they can abuse workers with poverty wages.

The Republicans are just wrong. They have been telling us that lower corporate taxes will create jobs for decades now, and all it has brought us is less good jobs, more low-wage jobs, a recession, and a stagnant median wage. The truth is that neither lower taxes nor higher profits create jobs -- especially if those higher profits came from laying off workers and failing to pay taxes.

There is only one thing that creates new jobs -- a rising demand for the goods/services businesses produce. When demand for those goods/services goes up, businesses will hire the number of new workers required to meet that demand, and they will do that regardless of the level of taxation (because that higher demand will result in more sales which will result in higher profits. It makes no sense for a business to hire more workers without higher demand, because that just increases labor costs with our increasing profits (which results in less overall profit for the business).

Republicans know this. They just don't care. They are telling the lie to fool voters. Their attempt to lower taxes further on corporations is nothing more than payback for the money donated by corporations to elect Republicans. But even more important is the fact that the general public is starting to figure this out.

As the above charts show, a majority of Americans now believe that corporations don't pay their fair share in taxes -- and that belief stretches across all demographic groups. All but Republicans, that is, because it seems that those congressional Republicans still have the wool pulled over the eyes of their own party base. That means a continuing effort to gives corporations more tax breaks may play well in the GOP primaries -- but it's not going to get them any votes in a general election. It will just insure that none of their extremist candidates can win the White House in 2016.

The top chart above is from a CBS News Poll done between January 9th and 12th of a random national sample of 1,001 adults, and has a margin of error of 3 points.

The lower chart is from an ABC News / Washington Post Poll done between January 12th and 15th of a random national sample of 1,003 adults, with a margin of error of 3.5 points.