President Obama's proposal to raise the top rate to 39 percent is equal to the rate under President Clinton in the 1990s when Wall Street reached record high levels and the economy produced lots of jobs.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
After 25 quarters of so-called recovery under Obama, it has increased a total of only 14.3 percent. Compare this to earlier periods. After the JFK tax cuts of the early 1960s, the economy grew in total by roughly 40 percent. After the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s, the economy grew by a total of 34 percent.
Raising the minimum wage, as President Obama proposed in his State of the Union address, tends to be more popular with the general public than with economists.
The upper 1 percent, the people down on Wall Street, the corporate executives, they're the people that control this economy.
From the day he first walked through the door of the Oval Office, President Obama's top priority has been growing our economy, creating good jobs, and rebuilding middle class security.
It wasn't simply that Clinton created the greatest prosperity in the country's history. Or that we created 22 million new jobs, more than ever before. Under Clinton, poverty was reduced 25%.
President Obama believes that income inequality is one of the most pressing matters facing the nation. If we are going to be a country that provides ladders of opportunity and believes in a thriving middle class, then we have to raise the minimum wage.
Many liberals argue that big U.S. companies don't really pay the top corporate rate. While this is sometimes true, it's mainly because, during recessions, companies lose money, and get a tax loss carryforward that temporarily reduces their effective rate. But during economic expansions, when profits rise, companies then do pay the top rate.
Mr. Obama plans to boost federal spending 25 percent while nearly tripling the national debt over 10 years. Americans know that this kind of spending will have economic consequences, including new taxes being imposed by the new progressives.
Establishing a 0.03 percent Wall Street speculation fee, similar to what we had from 1914-1966, would dampen the dangerous level of speculation and gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy and reduce the deficit by more than $350 billion over 10 years.
President Obama has made a minimum wage increase a focal point of his economic agenda.