Former Super Committee co-chair and head of Senate Democrats’ 2012 campaign effort Patty Murray will take on the GOP myth that the wealthiest Americans are “job creators” — and therefore must be protected from higher marginal tax rates.
In prepared floor remarks sent my way, Murray will argue that the GOP has this exactly backwards, and that middle class workers need more money in their pockets — not the highest earners.
“Republicans seem to be operating under the backwards economic principle that only tax cuts for the richest Americans and biggest corporations are worth fighting for,” the remarks read. “In fact, they have a name for this group of people: they call them ‘job creators.’ They believe the only ones who create jobs in America are the rich–and they claim that the tax cuts and loopholes they fight for that benefit the wealthy will somehow trickle down to ordinary families. Mr. President–we know this is wrong. We know this Republican economic policy has failed us. It was this kind of thinking that turned a surplus in into a deficit, that brought the economy to its knees, that failed the middle class–and that allowed the wealthiest Americans to amass record fortunes paying the lowest tax rates in decades.”
Murray cites one of her own constituents — billionaire tech company founder and venture capitalist Nick Hanauer — who turned a lot of heads when he made this argument in a Bloomberg op-ed last week.
The GOP’s definition of a “job creator” has become conventional wisdom, in part because Democrats haven’t really contested it. Murray’s remarks suggest that Dems, bolstered by a heightened national focus on the economy, taxes, and income inequality, will be taking this notion head on.
