/r/50501 Mirror

And it's pronounced Reich!!!

I have vast respect for Robert Reich's knowledge and intelligence, so this statement really surprises me. Corporate taxes are like tariffs - if you raise them, companies raise their prices to recover that cost, passing the burden to their customers. In spite of how everybody cheers for business taxes, they have always been essentially sales taxes, paid by the public. A simplified Accounting 101 explanation tells you corporate tax is paid on profits, but on a deeper level companies know what their profit margin is, and if their tax rate changes they can recalculate prices to compensate so they can maintain the same profit level. Reich must surely understand this. I would love to hear his reasoning.

Raising the corporate tax rate is about as effective as tariffs. The money they have to spend will just get added into the price and they'll call it "inflation" again. The problem is there is nothing to protect the consumer from rampant capitalism. The middle class has been eroded away, and the lower class loses members to the poverty line every minute. A corporate tax won't fix that. Consumer rights will. Corporate oversight will. We need someone with a backbone in a leadership position, and we keep voting for the bent-spine cocksuckers that only care about the bottom line. It's time to start lining politicians against the wall. It's been a death by inches for decades, and the idea that if we make the corporations pay their fair share we'll somehow fix the problem is the worst kind of delusion. The roots are too deep now to get away with simple pruning.