Vote Red or Blue

Learn the issues and make up your own mind

HOME Abortion China Coronavirus Corruption/Collusion Spending And the Deficit Handling Disasters Economy Oil/Energy First Time Home Buyers Guns and the 2nd Amendment Illegal Immigration Income Inequality Inflation ISIS Israel Home Mortgage Rates NATO North Korea Racism Russia Stock Market Unemployment

Income Inequality


Issue Summary
For the past 3 decades wages for the middle and lower class have not kept pace with that of the high income earners. This can be due to a number of reasons including illegal immigration taking jobs from Americans in all areas, companies moving their production facilities overseas and along with it the high paying jobs, the assault on the oil and gas industry and increased taxes on companies making it more difficult for them to pay their employees more.

Liberal Position

Under Bush and Obama/Biden, they slowly raised corporate taxes which resulted in a larger number of companies leaving the U.S. to go overseas.  With lower taxes overseas Companies can hire cheaper labor, pay lower taxes and keep more of their profits.  This had a negative effect on the economy and jobs.  This resulted in the rich people getting richer and the poor and middle class people being stuck in jobs that had low or no growth, creating an ever widening income gap.

The reason the jobs and the economy did not bounce back under Obama was because there were no incentives for Companies to stay in America.  Without employers to hire the workers, it would be expected that jobs would not rebound, and as a result, the number of unemployed people remained high. While the unemployment rate fell under Obama/Biden it was in large part due to people that had given up and left the work force, and they were no longer eligible to receive unemployment benefits.  The labor participation rate decreased under Obama (see Boston Herald Article).  

Obama did not seem to understand that when he said that "those jobs are gone and they are not coming back."  He even quipped that Trump did not have a "Magic wand" to get those jobs back, indicating that he did not understand this concept.  See his speech on PBS.

In 2016, Liberal political pundits warned that if Trump were to be elected, the economy would tank, unemployment would skyrocket and the stock market would crash.  They were wrong.

Joe Biden Promises to remove the Tax cuts that led the strong economy.  

Conservative Position

As corporate taxes increase, companies move their production facilities to other lower tax countries, taking jobs with them.  With less and less manufacturing done in the U.S. it is difficult for the economy to grow.  

Under President Trump's tax plan, he raised taxes on the top 1% income earners and lowered taxes on the middle class and on Companies.  The result was that for the first time in two decades companies stopped leaving the U.S. and started moving their manufacturing facilites back to America.  

With companies making more locally they needed to hire more workers, and as a result, unemployment fell to the lowest level in 50+ years, and wages at the lower end grew at a staggering 5.5%.  Even the Washington Post praised the jobs and wage growth in this article.  For the first time in decades the gap between the rich and poor was shrunk.

This is a result of a number of things that were done under President Trump:

  1. Terminated NAFTA and replaced it with the USMCA - resulting in better trade deals and more incentives for companies to return to the U.S. 
  2. Lower taxes on Companies (to the same rates as other countries) - making it easier for companies to open up operations in America.
  3. Reduction by 70% of illegal border crossings, reducing the flood of workers into the lower wage group. 

This was a major campaign promise by the President that was fullfilled.

If you have any questions or additional information you wish to have us consider to post on the website, please send both liberal and conservative perspectives to impartial@voteredorblue.org. It is not enough to simply email one side or the other as that will not be considered.