Billionaire entrepreneur: Tax me, please!

In a controversial TED talk in 2012, [billionaire entrepreneur Nick] Hanauer castigated policymakers who subscribe to the false faith that rich people and businesses will provide all the jobs we need, if only they do not have to pay much in taxes.

Nick Hanauer explodes the myth of the capitalist 'job creator'

By David Horsey
Los Angeles Times
5:00 AM PST, February 17, 2014

Especially when it comes to economic policy, too many politicians are motivated by myths more than by facts. A prime example: the myth of the job creators.

Republicans, such as Speaker of the House John Boehner, talk of job creators in reverent, worshipful terms. In their vision of how the world works, it is these brave titans of capitalism who, with no help from anyone else, build the companies that create jobs for American workers. To Boehner and his party, anything that inhibits job creators in their endeavors — taxes, environmental laws, financial regulations — is a job killer.

This is economic theory at its most simplistic and has been proven erroneous, over and over again. A dramatic example: The financial debacle of 2008 that killed millions of jobs was, in large part, the result of bankers and financiers being liberated from federal regulations that had once served as a check on free-market excesses. Nevertheless, conservative members of Congress cling to the myth and continue to call for lower taxes and fewer regulations.

(Continued here.)