I could have sworn Bill Clinton did exactly what you just mentioned, and the economy boomed. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe there were different circumstances. Care to explain?

There are a few things that led to the economic boom under Bill Clinton, NAFTA which provided significant economic growth due to greater integration between Canada and the United States, banking de-regulation and a loose monetary policy which produced the dot-com and housing bubbles of the past decade, and a rapid expansion of consumer debt which led to the economy to become a consumer driven economy rather than a production/export driven economy.

Thats not how the real world works.

Labor that businesses hire is entirely dependent on a cost-benefit analysis on how much that labor costs verse how much money that labor produces.  If you tax rich people more, they will still hire the same amount of people because the optimum value of profit to cost of labor stays the same.  They aren't going to cut labor and cut profits in the process (reducing their ability to meet demand), and if cutting labor increases profits then they are going to do that anyway.

How much the rich are taxed has absolutely no bearing on their business decisions.  In fact, a business will always seek to maximize profits.

LOL, What?

A summary of what I said would be that an employee's value on the market is determined by the value his work has to the average company.

The workers value doesn't change when you raise taxes, unless as I mentioned before the tax effects the demand of the good (like a sales tax or a tariff would decrease demand).  If you tax the rich more, the value of a factory worker he employees will stay exactly the same.  The worker produces X amount of revenue and costs Y amount of salary, as long as X > Y he has a job and his employer will not fire him.

In fact, a business will always seek to maximize profits, and in the case of taxing the invidual onwer more, it has absolutely no effect on the value of optimum labor to maximize profits.

Think of this example.

A wealthy business owner hires 1000 people to produce widgets.  1000 is the optimum number of employees needed to maximinze profits, and the business owner takes those profits and puts them in his profit.  Lets say that he makes 20% profits from his business.

Then Socialist Obama decides to tax him 50% of his earnings.  Now the businessman makes half as much money, but the optimum number of employees needed to maximize profits stays the same, so his raise in individual taxes has no effect on how many individuals he employees.

In what world do you live in? Is the sky purple where you are?

Taxes are a cost on businesses, and like all costs companies will do everything in their power to pass on the increased cost of taxes; or to recover the loss by cutting costs elsewhere. Corporations are never run as lean as they can be, and often they have staff on hand which represent a net-cost currently under the assumption that they will bring in increased profit down the road (new grads); at the same time corporations have an obligation to do everything in their power to meet their short term forecasts, and if they have to cut new grad and intern hires (for example) because taxes were increased to meet their profit forecasts they will.

On top of that, speaking from someone who has survived several rounds of layoffs in a company, you would be surprised by how much work really doesn't need to be done; and how much additional work (often free overtime) when people are afraid that they will be in the next round of layoffs.

Unfortunately, the corporation in this case (remember, there are no more robber barrons) doesn't have money to re-invest in new manufacturing equipment while paying the dividends to pension funds; and depending on what he chooses either pension funds go bankrupt or the company is eaten alive by competition from China.

Either way either 1,000 workers enter into the work force as the plant closes or enter into the workforce because they can no longer afford to be retired. But that doesn't increase unemployment.

And when you raise taxes his average value to the company.... drops.

It does change when you raise taxes.

Because taxes INCREASE the costs of doing buisness... meaning that said factory worker has to INCREASE his value to offset the costs of the taxes.

I mean, have you ever actually worked at a factory?

Or even know anyone who has?

The first thing companies do when their taxes get raised or their costs rise for some reason... is to get the same amount of work out of less workers.

This is even true with union plants.   Ask the UAW 1005.

So when the richest tax bracket used to get taxed over 50% of their income, why did we still have jobs, rich people, and economic growth?  Shouldn't that have scared all the rich people and jobs away?

We've been cutting taxes for decades now.  Why isn't it raining jobs?  Why is deficit spending okay but taxes are not okay?  Does anybody honestly believe that it's easier to pay off our deficit with spending cuts alone and not any tax increases?

In short... because everything you stated isn't true...  and that in fact was the case.

Our lowering of taxes actually did cause a "rain of jobs".  Up until the economy got fucked up... largely thanks to the fed.

When we had a 50% tax bracket... our unemployment was actually very high like it is now.

Note how the unemployment goes down as they start bumping up the number you need to qualify for the top bracket.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp

You could get away with high tax rates before due to globalization being relativly low.  With globalization now though.

For a comparison.  In 2009 our unemployment rate was equal to what the average unemployment rate was in the EU in 2004.

The US very much was "raining jobs".   Right now our unemployment rates, which seem ghastly to us are actually the norm for a lot of other first world countries.

The lowest unemployment number in France in the last decade or so was 7.7%.  That was the Unemployment rate of the US during Obama's first term.  Their best low point was a freaking disaster to us.

Not saying the economy is that simple... but in reality... the numbers argue exactly against what you were suggesting.  There is much more to the economy then tax rates... but it's fairly obvious lower tax rates do help just based on the risk vs reward of starting new buisnesses and expanding.