By Arnold Hiatt, Patriotic Millionaire and Former CEO of The Stride Rite Corporation
Originally published in the Boston Globe on October 24, 2012
As every good businessman knows — including Governor Romney with whom I had been associated as a limited partner at Bain Capital Ventures —the soundness of a company and its ability to create jobs does not rest on lower taxes for the company or its senior management.
If Governor Romney and congressional Republicans, including Senator Scott Brown, continue to insist on renewing the special Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, it will do nothing to create jobs. It is a fiction, pure and simple, that taxing so-called “job creators” will have an adverse effect on the economy.
Just the reverse is true. Instead of making millionaires even richer, those tax dollars can be used more constructively to retain teachers and policemen and firemen and repair roads and bridges. These are all essential services that will rebuild our economy and maintain a civil society. In addition their tax dollars will contribute to deficit reduction.
The son of a Lithuanian immigrant to this land of now diminishing equal opportunity, I had the good fortune to start a small company that enjoyed a measure of success that was eventually acquired by The Stride Rite Corporation. Twelve months later I was asked to become president of Stride Rite…
“From the Archives” is a regular feature from the Patriotic Millionaires that highlights past work from our members.