Business Up Front - May 2009

Federal Incomes Taxes Need Overhaul

A new national survey commissioned by the Tax Foundation and conducted by Harris Interactive shows a majority of U.S. adults think that federal income taxes are “too high” (56%), while four in every five adults say the federal tax code is complex (85%) and say that the tax system needs to be completely overhauled (82%).

Healthcare Costs Trumps Job Loss Concerns

The annual Health Security Index survey, commissioned by Catholic Healthcare West, was conducted by Yankelovich (part of The Futures Company) to measure perceptions of individuals’ confidence about their healthcare. A nationally representative survey found that 69% of adults in the U.S. said they were worried about the cost of health care, while just 37% expressed similar concern about staying employed. The affordability anxiety is even affecting higher income families, where households earning more than $75,000 saw healthcare cost concerns jump from 39% last year to 50%.

Traditional Job Loss Outweighs “Green” Job Creation

While some U.S. politicians point to Spain as a model for how government subsidies can create “green jobs,” a groundbreaking new study documents that every renewable job created by the Spanish government destroyed an average of 2.2 other jobs. Each “green” megawatt installed in Spain destroyed 5.39 jobs in non-energy sectors, the study found. If U.S. subsidies to renewable producers achieve the same result -- and President Obama has held Spain up as a model for how to subsidize renewables -- the U.S. could lose 6.6 million to 11 million jobs while it creates three million largely temporary “green jobs,” the study predicts.