How does extending tax breaks for the wealthy produce jobs?

This does happen to be at least a once a week answer. Business and industry depend upon cash to help them function smoothly and meet goals required by contracts or to just make payroll and goals at the same time. Aside from their own profit which may not always be enough in an unusual situation they get cash from the sale of stock, which dilutes their ownership on the company and from venture capitalists who loan money for the start up or furtherance of business. Stock buyers and venture capitalists are also known as investors. When you buy into a company or loan it money you do so with the expectation of a profit. To invest with the intention of losing money doesn't make sense to a conservative. Now that we have established the purpose for cash in business and industry let's talk about how taxes work with it. The personal income tax isn't the primary concern of investors. They watch the capital gains tax. In order for an investor to break even today his investment has to pay a 15% dividend. That is to cover the 15% capital gains tax. When Obama was campaigning he promised to raise the capital gains tax to as much as 28%. People who had held stocks long term for good gain sold off. That is when the market crashed. That tighten up investor money. After they put their money from the big gain in the bank they bought back their same stock for less money they won't sell now for a long time. You only pay taxes when you trade for a profit. They don't need any profit so the are not buying. More investment will happen when there is a better more business friendly government or administration in place. Keeping the taxes down causes more people to be profitable investors because the tax doesn't eat up the profit.