The social problems that have taken root in America result from a number of converging causes. While many individuals may desperately want to contribute to the debate surrounding these problems, attributing the declining performance of the American economy highly visible social divisions is misleading and unproductive.  The division between rich and poor as well as the low taxes on the rich exist because a lower tax burden on the rich promotes innovation within economies. Specifically, it is often the rich that engage in enterprise, be it through their own businesses or as part of large corporations. The lower tax burden on the rich makes taking risks in order to develop new technology more profitable for the people making those risks.  Promotion of enterprise and risk during recessions should be a priority for American policy makers, because it is often new products that drive economic growth by creating new markets which drive demand and also by increasing productivity. As such, an increase on the tax burden for the rich in the American economy is problematic because it hurts this method of recovery. It should also be mentioned that simply lowering the tax burden on the poor is likely to be impossible at this time without significantly increasing a U.S. deficit that has already been downgraded by credit rating agencies. In allowing the deficit to increase further the U.S. would have to pay back significantly more in the future owing to higher interest. This approach to fiscal policy has been heavily criticised by the chairman of Forbes Inc. Steve Forbes.4  As such, it is opposition’s opinion that whilst such a change might address issues of social cohesion in the U.S, the cost to the economy from doing so is too great. Further, social cohesion could easily be encouraged through other, less economically harmful measures such as tightening up regulation on banking. Doing so helps the economy and plays against the “Greedy bankers” rhetoric that proposition mentions.