International edition NYT: No successful person is an island

The International Herald Tribune

The Secret Weapon: All of Us

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

In short, taxes don’t just smother. They can also fuel growth — when they’re invested in highways or the Internet, in colleges or early childhood education. They can create opportunities, as they did for Sher Valenzuela. 

Or for Romney himself. He built his Bain empire partly because he was smart and hard-working, but also because of a great education and because of tax breaks for debt financing. Tax loopholes helped him build his fortune, and other loopholes gave him the low tax rates to retain it. 

If the Republican convention wishes to highlight and explain Romney’s success, it should have a moment of silence to honor our infernal tax code. 

Who built this country? Entrepreneurs, yes. But so did schoolteachers and railway construction workers. Doctors and truckers. Scientists and soldiers. You didn’t build it, Mitt Romney — we all built it.

Read it at the IHT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/opinion/kristof-the-secret-weapon-all-of-us.html