One of our nation's richest men, billionaire Nick Hanauer, just destroyed the GOP's economic talking points. In a testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Hanauer explained why rich people like him are not, in fact, the real job creators. He said, “In the same way that it's a fact that the sun, not earth, is the center of the solar system, it's also a fact that the middle class, not rich business people like me, are the center of America's economy.”

Hanauer talked about a “virtuous cycle,” where middle class consumers have enough money to buy things, which stimulates the economy and creates more jobs. Nick Hanauer was an original investor in Amazon.com, and he founded the company that became Overstock.com. He said that as an investor, he helped start dozens of businesses, but he added, “if no one could have afforded to buy what we had to sell, my businesses would have all failed, and all those jobs would have evaporated.”

During his testimony, Mr. Hanauer called for higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, and said that money should be used to invest in our middle class. He said, “Prosperity is built from the middle out.” Nick Hanauer understands that we must invest in our nation to get our economy growing again... hopefully, our lawmakers were listening.