While I can imagine tax regimes that would create disincentives for entrepreneurship, we don’t have that situation today in America, where tax rates on capital gains (the primary way that founders of successful start-ups make money) are already far lower than rates on ordinary income. Indeed, some of the most admired entrepreneurs — Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos — started their companies under significantly higher tax regimes. This is consistent with empirical research; the economists Robert Moffitt and Mark Wilhelm, for example, found that the large cuts in marginal tax rates in 1986 did not induce high-income men to work longer hours.

The job-creation reasoning is equally specious when applied to the behavior of existing companies. As Warren Buffett notes, “I have yet to see” anyone “shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain.” My team and I are already intensely motivated to expand the company we manage, and lowering the corporate tax rate isn’t going to make us create jobs any faster.

What a tax cut would do is increase our post-tax profitability, which effectively transfers money from the federal government to our shareholders. One consequence of this would likely be a one-time increase in our stock price, but with no impact on our operations or employment plans. In theory, this could have the benefit of making it easier to raise cash by issuing more stock to the public, but with interest rates at historical lows for years, American corporations have had no trouble getting capital.

In other words, if we are serious about growth, competitiveness and job creation, we should look elsewhere besides the tax code for answers. We can remain open to immigrants in search of better economic opportunities. We can invest in our public schools and universities. We can upgrade vital business infrastructure such as airports, land transportation systems, the internet backbone and our power grid. We can heighten our vigilance about anti-competitive behavior and regulatory capture by very large corporations that make it difficult to start new businesses.

There have been two recurring themes in my conversations about the tax-cut proposal with my Silicon Valley business peers, both Republican and Democrat. The first is derision about the shoddy business reasoning: Well-run companies don’t just spend recklessly with no plan or intention to stop if revenues don’t come in as hoped. But this is exactly what the tax-cut proposal does by wishing away huge tax-revenue shortfalls with stupendous growth projections. The second theme is shoulder-shrugging — after all, didn’t voters effectively ratify an agenda of tax cuts favoring the very wealthy?