By Douglas V. Gibbs
The economy is failing, unemployment (if you add the numbers the Left ignores and sweeps under the bed called U.6 and SGS Alternate) is at 22%, and maybe higher. The Mid-Season Budget Review shows the $862 billion economic stimulus is an abysmal failure, and there is no end in sight. This year's budget deficit is at $1.471 trillion, and it is expected to double before the next Presidential Election in 2012. The economy is failing to grow, and the stunt in its growth is being fueled by excessive spending, a dependency on government funding, and a private sector that is afraid to do anything because it is under assault by the federal government by way of regulatory attacks, and the threat of even higher taxes. The promise of increased taxes is an option that always results ultimately in a drop in revenue, and a slow-down of economic activity.
Working people are doing whatever they can to keep their heads above water, and the federal government is putting weights on their ankles. To have a strong economy we need to remove those weights, and enable people as many options as possible to provide for themselves and their families by providing opportunities for growth across the board.
The liberal-progressive-leftist maniacs are right on one thing: The wealthiest Americans are not overly hurt by the bad economy. But it is those people that are the key to kick-starting the economy and making it grow again. Higher taxes and government spending simply slows down and cripples the private job-producing sector.
Greed has become the buzz word of the Left (it always is, their tactics never change), and they are out there punishing the wealthy for their greed. . . Banks, Insurance Companies, Oil Companies - all because the (the progressive Democrats) have proclaimed that "profit" and "bonuses" are greedy, and those things must be stopped.
Why do you work a job? Why do you ask for a raise? Aren't you being greedy for wanting more? If you attack the desire to do better at the top, eventually those attacks against opportunity, and achievement, and "doing better" works its way all the way down to you. Before you know it wage and price controls increase, and you are dictated to by the government what you can and can't do, and if you want just a tad more, you are villianized for being "greedy."
You see, when you tax the rich you are taxing capital. Taxing capital does not just hurt the wealthy, it hurts everyone all the way down to the bottom. Punishing the top punishes the Middle Class, and the ultimately any hopes for the poor to rise out of their government-dependent state of being. The wealthy invest their capital to create new jobs. When the wealthy invests their capital to create new jobs the effect is on the Middle Class. More jobs available creates more opportunity, and then new products are produced, and then there is more consumption of products.
Then, folks in the Middle Class, in the hopes of making more, having profit, and living a little better, start new businesses by investing their own risk capital. To survive as a new business the investment of this capital must have a reasonable return. But if, due to a failing economy that opportunity is being bludgeoned by the federal government, these folks are unwilling to take these "risks" (risk: The thing the Democrats promised to remove from the financial market through regulatory control) then they won't invest their money and create new jobs and new products. Then, as a result, there are no new potential employees, and no new potential consumers of the products this new business would have offered.
Now, the Democrats wish to add insult to injury, and with the expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts desire to increase capital gains tax rates, as well as shorten the allowable years of depreciation. In an attempt by the federal government to take away "unfair advantages" of the wealthy, the Left will further cripple the economy, the potential for growth, and ultimately it will also further cripple an already floundering real estate market. The policies do not just punish the rich, leftist programs and policies affect all economic levels of our society. The hardest hit winds up being the Middle Class, more than the rich. And the engine of our Free Market economy resides in the Middle Class.
Then, to further kill any "unfair advantages," you see the progressives attacking products that cater to the rich. Expensive sports cars, Yachts, and the like, are targeted for an increased tax, a luxury tax you might say. That way the Left can squeeze a few more dollars out of the rich. But what happens when these parts of the economy are hit? The luxury item is not produced by the rich, it is produced by the middle class, serviced by the middle class, and sold by salesmen that are in the middle class. The industry, whichever one is attacked, either slows down, or moves off-shore where the conditions are not so hostile. The rich still get their product, but the rest of the nation loses more jobs, and yet another corporation to foreign shores. Then the Democrats stand up demanding that American companies stop going overseas, but the business left to seek more favorable conditions for their company. If the liberals wish companies to remain in the states, then make the environment favorable for business opportunities stateside!
The Democrats, progressives, liberal morons, or whatever you wish to call them, don't recognize long-term effects. They are simply trying to pit the rich against the not-rich with their politics of class-envy, and class-warfare. Then when problems arise based on their policies, they blame the rich, try to throw the rich's money at the problems, measure their compassion by counting the number of people who receive some kind of government help, and completely disregard human nature, or actual, real, factual economic trends and responses to their policies.
Conservatives seek to expand opportunities by getting the government the heck out of the way.
A conservative does not wish to apologize for trying to earn more money, and does not feel guilty for wanting to keep more of it for themselves and their family. The silly notion that poverty in America is because the rich has all the money, or that people are poor because you don't pay enough in taxes, is incredibly stupid. By having a job, and seeking to do better, you are a part of the engine that helps create jobs. The products and services you create and consume helps to initiate the process that produces more jobs for other people that may not otherwise have a job. You working as a self-sufficient, personally responsible individual in the private sector is what improves economies. When you strive for more "profit," it improves the over-all conditions, and provides opportunities for others to do the same.
Democrats, in their government-paid positions, are actually the greedy ones, because they produce nothing but misery, make their money off of money confiscated through taxation, and create policies that take money from one class and hand it to another. They do not produce wealth in America, they simply move money around . . . some would call it redistribution. . . because they think that is the compassionate thing to do - rather than produce conditions that allows people to step out under the shadow of the government, and take care of themselves (which includes making more money, and working hard to make more down the road).
One must ask, as they increase their power and pocketbooks while destroying the hopes and dreams of everyone with their high spending, increased taxes, and assault on the private sector, while making a living on the money taken from taxpayers, who in reality are the greedy ones?
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
And Admission of Failure - Heritage Foundation
Alternate Unemployment Charts - John Williams' Shadow Government Statistics
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