By William L. Garvin
It is almost comical to watch the lunacy of the liberal left as their progressive, socialist, big government economic policies continue to spiral downward in abject failure under the current administration guidance. Since they cannot logically deny the total collapse of the “Summary of Recovery”, the unemployment rate climbing back to a national 9.8%, the pitiful creation of only 39,000 jobs last month, the inability/unwillingness to pass a budget, and their apparent inability to kick their earmark addiction, they are reverting to their usual childish strategy: distract, defame, and distort. The shrill shrieking you hear is nothing more than the infantile temper tantrum of liberal angst imploding in a torrent of name calling, the “last refuge of a scoundrel.” Radicals continue to exercise the same lack of civic responsibility as WikiLeaks but now combine it with a reprehensible and narcissistic lack of civility.
It’s not surprising that having pledged their undying fealty to the least qualified President in history that they would attempt to distort reality. It’s not surprising that they would ignore the crystal clear message of the American voters: STOP SPENDING AND STOP GROWING GOVERNMENT! It’s not surprising that lame duck liberals would pass the Food Safety Act in order to add a new federal employee to every food producing entity that grosses over $500,000. It’s not surprising that they are likely to impose the largest tax hikes in history. It’s not surprising that they would ignore the increase in revenues when taxes were cut during the presidencies of Coolidge, Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush.
It’s also not surprising they would ignore the history that shows consistent decreases in revenue whenever government increases taxes. The brilliant economist, Thomas Sowell, pointedly notes that this is a time tested truism. IRS records show that there were 206 people who reported income over $1 million dollars in 1916. As the big government of Woodrow Wilson ratcheted up the tax rates, this number fell to 21 within five years!
For a contemporary practical application, let’s look at the phenomenon of bottled water pioneered by Evian and Perrier. A newcomer to the Top Ten in this niche is Fiji Water. They trade on the purity of water coming from artesian springs that are deep underground so the water never comes into contact with air before it is bottled. Taking a page out of the Obama/Democrat playbook, the Fijian government decided last week that they should increase the tax on companies extracting more than 3.5 million liters from one-third of one percent to 15 cents per liter. Fiji Water is the only company that is affected by this classic “punish the rich” and “redistribute the wealth” scheme. Unfortunately for Fiji, they killed the goose that laid the golden egg. This last Monday, Stewart and Lynda Resnick (the owners of Fiji Water) announced the closing of their operations, canceled orders from suppliers, and put all their construction projects in Fiji on hold. Congratulations, Fiji, you now have 100% of nothing! Good luck finding a new investor when you’re acting more and more like Hugo Chavez.
In another battle to eliminate private enterprise, Commissar/Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar rescinded the decision to allow offshore oil drilling and extended the moratorium for SEVEN years! “…we need to proceed with caution and focus on creating a more stringent regulatory regime.” ” Regime” was his operative word. “Death by taxation” or “strangulation by regulation” is clearly the Obama Way. Billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas will now be unavailable to meet America’s energy needs. Thousands of badly needed jobs will neither be saved nor created. The Democrat pledge for energy independence goes up in the same puff of smoke as transparency, posting of legislation, and pay as you go. As with Fiji, don’t expect new investment any time soon!
This was all very predictable given the President’s upbringing, education, total lack of private sector/economic experience, and total lack of executive experience. He could have chosen to surround himself with experienced people who would have supplemented these obvious deficiencies. However, he chose an inner circle of cronies cut out of the same inexperienced bolt of cloth. Given the catastrophic failure of the Council of Economic Advisors, the taxpayers should demand their $4.2 million/year back…and fire their boss!
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