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September 15, 2004
capitalists for government intervention???
By now, many of you have probably heard about the Alabama woman who was fired from her job for sporting a Kerry/Edwards sticker on her car. Today, you may also have heard, the Kerry campaign has hired her, essentially taking her former boss up on his demand to her that she could "either work for him or work for Kerry." So far so good, and all's well that ends well.
But what I actually found fascinating about this story was what the employer said to his workers in a memo sent around a while back, basically explaining to them why he loved the President's policies, and why they should too. According to the memo:
"Just so you will know, because of the Bush tax (cut):
I was able to buy the new Hammer Mill
I was able to finance our receivables
I was able to get the new CAT skid steer
I was able to get the wire cutter
I was able to give you a job"
What is amazing about this, is that it exposes the fallacy of the so-called free market. After all, here is a guy who basically is saying, had it not been for a tax cut, he wouldn't have been able to expand plant and equipment or hire workers. But basic market economic theory says that any investment that is efficient and productive will be made under capitalism, with or without the equivalent of a tax subsidy. If hiring workers makes sense, or expanding plant and equipment makes sense, economically, then those decisions will be made, no matter the existence of a tax cut. To the extent he says he could only do these things because of the cut, either means he is lying, or admitting his utter incompetence as a capitalist.
Now some might say, "but Tim, if his taxes were too high to begin with, then that would distort the market and make him unable to hire and expand without the cut, not owing to his own talents, but to intrusive tax burdens." But while this might make some sense in a much higher-taxed state, or if the relative business tax burdens were truly huge, it makes no sense in low-tax Alabama, or in a nation where the tax burden on businesses has been falling like a rock for more than 40 years, relative to other taxes (on workers, for example), or relative to the overall size of the economy.
In other words, to the extent we believe this yahoo, we have to conclude that his ability to run a business is dependent, entirely, on preferential tax treatment from the gov'mnt...the same gov'mnt he probably curses whenever it seeks to provide opportunity to others, like workers (with minimum wage hikes or labor protections), or social service provisions.
Capitalists: the primary opponents of Capitalism...God bless em.
Posted by timwise at September 15, 2004 07:44 AM