Entrepreneurship

Pelosi’s Health-Care Payroll Tax Is a Tax on Labor – WSJ.com

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A new study by Sageworks, Inc., a financial consulting firm, runs the numbers on the income statements of actual companies. It looks at three types of firms with at least $5 million in sales: a retailer, a construction company and a small manufacturer. The companies each have total payroll of between $750,000 and $1 million a year. Assuming the firms absorb the cost of the payroll tax, their net profits fall by one-third on average. That is on top of the 45% income tax and surtax that many small business owners would pay as part of the House tax scheme, so the total reduction in some small business profits would climb to nearly 80%. These lower after-tax profits would mean fewer jobs.

To put it another way, the workers who will gain health insurance from ObamaCare will pay the steepest price for it in either a shrinking pay check, or no job at all.

via Pelosi’s Health-Care Payroll Tax Is a Tax on Labor – WSJ.com.

A Reckless Congress – WSJ.com

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Mr. Obama’s February budget provided the outline, but the House bill now fills in the details. To wit, tax increases that would take U.S. rates higher even than most of Europe. Yet even those increases aren’t nearly enough to finance the $1 trillion in new spending, which itself is surely a low-ball estimate. Meanwhile, the bill would create a new government health entitlement that will kill private insurance and lead to a government-run system.

via A Reckless Congress – WSJ.com.

Democrats want to impose “surtax” to finance health care – WSJ.com

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A new study by the Kaufman Foundation finds that small business entrepreneurs have led America out of its last seven post-World War II recessions. They also generate about two of every three new jobs during a recovery. The more the Obama Democrats reveal of their policies, the more it’s clear that they prize income redistribution above all else, including job creation and economic growth.

via Democrats want to impose “surtax” to finance health care – WSJ.com.

NYC 7th Grades Receive Cash Rewards For Good Grades

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NYC 7TH GRADERS RECEIVE CASH REWARDS FOR HIGH GRADES ON STANDARDIZED TESTS – New York Post.

Oh, and the Obama/liberal camp still don’t know that the “share your hard-earned money with someone less motivated, out of civic duty” program will fail completely and has failed completely each time it’s been tried. Silly liberals.

Mary O’Grady Says Latin America Needs Economic Liberalization and Property Rights, Not Foreign Aid – WSJ.com

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Exactly! I am so tired of these bureaucrats who perpetuate poverty, not cure it, because it gives them a job.

Mary O’Grady Says Latin America Needs Economic Liberalization and Property Rights, Not Foreign Aid – WSJ.com.

How the State Punishes Ingenuity in Healthcare

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Here’s a doctor who decided to find a better way to provide care to his patients. He sees all of the waste and fraud tied to our traditional insurance system and decides, hey, there’s a better way to do this. So he sets up his practice so that his patients just pay a flat $79/month for their healthcare. Under this, they can see him as many times as they need to, and he will take care of any x-ray, sonogram, etc. that needs to be done in connection with their visits. All for $79/month. New York State didn’t like that idea (heaven forbid we find a way to reduce bureaucratic jobs and waste) and tried to shut him down. Read what transpired next here.

Atlas Shrugged: A Must Read for Every American

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I’ve been telling Tickler for months now that we are beginning to see Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged come to life. It’s horrifying. Ayn Rand defected from communist Russia in 1926 and wrote Atlas Shrugged in 1957. Needless to say she was not a fan of socialism. Noted economist Stephen Moore wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal in January pointing out this same similarity between the world of Atlas Shrugged and our current political and economic climate. Highlights are below, see the full article here.

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises — that in most cases they themselves created — by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

In the book, these relentless wealth redistributionists and their programs are disparaged as “the looters and their laws.” Every new act of government futility and stupidity carries with it a benevolent-sounding title. These include the “Anti-Greed Act” to redistribute income (sounds like Charlie Rangel’s promises soak-the-rich tax bill) and the “Equalization of Opportunity Act” to prevent people from starting more than one business (to give other people a chance). My personal favorite, the “Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act,” aims to restrict cut-throat competition between firms and thus slow the wave of business bankruptcies. Why didn’t Hank Paulson think of that?

Ultimately, “Atlas Shrugged” is a celebration of the entrepreneur, the risk taker and the cultivator of wealth through human intellect. Critics dismissed the novel as simple-minded, and even some of Rand’s political admirers complained that she lacked compassion. Yet one pertinent warning resounds throughout the book: When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in society, they start to disappear — leaving everyone the poorer.

One memorable moment in “Atlas” occurs near the very end, when the economy has been rendered comatose by all the great economic minds in Washington. Finally, and out of desperation, the politicians come to the heroic businessman John Galt (who has resisted their assault on capitalism) and beg him to help them get the economy back on track. The discussion sounds much like what would happen today:

Galt: “You want me to be Economic Dictator?”

Mr. Thompson: “Yes!”

“And you’ll obey any order I give?”

“Implicitly!”

“Then start by abolishing all income taxes.”

“Oh no!” screamed Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet. “We couldn’t do that . . . How would we pay government employees?”

“Fire your government employees.”

“Oh, no!”

Abolishing the income tax. Now that really would be a genuine economic stimulus. But Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Washington want to do the opposite: to raise the income tax “for purposes of fairness” as Barack Obama puts it.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

CNBC: Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, And More

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Must read on CNBC (I’m surprised too, though to be fair Larry Kudlow often has intelligent things to say)…

Let me be very clear on the economics of President Obama’s State of the Union speech and his budget.

He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.

That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all — either for this recession or from the standpoint of expanding our economy’s long-run potential to grow.

Raising the marginal tax rate on successful earners, capital, dividends, and all the private funds is a function of Obama’s left-wing social vision, and a repudiation of his economic-recovery statements. Ditto for his sweeping government-planning-and-spending program, which will wind up raising federal outlays as a share of GDP to at least 30 percent, if not more, over the next 10 years.

…

Study after study over the past several decades has shown how countries that spend more produce less, while nations that tax less produce more. Obama is doing it wrong on both counts.

And as far as middle-class tax cuts are concerned, Obama’s cap-and-trade program will be a huge across-the-board tax increase on blue-collar workers, including unionized workers. Industrial production is plunging, but new carbon taxes will prevent production from ever recovering. While the country wants more fuel and power, cap-and-trade will deliver less.

Read the rest here. The closing is worth posting here though…

There is a growing sense of buyer’s remorse. Well then, do conservatives dare say: We told you so?

Shift from Capitalism to Socialism, European Style

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From the WSJ…

The most basic explanation for why Barack Obama may win next Tuesday is that voters want economic deliverance. The standard fix for this in politics everywhere is to crowbar the old party out and patch in the other one. It is true as well that the historic nature of the nation’s first African-American candidacy would play a big role.

Push past the historic candidacy, however, and one sees something even larger at stake in this vote… The real “change” being put to a vote for the American people in 2008 is not simply a break from the economic policies of “the past eight years” but with the American economic philosophy of the past 200 years. This election is about a long-term change in America’s idea of itself.

I don’t agree with the argument that an Obama-Pelosi-Reid government is a one-off, that good old nonideological American pragmatism will temper their ambitions. Not true. With this election, the U.S. is at a philosophical tipping point.

The goal of Sen. Obama and the modern, “progressive” Democratic Party is to move the U.S. in the direction of Western Europe, the so-called German model and its “social market economy.” Under this notion, business is highly regulated, as it would be in the next Congress under Democratic House committee chairmen Markey, Frank and Waxman. Business is allowed to create “wealth” so long as its utility is not primarily to create new jobs or economic growth but to support a deep welfare system.

…

This would be a historic shift, one post-Vietnam Democrats have been trying to achieve since their failed fight with Ronald Reagan’s “Cowboy Capitalism.”

Of course Cowboy Capitalism built the country. More than any previous nation in history, the United States made its way forward on a 200-year wave of upwardly mobile, profit-seeking merchants, tradesmen, craftsmen and workers. They blew out of New England and New York, rolled across the wildernesses of the Central States, pushed across a tough Western frontier and banged into San Francisco and Los Angeles, leaving in their path city after city of vast wealth.

The U.S. emerged a superpower, and the tool of that ascent was simple — the pursuit of economic growth. Now China, India and Brazil, embracing high-growth Cowboy Capitalism, are doing what we did, only their cities are bigger.

Now comes Barack Obama, standing at the head of a progressive Democratic Party, his right hand rising to say, “Mothers, don’t let your babies grow up to be for-profit cowboys. It’s time to spread the wealth around.”

READ IT HERE, [an itemized list of European yoke-style government policies Obama-Reid-Pelosi will install.]

U.S. Chamber of Commerce vs. Democrats

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I think the chamber of Commerce knows a thing or two about how economies are built and destroyed. They clearly see a danger in letting the Democrats run away with the government. From the WSJ…

The nation’s largest business lobby, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has raised ire among Democratic leaders for pouring millions of dollars into an advertising push to prevent the party from winning dominance in the Senate next year…

The Chamber says it has raised enough money this year from corporations to spend about $35 million on the election, double its budget for House and Senate races in the 2006 election. The group is supporting pro-business candidates, almost exclusively Republicans in contested Senate races.

Business executives fear that Democrats, bouyed by heavy spending from organized labor, could gain enough muscle in the Senate to spark policies favoring increased unionization, higher taxes, more restrictions on trade and more regulation on the financial-services and housing sectors…

The Chamber has spent $10 million on advertising on behalf of pro-business candidates in tight races since the end of August. No other single organization has spent more on Senate races, according to data collected by the Federal Election Commission. The Chamber says it will spend millions more in the final weeks of the campaign.

The Washington-based Chamber represents three million U.S. business and most of the thousands of local chambers of commerce from around the country. The lobbying federation says it doesn’t favor either party, but backs “pro-business candidates” from both. It has no legal obligation to be nonpartisan.

Overall, U.S. businesses tend to contribute similar amounts to Democrats and Republicans in their direct giving to candidates and political parties. Through Sept. 30, companies and their political action committees donated $129.6 million to Democrats and $132.6 million to Republicans.

The Chamber of Commerce is attempting to counteract another major font of funding and influence — the $300 million that organized labor will spend on campaigns during this election cycle, most of it aimed at persuading unionized workers to vote Democratic. Much of that money has gone directly to campaigns: Through Sept. 30, labor unions and their political action committees have given $52.3 million to Democrats and $4.8 million to Republicans, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Yet another in a very long line of singularly decisionable proofs that Obama and the Democrats are wrong for America. Combine them and I’m shocked that Obama has any but the far-Left sideshow vote.

American fence-sitters are letting temporary emotion and hot-air speech-writing rule the election cycle, rather than substance, experience, and sound policy to our very painful downfall if Obama and and Democrat candidates win.