Joe Wilson

This is such a great editorial from the Investors Business Daily (www.investors.com) the story tells it all.

Don’t Try This Again

Investors Business Daily Editorial

Jobs, the real jobs that will move us ahead, are generated through economy-fueling private investment. Those investment dollars cannot be loosed if the government is taking them out of the capital markets through taxes — including those taxes needed to pay for useless recovery bills.

Vice President Joe Biden, who is intimately familiar with political hyperbole, has said Americans were getting their money’s worth from the stimulus. As we have previously noted, that’s more punch line than policy analysis. Since the bill was passed, the net job loss has been 3.5 million. When compared with the number of jobs the stimulus was supposed to create, the net loss is almost 7 million.

By any objective definition, that constitutes a failure.

It’s clear that policymakers should try something else. We, of course, suggest tax cuts that will stimulate investment. Without capital, capitalism, the only system that has ever provided economic abundance, cannot expand an economy and raise employment. If businesses are burdened to compete with government for scarce dollars, they will lose — they cannot resort to force, as government does — and those losses are felt throughout the economy.

Rather than thinking tax cuts, the power in Washington is toying with the idea of implementing a value-added tax, which would suck even more dollars from the private sector and diminish the country’s capital stock. The majority party should have learned from the failed 2009 stimulus what taking money out of the private sector will do, but it seems unable to reflect on even the recent past.

Jobs, the real jobs that will move us ahead, are generated through economy-fueling private investment. Those investment dollars cannot be loosed if the government is taking them out of the capital markets through taxes — including those taxes needed to pay for useless recovery bills.

Vice President Joe Biden, who is intimately familiar with political hyperbole, has said Americans were getting their money’s worth from the stimulus. As we have previously noted, that’s more punch line than policy analysis. Since the bill was passed, the net job loss has been 3.5 million. When compared with the number of jobs the stimulus was supposed to create, the net loss is almost 7 million.

By any objective definition, that constitutes a failure.

It’s clear that policymakers should try something else. We, of course, suggest tax cuts that will stimulate investment. Without capital, capitalism, the only system that has ever provided economic abundance, cannot expand an economy and raise employment. If businesses are burdened to compete with government for scarce dollars, they will lose — they cannot resort to force, as government does — and those losses are felt throughout the economy.

Rather than thinking tax cuts, the power in Washington is toying with the idea of implementing a value-added tax, which would suck even more dollars from the private sector and diminish the country’s capital stock. The majority party should have learned from the failed 2009 stimulus what taking money out of the private sector will do, but it seems unable to reflect on even the recent past.

COURTESY: INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY www.investors.com