Congress seems determined to prevent our economy from flourishing whether lawmakers are spending to reduce the deficit, raising the federal budget, bumping up the debt ceiling, or killing jobs with bad legislation.
Why?
The economy isn’t about numbers. It’s about the fundamental struggle between right and left.
Is the government responsible for making our economic lives better or is this the job of free market capitalism?
Washington funds defense, entitlements, and essential services. The free market doesn’t need politics. It can take care of itself.
After Obama’s jaw-dropping post-recession deficits and the accompanying rise in the national debt Trump and the Republicans took over with their own rules for spending our money. Tax reform, health care spending, the defense budget, entitlements, and federal benefits are all on the table and look to stay there for quite some time. Health care reform and our skyrocketing premiums, in particular, look like insurmountable problems.
Democrats wasted no time blasting the cruelty of the proposed Trump Budget. They won’t acknowledge their failure to bring prosperity to the middle and working classes or the fact that social spending is a vote getter, not a ladder to a better life. Republicans, on the other hand, tend to ignore the obvious: you can’t suddenly pull the rug out from under people who have relied on the government dole for far too long.
November 25, 2017 was Small Business Saturday, a day dedicated to celebrating job creators. When it’s over we will go back to punishing them for the other 364 days of the year.
Politics demands that businesses pay more, but the free market knows that when companies are forced to shell out too much they cut back. That’s why the liberal living wage experiment popularized hasn’t worked out very well in places like Cook County, Illinois, where townships refused to buy into new minimum wage guidelines.
The economy category has posts on federal spending, debt and deficit, labor laws and policies, and the tenuous relationship between the government, taxpayers, and the businesses that keep Americans employed.
Economics should be all about the numbers, but when politics gets involved the numbers are the least of our worries.
Last update July 6, 2018Leave a Comment
Last update March 9, 2018Leave a Comment
Last update December 21, 2017Leave a Comment
Long ago Chief Justice John Marshall warned that taxes have the power to destroy. They can stifle growth, but taxes are even more destructive when we turn them into a moral imperative. The truth is that generosity isn’t a virtue from either side of the tax equation.
Last update November 2, 2017Leave a Comment
Today we got our first real look at the GOP tax proposal. The rumors were wrong. Republicans made a wise decision and spared tax-free 401(k) contributions. Not so lucky were the state and local tax deductions.
Last update October 27, 2017Leave a Comment
There are two big money questions swirling around tax code reform. They are the same questions we’ve been asking for decades: who should get the money and why?
Don’t expect answers this year. Just sit back and enjoy the show because this promises to be a good one.
