Obama’s Welfare Plan and Producers

Last week I laid out how Obama’s economic plan is really nothing more than a marketing ploy to expand welfare via the tax cut moniker.  This week the Wall Street Journal expands on this topic in some detail.  It makes for excellent reading.

The issue that McCain needs to address head on in the remaining debate and campaign trail is that Obama has no economic plan, only a proposal to begin down the road of massive income redistribution via the tax code.  Ultimately this will choke economic development, and through its disincentives to work at the margin create a permanent underclass of workers beholden to government elites for handouts from those that are productive.  Sadly the producers in the country will seek opportunities and options elsewhere, or just go on a long vacation.

America as a nation has been built around the concept that paid tribute and idealized the good in man.  Those that produced and worked hard had the chance for success; those that risked had the opportunity for gain.  No one was ever guaranteed anything.  But in aggregate, under American Capitalism, the chance for success inspired enough people to pursue their dreams that more wealth has been created than under any other system in the history of man.  This has allowed all Americans to live better lives and help more people around the world than any other country throughout history.

However, it seems a new order is emerging that says working 60 or 70 hours to build a business is a sucker bet, since the government will take your money and give it to the “artsy” type that wakes up at 11 am works a few hours and parties til dawn.  If the new motto is lets “spread your wealth around”, why bother to work hard?  Better to let someone else take the risks and have their efforts “spread around”.  While today it is the top 5% that will start to pay for others to have TIVO and Nike shoes, later it will be that the top 10% need to sacrifice so that “the ones behind us” can have new electric cars, and later it will be that the top 40% need to give to ensure everyone can go on vacation in Europe.  Such promises worked for Castro back in the day, and the Cubans certainly got change.

It is not patriotic to work 80 hours a week, miss family events, get stuck in crappy airports, forget where you are sleeping after another long flight, watch your bank account dwindle month after month as you launch a business, and have to endure the stress of not taking another paycheck or laying someone off in order to meet payroll, so that one day the government comes and tells you its time to spread the wealth.  In fact, I would say such a sacrifice is just plain stupid.  Basically the government is breaking an implied contract with every entrepreneur in the country. Good luck bringing them back to the table in the future.

By stressing that it’s patriotic to pay more taxes, citizens are effectively being told that their efforts belong to the government and the government’s view of the “greater good”.  This is such a far cry from an America born with a healthy skepticism of government, founded on a set of ideas that the best government is one that stays out of people’s lives and lets them live as freely as possible.  An America that moves from those ideals may keep its name, but loses its heritage.

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