Through No Fault Of Their Own?

The above graph shows the increase in the number of pages & rate of growth of federal tax rules from 1913 to 2003 that measures the entire body of knowledge that a taxpayer is held accountable for when he submits a tax return.  Just by itself this graph shows how destructive our tax system is to employment & continuing our American way of life.  If there ever was a case of the tail wagging the dog it is the 35,000 lobbyists in Washington & 535 Members of Congress & their staffs dictating to the rest of us 300 million sheep just what the tax rules will be & how much of our own money earned we will be able to keep.

 

With the above as a backdrop please do not believe that BO is trying to help small businesses (or any business), & the creation of jobs therein, no matter how often he claims he is. 

 

For instance, under little noticed section 9006 of BO's 2,409 page healthcare legislation that passed into law last March, starting in 2012 small businesses, the self employed, sole proprietors, non-profits, & local governments will have to file a 1099 information report whenever they buy more than $600 per year of goods or services from any company or contractor, including office supplies from firms like Staples.  This general idea is certainly not new because it has been required for years that people file an information return when payments to an independent contractor like a snow removal service exceed $600 per year to a category that is considered "nonemployee compensation."  It is just that the Democrat Congress & BO has expanded this requirement to include virtually everything done in the normal course of business & of course the resultant cost of compliance filing the millions of additional tax forms will further hinder job creation - all per BO's design to make people more dependent on government.

 

Also under the new healthcare legislation starting in 2012 employers will begin including the value of healthcare benefits in separate W-2 line entry for tax year 2011 for both current employees & retirees - the portion of such value over the so-called Cadillac amounts will be subject to a 40% excise tax that will be due by the April 15 income tax deadline.  The actual tax will not be paid by most people & is not collectible until 2018 in a postponement deal BO made with the unions but here again the paperwork burden will start for every business in 2011 thereby further impeding job creation. 

 

Now the Business Roundtable & the Chamber of Congress have finally started to fight back calling BO's policies "a general attack on our free enterprise system."  I hope that their concerns are maintained & do not disintegrate into some deal where they think BO is offering them something of value.

 

The economy will never recover with the jobloss policies BO is putting in place.  Thanks to David Wessel's column in the 5/6/10 WSJ entitled "Meet The Unemployable Man" please consider:

 

1.  One in every five men 25 to 54 isn't working & the jobs they lost aren't coming back.

 

2.  Demand for workers with not much education is waning.

 

3.  Surveys find that the unemployed spend 40 minutes a day looking for work & 3 hours & 20 minutes a day watching TV.

 

4.  The fraction of men with jobs in what once was their prime earning years has tended lower for 50 years.

 

5.  History suggests that the longer someone stays unemployed the less likely they are ever to work again.

 

6.  Men who in an earlier era would have been making good money on assembly lines are, & will be, working security or greeting @ Wal-Mart- jobs that almost anyone can do & thus jobs that don't pay well.

 

The latest attack on unsuspecting Americans who still would like to earn their way in the world is the tempting 99 weeks of unemployment insurance that will be renewed by Congress probably before week's end.  In a spiel that sounds like America is a banana republic Democrats say it is only compassionate to extend unemployment benefits (forever) while Republicans haplessly are characterized as rejecting the extension of unemployment benefits because they are fighting the deficit - what a losing political argument.  As long as we have a mindset as a country of government dependence with no stigma on being unemployed who among the unemployed would vote for someone wanting to control the deficit instead of someone who wants to send them a check.  The natural extension is for people who are not currently unemployed, but fearing the worst, to project ahead to endless unemployment benefits for themselves.  This illustrates the principles of the "Death Of Democracy."

 

Referring to all the economic policies of the last eighteen months Stephen Bourque writes "What has any of this to do with capitalism?  The evidence points to what should be obvious: it is not free markets that fail, but government controlled ones."  And of course the Republicans do not know how to express this.

 

Pelosi said on the House floor today - too many times to count - that people deserve government money when they have lost their jobs "through no fault of their own."  But oh yes it is their fault when they know they have not been properly educated in government schools, that they have low skills in shrinking industries like autos, that they have not done one thing to improve their employability for decades, & that they have no civic-minded interest @ all to know what is going on in their country.