CovOps
 Location : Ether-Sphere
Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator
Humor : Über Serious
 |  Subject: Democrats against business  Sat Mar 27, 2010 6:52 am | |
| In the final analysis, it won't be government that will pull us out of this economic slump, it will be business. Even the dispensers of government largesse seem to acknowledge this with their abracadabra term "economic stimulus." The economy they're hoping to stimulate — at least until the coming of their socialist paradise-on-Earth — is still a private enterprise one.
So why are majority Democrats in the Colorado legislature so anti-business? Their poster boy is Rep. Jack Pommer, who justified his verbal abuse of business owners appearing before the House Finance Committee with the self-righteous declaration, "Businesses don't care about Colorado. They care about their own profits." Does he really believe there's a conflict between making a profit and caring about Colorado? Like so many liberals, Pommer is apparently ignorant of the fact that without profits — the market's reward for successful enterprise — these businesses wouldn't exist, nor would the tax revenue from them and the people they employ that pays his salary.
While Republicans are inclined to limit government, Democrats are obsessed with expanding it amid an orgy of lawmaking. The current legislative session has been hemorrhaging anti-business measures. Here's a sampling:
• House Bill 1263 would increase the state income tax on any business that pays an employee more than $250,000 in salary and other compensation. This is rank, populist meddling that would penalize top performers and discourage companies from bringing their headquarters to our state.
• Before it was killed on March 2, HB 1248 would have prohibited the sale of personal care products like cosmetics, sunscreen, shampoo and deodorant that contain traces of chemicals that might cause cancer if present in much larger doses. The bill would have banned products that have FDA approval nationally. The state would not have enforced the law; instead, citizens would have had to sue offending businesses. Coloradans would have had to smuggle in their Coppertone from Wyoming or buy it on the black market.
• Senate Bill 28 incentivizes employers to establish "work sharing" programs. Rather than lay off two 40-hour workers, 20 workers would have their time on the job reduced four hours each. And then all 20 would apply for unemployment insurance for the lost hours! (Great timing: Colorado's unemployment fund is already underwater, having to borrow more than $120 million from the feds since January.)
• SB 133 would create an income-tax credit of $4,000 to rehire former employees laid off in 2009. To qualify, employers must keep those rehired for at least one year and must swear that they would not have rehired those workers were it not for the tax credit. This is government meddling on steroids. If business conditions warrant, employers will rehire without the tax credit. If business is weak, a $4,000 credit won't suffice. Why not make it $40,000, and just add it to the state budget deficit?
The conceit in these and similar Democrat-sponsored bills is that government is the all-knowing, master architect of the economy, your provider, protector and nanny. And that business is at best suspect, at worst the enemy, and in all cases the ward of government. As long as we have choices in a competitive market economy and basic legal protections, I'm far more concerned about government excesses than business excesses. In economic times like these, politicians, desperate to give the appearance of "doing" something, tend to do more harm than good, spending money they don't have.
Giddy with their victories in 2008, Democrats have gone bonkers. The correction for legislative excess and malfeasance in government is biennial elections. If the current level of public disapproval with Democratic governance holds in November 2010, we could well see a house-cleaning (and Senate cleaning) at the national and local level. Let's hope that happens before they do much more damage.
http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_14751478?source=commented-opinion |
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