PRO-HANDOUT vs. PRO-BUSINESS
Mitt Romney on Fox News Sunday, on stimulating the economy by cutting taxes and incentivizing business investment rather than stimulating Doritos sales. I hope to see Giuliani win winner-take-all Florida and then get back to Romney vs. Giuliani like we were promised. Me would like to see McCain fade, and quickly.
WALLACE: Democrats say that your plan and also President Bush's don't give any money to the 50 million Americans who at this point don't pay taxes.
And according to the Democrats, not only could those 50 million Americans use it, but they're also more likely to spend the money, which is the whole point of a rebate system.
ROMNEY: Well, my system is primarily based on trying to create jobs, not handing out cash to individuals. I do lower the lowest income tax bracket from 10 percent to 7.5 percent. And that helps, of course, people at the low economic level.
The heart of what I'm doing is trying to get businesses to become more active, buying capital equipment, trying to get businesses to grow in this country and to create more jobs, because the best -- obviously, the best antidote to having an economic slowdown is growth in the business sector, creating jobs, putting more people at work and, of course, that generates more income for everybody.
WALLACE: But what about those 50 million -- or perhaps it would be less with your Social Security break -- who don't pay any taxes? Nothing for them?
ROMNEY: Well, it's jobs. It's focused on jobs. And certainly, what you want to do is provide the incentives to help companies to be creating new jobs.
I think the number of 50 million strikes a little high. But for those that are not paying any taxes at all, simply writing a check doesn't seem to me to be the right course to follow.
FEMA handed out cash after Katrina. I don't remember that working so well. Government does not produce, it only consumes, and government solutions are almost always inefficient. But government employees vote Democrat, so Democrats like government programs. I heard Hillary the other day running down a long list of government handouts, regulations and controls that would mark her presidency. Please no.
2 comments:
E, it is early in '08 still but "incentivizing business investment rather than stimulating Doritos sales" is sure to be in the running for Junto Phrase of the Year honors. Not only do you coin a new word but you chose the perfect analogy. Doritos has remained a guilty pleasure of mine since childhood and I find there is ALWAYS room in the budget for a bag of cool ranch.
The inherent class bias in Wallace's question is as astounding as the race/gender bias in every story about the Democratic race. The concept of increasing the job base is so abstract compared to the image of a long line of sweaty people at the bank waiting to cash a check. Liberals offer free fish; conservatives offer cheap fishing lessons.
It is a fairly simple concept: if you want to stimulate the economy, then you give the money to the people who have proven (by becoming wealthy) that they know what to do with it. I learned in finance class how wealth is created when savings increase, since the banks now have more money to lend to businesses who can expand, employing more people who can then save some of their earnings and keep the engine running. If you give $800 to every working class guy, no jobs are created, but Frito Lay gets a third quarter surge.
That we have so many people not paying taxes explains a lot of our current problems. Tax breaks are always for the rich when you let the lower class off the hook at the beginning.
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