Who would you trust to better invest a million dollars in the economy, Bill Gates or Joe Biden? Do the richest people in America bury their money in a pit in their back yard or do they either spend it or invest it? Are taxes cuts where the American people give less of the wealth they created to the government or is it where the government gives money to the American people?
If you are like the overwhelming majority of Americans you would answer those questions as follows: Bill Gates; spend or invest it; give less to the government. But the Obama administration and their acolytes live in an alternate reality where Joe Biden, who President Obama put in charge of watching carefully how the stimulus money was spent because “nobody messes with Joe,” is in charge of spending $700+ billion; where they think nothing good happens from the most productive people in the economy when they have more resources to work with; where all money belongs to the government and the government gets to decide who and how much we can keep.
By excluding “the rich” from any tax cuts because we “can’t afford to give the rich a $700 billion tax cut”, this administration is saying that by giving Joe Biden $700 billion he will spend it in such a spectacular way that the economy will be humming before Recovery Summer has ended. We are still waiting.
What happens if Bill Gates has an extra million? I could see three things. One, he spends it. Although he is not known to be an extravagant spender like his competitor Larry Ellison, I understand that Mr. Gates lives in a very nice state of the art house. He may choose to upgrade it. That will probably involve architects, engineers, general contractors, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, laborers, and on and on. In other words, jobs. Isn’t that we need now? How many stimulus projects are there that have sucked up money but created no jobs? (If you are struggling with that question go to www.recovery.gov and sample some of the projects) Two, he could invest it. He might fund a start-up which would again create jobs. If the start up was successful, he might buy it outright which would put money back in the hands of the entrepreneurs who started the company and perhaps they would start another. More jobs, more spending, a growing economy. Three, he may put the money in his charity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. That is a charity that does good things, but with a difference. Because it is a charity not a government program, there will be people watching how the money is spent with the discretion to modify the program if it gets off track. Government programs are built upon rules. If a crook gets a copy of the rulebook, he can rip off the program until someone gets around to re-writing the rules. In the meantime it is ka-ching for the crook.
The incumbents in government believe that tax revenues are their money and tax cuts are gifts from the government to the people. Taxes are what we the people give to the government. We need to starve the beast and put it back in its cage. Government is trying to run every aspect of our lives. This country was founded because a tone deaf government was taxing America to the eyeballs. It is that time again. We should make the Bush tax cuts permanent now and clean house in November.
