This is my response to a FANTASTIC blog that I read.
Alice,
As a lifelong small business owner, I could have written this myself (except I am not as eloquent). Much of the world's political history has been based on class envy. In fact, America has been a shining beacon to the world, because we have had much less class distinctions than the rest.
Anyhow, this business owner is fed up with the employees because they are the ones who voted for Obama. They did it thinking he could make it better (Change, Hope). What few people see is that Obama can't make prosperity. He can only take it from someone to give it to someone else. He justifies it by saying that he knows best who is deserving and who is not. It does make mystomach churn.
We used to be the place where anyone could be anything they wanted, with hard work and all that. This new paradigm in Washington will not kill the Rockefeller's the Waltons, or the Gates', it will kill the small business owner with the Mercedes who everyone thinks is the same as Rockefeller, because they can't see past the car. This era will kill the middle class, not the rich and certainly not the poor. Good work, Obama!
The story behind the origin of our income tax system is a funny story. I believe it was the early 20th century and someone in government floated the idea of taxing only the wealthy. They sold this idea to the citizenry using good 'ole class envy. The common man figured it wouldn't affect him and the rich could afford it. Of course as time went on the envelope of who was considered rich got bigger and bigger until it applied to most all of us. Then a funny thing happened.
Someone noticed that the rich were able to afford the smartest consultants and they were able to buy the best tax shelters and they just plain weren't paying their fair share of taxes. Mind you, they were still paying a lion's share of the income tax, but as a percentage of their income, they were and probably still are the lowest taxed group. It was the common man who was bearing the largest brunt of the taxes, as a percentage of income. He wasn't poor enough not to get taxed and not rich enough to be able to afford the shelters. He was screwed. That was the beginning of the end of our middle class.
The point of the story is that we shouldn't allow the government to make such important decisions. Not because they are mean or stupid, but because their decisions are so large as to always have unintended consequences. Those consequences are the undoing of a nation.
When you throw a pebble in a pond you can see the ripples in that pond and even where they may hit the shore. Think of that pebble as an individual decision. Now, when you drop a meteor in the ocean, you cannot see thedestruction that it creates on the other side of the world. You cannot know how it will affect everything. Think of that meteor as a government decision. So the best thing is not to drop meteors in teh ocean. This is why athoughtful government would make as few laws as possible. They would deliberate sometimes for months on one law and try their best to talk to the other side of the world to mitigate the negative impact of their laws. They would not be swayed by public opinion or even class envy but by sound financial and socialknowledge.
I went way off track here, but the bottom line is that it is almost always the unintended consequences of well-meaning government actions that kill our country. That is why it doesn't matterweather you are Liberal or Conservative, Republican or Democrat, you are still usually creating more problems than you are solving wi th your laws.
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