Category Archives: jobs

Economic Performance

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…and one Progressive-Democrat’s tax proposal.  Although, the fact is that these effects aren’t unique to Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren (D, NM): the trend of effects are the outcomes of all the Progressive-Democratic Party’s proposals, differing only in detail.

Warren’s particular proposal is to tax business profits above $100 million at 7%.  Here are some outcomes of such a thing, according to the Tax Foundation, with the FoxBusiness cited.  A tax like this would

  • reduce incentives to invest, so GDP would shrink by ~1.9% over the long-term
  • reduce a firm’s capital by 3.3%
  • reduce wages by about 1.5%
  • eliminate as many as 454,000 full-time jobs
  • reduce after-tax income across the entire economy by 0.93%, with the biggest reductions on the top 1% of taxpayers
  • considering that shrinkage of our economy, after-tax income reduction could be an even larger 2.16%

But, hey, it gets after that hated 1%, so it’s all good.

This is of a piece with all Progressive-Democrat tax ideas, based as they so much are on their belief that the money really isn’t the business’ money, anyway.  They didn’t earn that.  They had (Government) help.

Regulating State Tax Incentives

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There Ought to be a Law was the title of an old Reader’s Digest humor column: every little pet peeve came in for a jokingly recommended law barring it.  Because More Government is always the solution.

Barton Swaim, in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, actually takes that seriously, and he wants to apply it to the idea of States and cities offering businesses tax incentives to get them to build in those jurisdictions.  He wants the Federal government to…regulate…what those State and local jurisdictions can do to entice businesses.

He’s even holding up the European Union as a paragon in this venue.

The European Union imposes significant restrictions on how much member states or regional governments can offer companies to entice them to expand or relocate.

This is the same EU, keep in mind, that is constantly trying to bully low-tax member nations to charge more and higher taxes, rather than encouraging high-tax member nations to lower and lessen theirs.

Never mind that, though.

Why couldn’t Congress impose a simplified version of this principle on state and local governments?

It’s true enough that many of those incentive deals the States and locals turn out to be lousy from the States’ and locals’ perspective.  Why, then, shouldn’t the Federal government dictate to the States and local governments what those bodies should do with their own citizens’ and residents’ money? For their own good, you see.  Besides, isn’t it the Federal government’s money, anyway, and not those citizens’ and residents’?

Be more like Europe, and be more infested with central diktats than we already are. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Because, after all, States (and the local jurisdictions within them), to paraphrase John Jay, have the same relationship to the Federal government that counties have to the States: mere political jurisdictions set up to facilitate enforcement of Federal laws.

Federal republic be damned.

Sure.

Control

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Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris (D, CA) wants the Federal government to pay a significant fraction of public school teachers’ salaries.

What a terrible idea.

The Federal government paying a significant fraction of public school teachers’ salaries means Federal government control of our public schools. Those schools are in enough trouble; we don’t need the Feds getting in the way, also.

Aside from that, this is just another Progressive-Democratic Party attempt to grab our money, this time to deny it to our heirs.  Again.

Apart from both of those, this is another example of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s contributing to the erosion of our families, illustrated by this claim of Harris’:

Our country’s success is a product of the two groups who raise our children: parents and teachers. We are not paying our teachers their value[.]

Teachers help raise our children? No, that’s the exclusive province of parents; schools are not ex loco parentis child care centers, and teachers must stop being babysitters and do the only thing they’re hired to do: teach.

Work…Works

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Sam Adolphsen, Foundation for Government Accountability’s Vice President of Executive Affairs, writing for Fox Business, commented on that in a piece about Medicaid’s work requirement in Arkansas—about which Progressive-Democrats in Congress are in an uproar.

Those Progressive-Democrats have complained that work requirements

“threaten[]” Americans…work [is] a “restrictive condition.”

These politicians of the Left ignore two things. One is the trivial one: no one is forcing anyone to work; the only “restriction” is that, in order to get any of Arkansas’ OPM, recipients must go to work in Arkansas or make a good faith effort to do so.

The other thing is the critical item in the affair.

Since the requirement was implemented, thousands of adults have left the welfare program.
…
…when people go back to work after work requirements are implemented, their incomes double or triple in just a year or two.

And this fallout from that second thing:

Getting these able-bodied adults back to work also frees up resources for the truly needy—the very people that the Medicaid program was designed to help.

It also increases Arkansas’ tax collections that go to the State’s Medicaid program.

Here’s where Adolphsen missed the mark, though.  He wrote

Why are Democrats so against work?
…
It’s an indication of how out of touch these progressive leaders are with everyday Americans.

No, Progressive-Democrats are the smartest kids on the block—just ask them.  They know what they’re doing with their objections to imposing a measure of personal responsibility on welfare recipients, personal responsibility that brings with it personal prosperity.

Those folks getting work and raising their standard of living aren’t actual human beings; they’re just votes spilling out of the Progressive-Democrats’ welfare box.

No National Defense for You

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Many Microsoft employees don’t want the United States to be able to defend itself—to defend its citizens and resident aliens.

More than 150 Microsoft employees signed a letter demanding the tech giant cancel a $480 million contract to build a HoloLens for the Pentagon, saying they “refuse to create technology for warfare and oppression.”

And

We are alarmed that Microsoft is working to provide weapons technology to the US military, helping one country’s government “increase lethality” using tools we built. We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used[.]

Never mind their ideology that our nation should not be allowed to have the tools necessary for our defense, their arrogance—employees demanding veto authority over their boss’ decision—is itself unacceptable.

These Precious Ones should be terminated for cause over their refusal to work the contract.  Their insubordinate arrogance is just confirmation of the need for Microsoft to see the backs of them.

One more thing: if this is the best Silicon Valley—or the Redmond-Seattle environs—can do for employees, Microsoft should give serious thought to relocating.