For over 26 years I have operated a small business. As is the case with most businesses in the United States, some years are more profitable than others and some years are not profitable at all. The ups and downs of the economic business cycle have required that I make a lot of tough decisions during my career in order to try and remain profitable and stay in business. Since I am unable to control my revenues, fate has dictated that I look to expense control to remain vital. Increased use of technology, reduction of discretionary expenses, control of labor costs and a frequent top-to-bottom review of spending have all helped during tough times. Many of the decisions made in an effort to remain viable have not been easy. It is not fun to negotiate lower rates with vendors, knowing that their incomes will be affected. It is not fun to freeze wages. It is not fun to tell a vendor that you have done business with for twenty years that you will no longer use their services. However, these are the things that a business must do to economically survive.
It has never crossed my mind to ask government for assistance. I have never asked for property tax abatements, low interest loans, bailout assistance or other taxpayer funded government handout. In fact, the lion’s share of business in the United States functions this same way. The rallying cry of successful businesses in our country is the plea to government to stay out of our way, have consistent and easy to understand regulations and don’t punish our success with confiscatory taxation policies.
Alas, and one knew that it would only take time for this to occur, business has now entered the era of victimization and governmental rescue for poor business decisions. Big business now plays the “too big to fail” card as easily as career criminals play the “I’m a victim of my environment” card. Big business today sends the very clear message that it is the duty of government to bail it out for bad behavior and bad decisions. The message is simple, “If you do not give us (millions, billions or trillions), we will fold up our tent and you will have the blood of unemployment on your hands.” The allies of big business, in their effort to shake down the American taxpayer, are the very willing cadre of politicos who long to gain the votes and support of those who fear the consequences of business failure. In the long run, the interests of neither business nor employees will be served by this showering of government largess. Very few of our elected government officials have stopped to ask what will be the long-term financial, systemic and moral implications of governmental intervention.
For many decades local, state and national government have felt free to allow taxpayers to fund their inefficiencies. Wasteful spending, failed programs, superfluous employees and errors of judgment have all been financed by the unwilling taxpayer. Now, government, in its race to reward bad behavior, bad decisions and gross corporate inefficiencies, has extended its guiding hand of intervention and largess to corporate America. The American taxpayer simply cannot afford to finance governmental and corporate incompetency simultaneously. As President Obama’s good friend, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, would say, “The chickens will come home to roost!”
Who will pay for the trillions of dollars of bailouts, loans, stimulus and pump priming? Today, forty percent of the American population does not pay Federal Income Tax. Under the Obama/Reid/Pelosi stimulus package, thirty-nine percent of our nation’s Gross Domestic Product will be Federal spending. You do the math! If forty percent don’t pay taxes and another large percentage suckle at the governmental teat, that leaves a minority of the American people footing the bill today and for all time to come.
Local government will want to pass increases in the cost of government on to local taxpayers. State government will want to pass their increased costs to state taxpayers. Federal Government will want to pass their monstrous bills on to an ever-diminishing percentage of taxpayers. When will it break? How will it break? What will be the true cost of governmental inefficiencies and poor judgment then? Will the selfish, me-first, post-WWII baby boomer politicians commit the ultimate act of self interest and assume that they will be dead and gone, leaving the bill or consequences for their actions and inactions to be paid by their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren?
Let us hope that government officials at all levels will act responsibly in the future to make sure that all spending is transparent, all spending is mission essential and that the cost of government spending is shared by all.