Redistribution of resources and prosperity | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    We keep hearing that all we need is for the government to pour more money into the economy for our economic situation to improve. The money creates demand which, in turn, sets into motion the great economic engine which will ensure unending prosperity for all. All we need to do is take from the rich and "invest" in infrastructure, schools, police departments, fire departments, and the like and we are on the road to unending prosperity. There is only one thing wrong with that approach. It doesn't work. Roosevelt tried it through the period of the 1930s and all it seemed to do was extend the misery. The Anointed One has done the same experiment with our economy again and it turned out the same. The only result was that we ended up about $5T (yes, trillion with a T) deeper in debt. In the meantime, the economy remains stagnant.

    We hear the same thing over and over from the Anointed One and his spear carriers. Companies need to invest more. They have tons of money just sitting on the sidelines. They need to hire more. The rich need to pay more taxes. It's only fair. That's all it would take to get the economy going again and reduce our unemployment level. And we are even beginning to hear hints that increasing taxes on the so called rich could also help reduce our deficit. Apparently the Anointed One and his henchmen want us to believe that if we increase taxes on the rich we will be able to begin to pay down our national debt. I've got news for anyone who believes that. As long as we continue to spend more than we take in, the debt will not decrease. Duh...

    Yes, when we jack up the taxes on the rich to get those folks paying their "fair share", and also increase taxes on business, things will certainly begin to look up. At the same time we should also implement some tax credits for business that will encourage those who don't want the Government to abscond with their money to go ahead and invest in improving their efficiency and take advantage of the tax credit. That will help even more. Do you suppose anyone ever bothered to see from whence these tax credits come?? Short answer: The long suffering taxpayers. The credits are rolled into and become part of "Tax Expenditures" where they tend to remain largely hidden from view and thus become institutionalized.

    The Anointed One makes his approach to prosperity sound good when he reads about it on his Teleprompters (which is one thing he does well); but in the real world it doesn't work. What he is trying to do is prime a pump with water that the pump won't pump until it is primed. It's like trying to find the end of a hoop. You simply cannot create "something" out of "nothing". Additionally the folks who believe in this idea seem to completely disregard the fact that by taking the money, the folks from whom it is taken no longer have it available to invest in something potentially more productive. In the world of the Anointed One, opportunity costs do not exist.

    Speaking of reading well from the Teleprompters, what remains a real mystery is how so many folks gobble up what he says but never seem to pay any attention to what he does - which almost never is what he said he was going to do. But I digress...

    The Anointed One's construct is like cutting a piece off of one end of a blanket and sewing it on the other end and telling folks you now have a longer blanket. Unfortunately a lot of folks will believe it. Richard Nixon made that analogy with daylight saving time a long time ago - and it was just as false then as it is now when the Anointed One tries to apply it to our economy.

    The only way to increase the size of the blanket or prime the economic pump is to bring in some "new" money.

    The way we do that is by getting the money from somewhere else - by "earning" it. (What a novel thought..). For example, just looking at our energy sector, approval of the Keystone pipeline would certainly being a whole lot of "new" money - quickly and give our employment picture a sorely needed shot in the arm. Cranking up our domestic drilling operations (both oil and natural gas) would certainly help the employment picture for the drillers and roughnecks etc. It would also create a lot of new jobs for people who support the drilling operations.(or more correctly recreate a lot of the jobs that Ken Salazar did away with through his outrageous treatment of the drillers in the gulf).. Food service, lodging, drilling supplies and the like come to mind. The economy would get a quick boost from the wages paid to the drillers. (If you don't believe this, just take a look at the 3% unemployment rate and strength of the economy in N. Dakota where they are drilling for natural gas like nobody's business.) That "new" money would start the economic engine. The income from the natural gas could be realized in a relatively short time frame while the income from foreign sales of crude oil would take several years but it would be there. And when we become an oil exporter, it would certainly help with our balance of trade situation. In any case the "new" money that would come from implementing these activities would certainly act on the economy in a positive way. It would make the pie larger, which means more for all.

    What the Anointed One and his spear carriers are trying to sell is the notion that if you bet on "pass" and 'don't pass" as offsetting bets on a crap table you are bound to win. That is exactly what they are trying to do when they seek to redistribute income. It won't work in Vegas or Atlantic City or any other place with crap tables and it won't work on Main Street America. It's time to "get real"... It is long past time for the Anointed One and his henchmen start getting honest with the long suffering taxpayers. And even more important, it's time that we tax payers get wise to the con game being foisted off on us by the Anointed One and his troops...

    D'ya Think??