By Curtis Kalin
The answer doesn’t require a couple master’s degrees from Harvard or Yale. Heaven knows you can’t listen to Turbo-Tax cheat Tim Geithner.
Just look back at the bailouts, stimulus-es, and free cash handouts over the past two years. In fall 2008 the Federal Government bailed out Wall Street. Around the new year ‘09 the feds bailed out big auto companies GM and Chrysler. In February 2009 money was handed out to irresponsible state governments and thrown to so called “shovel-ready” government infrastructure jobs. To top it off, another car stimulus over the summer with “Cash for Clunkers”.
Meanwhile, President Obama and the Democrat leaders in Congress have been pushing major systematic transformations in healthcare, energy, and executive pay.
What economic picture does this paint? A very unstable one. Major institutions are being changed which will inevitably require more tax revenue, bankruptcy laws have been ignored, and there has been zero help for small business in America. These small businesses are the true backbone of the economy and engine of economic growth. They create three out of every four jobs. So why does it surprise anyone that in an environment where everyone is being bailed out except the small business, that small businesses aren’t expanding or blossoming? Why the surprise when, in an environment where an already unstable economy is being transformed and rules of the road being rewritten, that small businesses don’t take risks? Why dip your toe into the water when there’s a hurricane coming? Why build a city in the middle of an earthquake? The one thing that’s not being projected in Washington is a calm, stable future.
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