My Take on the News

Destroy the profit incentive and watch the nation’s wealth decline

Lonnie Barham
Posted 8/16/12

WHERE'S THE SMALL BUSINESS INCENTIVE? A few years ago, an enterprising young man wanted to start a small business. After scrounging for start-up capital and devoting his entire concentration and …

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My Take on the News

Destroy the profit incentive and watch the nation’s wealth decline

Posted

WHERE'S THE SMALL BUSINESS INCENTIVE? A few years ago, an enterprising young man wanted to start a small business. After scrounging for start-up capital and devoting his entire concentration and energy to the young company, the owner saw it grow and succeed to the point it provided 150 good jobs. An American success story? Absolutely!
Fast forward a few years. The entrepreneur is approaching middle age with a family. Like many of us at that stage of life, he wants to change course and travel another path. He sells his now profitable company for $135 million. After paying all mortgages, debts and other obligations, the seller is left with less than 4 percent of the selling price as his profit – about $5 million.
What happened to that profit – the final incentive for the small businessman who had struggled for years to grow the business and provide so many jobs? The government took about $2 million of it in taxes!
Astute readers realize this story is about Barry Hinckley, the Republican who is challenging Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in the November elections. Whitehouse, the career politician who inherited most of his money and never went through the struggles of starting a business, thinks families like Hinckley's are not "paying their fair share" in taxes. He wants to make small business owners, entrepreneurs and professional couples pay even more.
At some point, the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Levying more and more taxes on those who create jobs and who add to the country's collective wealth will eventually cause them to say "I quit!" When profit incentive is destroyed, the nation's wealth declines, total tax revenues decrease and jobs disappear. That's America's future if we continue to allow the anti-business policies espoused by the Whitehouse's Pelosi's and Obama's of our country to be foisted upon us!

ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST VOTER ID: Providence Journal columnist Edward Fitzpatrick has resurfaced the oft-quoted statement that, "You rarely see documented cases of people showing up at the polls impersonating someone else." Of course you don't! With no requirement for voters to identify themselves, how can impersonation possibly be documented?
In the 19th century, doctors refused to practice sanitary measures to prevent the spread of germs and infection among their patients because they didn't believe something they couldn't see could cause medical harm. We know today they were terribly wrong. We have been unable to see the extent of voter impersonation because we have had no method for detecting it – just as the doctors of old had no effective microscopes through which they could see germs.
With voter registration drives so aggressive and coercive, many voters are registered who never intend to make the effort to actually vote. And allowing political parties to track, hour by hour, who has and hasn't voted at each polling place and transmit that information to party headquarters, makes the system rife for voter impersonation. One volunteer, given the names of 10 voters to transport to different polling places, could easily vote for them instead of trying to locate people whose lifestyles make them hard to find. This could only be done when there was no requirement to produce identification. Thankfully, those days are over in Rhode Island.

JAMESTOWN WIND TURBINE: Someone wearing "rose colored glasses" is blinded to the truth because he sees only what he wants to see. Are those glasses now "green colored glasses?" Whenever an environmental (green) issue is discussed, most of us put on our green colored glasses and refuse to logically examine the issue. Instead, we tend to rush headlong into decisions that could have adverse effects on our lives, our communities and our pocketbooks.
Jamestown is pursuing plans to build a wind turbine that will supply power to a few public buildings and may produce surplus power for sale to National Grid. Fortunately, some Jamestown residents have taken off their green colored glasses and are bringing up logical arguments in opposition.
The project will cost $5.8 million. Anticipated income from excess power sales will be, at best, $2.4 million over 20 years – an apparent $3.4 million loss. Subtract the $1 million to $2 million the town will save in electricity costs and there remains a loss of $2 million over the 20-year period, and that figure doesn't include the $160,000 annual construction bond interest.
This is more than a Jamestown issue; it is a statewide issue. The state has already given Jamestown $140,000 of state taxpayers' money and has promised another $500,000 if the turbine is actually built. It's time for all Rhode Islanders to remove their green colored glasses!

ROMNEY’S RUNNING MATE: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has boldly drawn a line in the sand. With his selection of Congressman Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, Romney is taking the fight to the Obama administration. Romney chose not to pussyfoot around by selecting someone who might swing some ethnic votes his way, or someone who might be the vanilla-safe candidate. Instead, he chose a hard charging, budget-conscious, pro-business, pro-jobs candidate who has already designed a budget that will move our country to fiscal sanity and to economic success. In selecting Ryan, Romney is saying to America, "Either you're with me or you're not. If you're with me, we can take our country back from an administration that has squandered four years of opportunity to get us out of debt, deficit and despair."
Obama and his Democrat supporters can only decry Ryan's selection as one that will "end Medicare as we know it," (Congressman James Langevin) and will result in "devastating" reductions in spending (Congressman David Cicilline). Medicare in its current form is unsustainable. Changes have to be made to the program or seniors will eventually lose all their Medicare benefits. Ryan's plan will save Medicare and other entitlement programs while simplifying our complex and unfair tax code. Will Ryan's plan reduce spending? Of course it will! But that's exactly what we need to get us out of the financial morass four years of presidential ineptitude has mired us in. Romney delegate Barbara Fenton of Newport probably put it best, "At some point, the government has to take responsibility for how to pay for all of its promises." Amen, sister!

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  • rtwhit55

    Ever hear of Hinckley yachts? Didn't have to go very far to scrounge up money.

    Want to see voter fraud? How about the thousands of people who claim residence in Fl.,but still vote in R.I. Representation without taxation.

    Reform medicare.Absolutely. Turn it into a voucher system for the benefit of the insurance companies? No way.

    Romney goes to Israel to grovel for Jewish votes,and praises their healthcare system. It's nationalized!

    Friday, August 17, 2012 Report this