…the Bleacherman has entered the stadium…
Although I believe that Rick Santorum is (thankfully) a non-entity in the GOP Presidential Candidate race, I just thought that I would take a quick look at his tax plan just so I can get a feel for what he represents.
Like his Republican brethren, Mr. Santorum believes that the American economy spins on the axis of corporate taxes. It does not. Lowering corporate taxes – or even eliminating them – will NOT! directly translate into the daily grind of day to day business. Such reduction will not create jobs. As the Bleacherman has long argued, taxes reflect a distribution of operational profits. They do not create in and off themselves more revenue or profit for a corporation.
Someday, someone will have the courage to go out and tell the American political constituency the truth. Gee, what a novel idea. Politicians telling the truth.
Mr. Santorum wants to tax products made overseas and sold here in the United States. Did you hear that Wal Mart? Can Mr. Santorum spell inflation? Can he envision a trade war? How naïve. His policy is so much an understatement of a very complex issue and shows that he was more interested in offering up vote-for-me buzz words and red-meat talking points then in addressing the real issue.
But isn’t this the nature of politics today?
Mr. Santorum wants to repeal business regulations put into place by President Obama. Great. Let’s go backwards and allow companies to credit-default-swap themselves into bankruptcy. Let’s let companies lie on their financial statements, hide liabilities on some off-balanced sheet gimmick and let’s have Wall Street sell products to their customers that they are clandestinely shorting on financial markets. Such hands-off policy will surely stimulate the economy. Maybe for Bain Capital but not for the rest of us.
And just how is this exactly going to get corporations to go out and hire people?
It is all insane. The key to our recovery rests in two economic factors. One: the number of people who have discretionary income; two: the amount of money that they will choose to spend in the economy. And we need to once and for all understand that in today’s economic environment, free market capitalism in and of itself cannot or will not create the job growth that is necessary to stabilize and expand our economy. We need to put a lot of people back to work at a wage level that will give them money to spend in the market place. Period. We need to build things. Infrastructure, schools, bridges…and we need to employ people to rebuild our country.
In a nut shell, Santorum’s tax plan and overall economic policy is nothing more than GOP boiler plate red-meat rhetoric whose substance and effectiveness is akin to a hologram. Nothing of what he says can be translated into a policy that can be put into action that will result in sustaining the American economy.
Mr. Santorum should stay inconsequential and irrelevant.
…the Bleacherman has left the stadium trying not to laugh…and cry…
