Issue Position: Jobs/Economy

Issue Position

We must get the dead hand of government regulation, taxation, and overspending -- which has been levied by irresponsible career politicians in the U.S. Congress -- off the backs of the American people so that our jobs will return and our people can prosper.

Each dollar spent in our economy is earned by someone's useful productive work. Wealth cannot be "created" by government. It can only be created by hard working Americans.

People are the ultimate resource. They turn our natural resources into goods and services. Economists have proven that, on average, people always produce more than they consume -- if they are free to do so. So, prosperity tends to steadily increase.

Why then is our prosperity decreasing? Why are so many Americans without jobs? The reason is that big government has taken away too much of our freedom. We are no longer able -- under the conditions set by our government -- to produce as much as we consume.

The American economy -- the combined work and expenditures of the people of the United States -- is consuming more that it produces. Therefore, in order to maintain prosperity, our governments (federal, state, and local) and our people have borrowed tens of trillions of dollars -- more borrowing than can ever be repaid.

With more consumed than we produce and debt so high that it can no longer be extended by more borrowing; our nation is sliding toward bankruptcy. Lost jobs and diminished prosperity is the result.

Why are we producing too little and accumulating vast amounts of debt? There is just one reason -- the government, especially the federal government, has taken away so much of our liberty that we can no longer produce enough goods and services to maintain our way of life.

1. Federal Regulations -- levied and overseen by regulatory agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, Department of Education, and others, have become so extensive that American workers and businesses spend a large part of their time and resources satisfying them. These agencies have grown to include millions of bureaucrats who demand that Americans spend as much of their time complying with regulations as in doing productive work.

Regulations also stand between American workers and the natural resources they need to produce useful products. Federal regulations have placed a very large part of our country's abundant mineral, energy, timber, and agricultural resources beyond the reach of our industries and workers.

2. Federal Taxes -- dollars taxed away from workers and businesses and spent by government -- take away dollars needed to provide jobs and machinery for American workers. This reduces their productivity. To be sure, some of these dollars are spent for services that are Constitutionally required and have been agreed upon by the American people, but more than half of these tax dollars are wasted and spent imprudently.

These taxes are paid by everyone, not just those who are seen to be directly taxed. On average, half of every dollar that an American spends actually pays for taxes rather than for goods or services. When we buy automobile fuel, for example, we pay state and federal fuel taxes. We also pay the income taxes of the fuel company, taxes of the worker who dispenses the fuel, taxes of the farmer who produces the food consumed by that worker, taxes of the teacher who teaches the farmer's children, and so on.

Throughout our economy, every time dollars are exchanged, the government takes some of those dollars in taxation by taxing the people underlying that economic activity. All of these taxes accumulate in the cost of everything we buy.

Politicians want us to believe that taxes fall largely on "profits," "gains," and the "rich." In fact, all taxation is inherently regressive. It falls most heavily on the middle class and the poor. Taxation works its way into the cost of everything. Since a poor man has fewer dollars, they are much more precious to him. The poor suffer the most from over-taxation.

3. Federal debt -- has grown so large that the cost of servicing that debt is draining huge amounts of resources required for the production of goods and services away from American workers.
Debt also requires collateral. The lender must have confidence that the borrower will repay, either with earnings or with some other asset that he holds.

What have our career politicians in Congress pledged in collateral for the tens of trillions of dollars in debt (both actual and obligated) that they have accumulated?

Aside from federal lands, buildings, and other real assets -- the total value of which is less than 10% of federal debt, Congress has pledged in collateral for its debt one primary asset -- the future labor of the American people. We have all been pledged as involuntary indentured slaves for this debt -- we and our children and our grandchildren. This, of course, is unconstitutional and has been illegal in the United States since the end of the Civil War.

Debt -- accumulated by political overspending by the U.S. Congress -- is an additional large burden that has been placed on the backs of American workers.

4. The result of runaway regulation, taxation, and spending (caused by the U.S. Congress, which has control of these activities) is that a large part of American industry has been forced, in order to remain competitive, to move abroad where economic freedom is higher. We import, for example, $600 billion in energy each year. This energy could be produced in the United States, but lack of economic freedom makes it impossible to do so. This impoverishes us by $600 billion each year, costing, on average, $2,000 from each American.

As American industry moves abroad and businesses within the United States contract under the burden of federal over-regulation, over-taxation, and over-spending, the American economy also has contracts. This has caused the loss of 20 million American jobs.

American jobs and American prosperity will not return until the reasons for their loss have been eliminated. We must get rid of the career politicians in Congress who have done this to our country and replace them with citizen legislators with common sense.

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