On Monday, newly “ordained” Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry hit the stage preaching the GOP “gospel of the tax cut” and the evils of government regulation.
He came out on the campaign trail swinging, using age-old GOP talking points: government regulation and taxes inhibit the ability for corporations to fulfill their role as ‘job creators’ and companies will hire extra workers if they have more resources available.
This argument falls flat both on the basics of business management as well as on the reality of the present state of the economy.
First, businesses hire only the workers they need to meet the demand of their business. Any business which breaks this simple core philosophy will not stay in business long unless they are overcharging their customers for the product they supply. This is a basic fact. This means that increasing the bank account of the company will not increase job creation. The only thing that will increase job creation by a company is to increase the customer base, and the only way to do this is to spur job creation through spending. However, in a recession or sluggish economy, the only sector of the economy which has the ability to do this is the government. After all, consumers do not have the money spend, and private businesses do not have the desire to spend any more than necessary, even if they have the money to do so.
This brings us to the second point of Perry’s disconnect…
Federal taxes are at a near 60 year low, and many companies have been basking in record profits or near record profits for several fiscal quarters. In fact, corporations and wealthy Americans are paying a lower overall tax rate than hard-working Americans who toil from week to week just to make sure there is a roof over their families’ heads and food on their families’ table. If having extra financial resources available meant that companies would hire more workers above and beyond those needed, we would have seen a large increase in job growth at these companies; but we have not, at least not here in the United States.
The whole ‘job creator’ philosophy is a part of ‘supply side economics’ which is yet another form of ‘trickle-down’ economics, and ‘trickle-down’ economics is a scam - a failed and known-to-be-flawed policy to which even Reagan-era proponent David Stockman has admitted to be so.
It is Gross Domestic Product which drives job creation, and it is job creation which drives the GDP. In addition, in order to help the GDP significantly and create a sound economy, jobs must pay enough that the consumer has more than just the bare minimum to survive.
Despite what Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and many other conservatives say, corporations are not people. Corporations have no heart, no soul and no patriotism. They are not going to choose a path because it will help society or individuals; they will choose a path that offers the best gains for that company. In a society and business sector which ever increasingly thinks only of the short term, this can and will be detrimental to the country in years to come.
No, Perry, like many in the Republican Party, cannot or chooses not to see this; either way he should not be President. If Perry cannot see, he has not the perceptive skills to be President. If Perry chooses not to see, then he has chosen to push a failed economic policy which helps to line the pockets of corporations at the expense of small business and the individual American and thus also should not be President.
--Raymond Gellner, National Liberal Examiner, Examiner.com | Twitter: @regellner
Please click on and like the originally published on Examiner.com: Rick Perry supports flawed and failed GOP economic policy