Obama talks about hope and change. Wealth distribution simply is not the way to accomplish those goals. Taxing the “rich” discourages entrepreneurship and encourages complacency. The United States needs to support small business, not penalize it.

Democrats justify increasing taxes by saying people making more than $250K can afford it. I say they’re crushing the American dream! Small business owners already face extraordinary challenges: brutal competition from big business, the threat of lawsuits, a labor pool with a sense of entitlement, and a bureacracy that, like David Spade in the Capital One commercials — gets its jollies from saying “no.” Now, the government wants to throw in an additional obstacle to the Scylla and Charybdis through which small businesses already must navigate? I don’t think so!

We as Americans have lost that desire to only be given a chance. We have become so lazy that we just want to sit back and work our 9-5 jobs, take an hour lunch, take paid leave, and receive a whole host of benefits. Now, we’re demanding our employers pay more so that others can share in the same comforts we enjoy. Who wants to start a business when she would have to worry not only about her customers’ and employees’ welfare, but also society’s? Who wants to toil for years when the government will take an increased share of the harvest?

Under the Democrats’ view, this is social justice. I say this is a travesty. Part of the problem with our economy is the fact that we have supported behemoth corporations that are too big to fail all in the name of efficiency. What does that mean? Instead of allowing certain companies to fail, we are now arranging shot-gun marriages creating even bigger corporate bureacracies that are actually inefficient, wield monopolistic power, and are, or will be, full of complacent workers. (Don’t get me wrong: this is the only option we have at the moment since we’ve painted ourselves into a corner.) The result long term will be diminished consumer choice and higher prices. The result short term has been a devestated stock market and high unemployment.

Higher taxes discourage entrepreneurship, which will make us all worse off in the long run. Had the government focused on ensuring a robust market structure (i.e., many suppliers of goods and services), we probably wouldn’t be facing the pain we’re now experiencing. This was a failure of both parties.

The Democrats take the myopic view that increasing taxes on those making more than $250K will only result in some people paying more taxes. Again, we need to worry about the message we’re sending to someone considering taking a risk to start a new business. Admittedly, those already fortunate enough to be making $250K+ aren’t likely to stop what they’re doing (though some on the fringe may decide to hang it up). It’s just a shame that someone who’s worked her whole life to get to that position now has to pay a penalty for his success, despite paying her fair share along the way. I don’t see anyone offering to compensate that business owner for the lean years that allowed her to get to the position she now enjoys. Penalizing hard work and success is unAmerican.

What is especially amazing to me is the fact that people in California, Massachusetts, and New York making more than $250K are squarely middle class. Obama said he was trying to help the middle class. Yet, those states stood behind him. I guess momentum and history are difficult to change, regardless of the message.

When I voted against Obama, I simply couldn’t trust him on where he was going to draw the line on taxes. He had floated the $250K figure, but then his infomercial revised that figure down to $200K. Then, his running mate was talking $150K. This was before the election! Now, I’ve heard he may have to reconsider tax hikes altogether given the current state of the economy. This is encouraging, but it makes me wonder about his credibility and the politics of rallying the troops by saying he’s going to stick it to society’s most productive members.

I very RARELY comment publicly on the blog, as I try to let my “post” be my only argument. Still, I wanted to say thanks!

D-Bones:

Thanks for your comments. Send me a workable email address, as I wanted to discuss it some more. You made some very solid points!

-Corey

1. President-Elect Obama did not call you a “racist” or a “Republican bigot”. He never made any remarks to the general public using those words, either. So you can’t lay that at his doorstep. The logic you use in suggesting that those labels applied to you by third parties is somehow cause for not supporting him is tenuous at best.

2. Questioning our leaders — as Obama has done with the questionable leadership of George W. Bush — is not just a right in this country, it is a responsibility. Look at the run-up to the war in Iraq and try to tell us that it was even close to being an open-and-shut case. Our “evidence” was disputed by the world at every turn. It is a dangerous precedent (and a dangerous world) we created by our decision to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, had no hard evidence attaching it to WMDs, etc. We talk about terrorists re-writing the rules of war with their tactics. Well, the US has re-written the rules of international diplomacy through the decision to invade — ILLEGALLY — a sovereign state, despite the fact that Saddam Hussein was a murderous scumbag. George W. Bush made that decision as Commander-in-Chief, and regardless of who supported the decision in Congress (note that Obama did not vote for the war in Iraq), we all know where the buck stops.

Shall we even get into the callous disregard of the Bush Administration during Hurricane Katrina? This was the critical moment where his approval rating nose-dived and showed his sheer incompetence as a leader.

If you want proudly to call yourself one of the 24% of Americans who approves of the job he has done, that is your choice. But by all objective measures, he is defined more by his bungling failures than his successes. He even took his eye off the ball on Afghanistan — his one temporary foreign policy success — and the Taliban have reconstituted, with a long winter predicted for Coalition forces there.

3. Obama never called the Afghanistan war a mistake. In fact, he correctly described it as the most important front in the war against terrorism.

4. McCain’s status as a POW has nothing to do with whether he is a suitable leader. It makes him a war hero of incredible resilience, but it says NOTHING about his judgment, his capabilities as a head of state, or his policy understanding. And he made plenty of regrettable comments during the campaign that led a majority of Americans to state with their votes that he was not the one for the job.

5. Obama did not portray himself as an “expert on military operations.” He said he would surround himself with experts and that Joe Biden would be a valuable asset — as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden’s c.v. is pretty well established. Bush said the same thing in 2000. Again, we could always return to Bush who you have so unflappingly supported and his foreign policy “experience” prior to becoming President - had visited one country (Mexico), couldn’t establish where several more were actually located (reflecting a lack of basic knowledge), and other questionable qualities suggesting that he was a foreign policy novice. His incurious nature was mirrored by Palin, and the country has had enough of “Average Joe the Plumber-types” leading it through a dangerous world. Obama starts ahead BY A MILE of where Bush was before assuming the office.

6. The “spread the wealth” comment is a red herring. Obama’s plan to raise the taxes of those making over $250,000 a year pertains to NET PROFITS. For small business owners, that comes AFTER fixed costs such as utilities, payroll, and insurance. People could be forgiven for not understanding that, based on McCain’s campaign obfuscation. However, those who do know that and who still complain about $250k in profit being taxed at a higher rate are whining to deaf ears. This plan won’t stall the economy, especially when one considers the tax credits proposed by Obama that would benefit a majority of Americans.

7. The “past associations” remark would hold more weight if you would be willing to acknowledge John McCain’s “past associations” with the Keating Five, his decision when Chairman of the International Republican Institute to award nearly $500,000 in grants to Rashid Khalidi (the same guy he tried to cast in the PLO-terrorist-Obama relationship scare tactic), and his decision to abandon his first wife for an heiress. What was that thing about “until death do us part?” McCain missed that one. So much for family values.

8. Nobody pushed you away from Obama. You are a conservative, and he is liberal. John McCain would have had to say some pretty audacious things for you not to have voted for him.

But aside from those things, it is a pretty interesting post.