Welcome to the January, Business & Nonprofits: A Winning Partnership issue of NorthBay biz. We’re very pleased to say that 2014 marks the beginning of our 39th year of publishing. The magazine remains eager to continue to fulfill its mission of serving the best interests of the North Bay business community as we go forward together into a new year.
As we approach the New Year, I’d also like to share some news about the magazine. We’re planning to add many new elements and features in 2014. These will be introduced monthly as we ramp up their development. Also in 2014, the magazine cover and inside pages will be printed on different paper stock and design changes will be implemented to enhance your reading experience. So, if you enjoy reading NorthBay biz currently, we hope to increase your pleasure in the coming year. Stay tuned.
“Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessmen’s tool is values; the bureaucrat’s tool is fear.” —Ayn Rand
As Barack Obama campaigned before he was first elected President, he stated, “We live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join me as we try to change it.” Let’s take a quick look at how he’s doing as he strives to accomplish his stated mission. Over the course of five years of relentlessly pursuing his agenda, here’s a small sample of the records his administration has set: the highest national debt, the most Americans unemployed, the most Americans on disability and the most Americans on food stamps. And you thought campaign promises were never kept.
The vision of an all-powerful, all-controlling welfare state helps establish a feeling of growing helplessness across America that only an ever-expanding government can alleviate. The real joke here is that it’s exactly the administration’s policies that have established and accelerated the afflictions that are undermining the country’s prosperity. This administration doesn’t want individual success stories. It wants more victims who’ve been coerced to believe that individual effort can never lead to success. The deck’s stacked against them. The greedy rich conspire everyday to keep them down. So only the government can intercede on their collective behalf and try to bring about equal outcomes—the hell with equal opportunity. If enough victims can’t be found, let’s create some. How about a “war on women”? To me, this gambit is laughable on its face. Where’s the payoff in this strategy? It’s a bald-faced distraction to focus on and another group to falsely pander to.
What’s really going on is the administration’s war against success—groups artificially set up to be in opposition, as if they were true enemies bent on each other’s destruction. So, in our current upside down world, individuals who achieve are criticized instead of emulated. Remember the infamous statement, “you didn’t build that.” The American dream itself is under relentless assault. There’s no bigger threat to a government bent on complete control of every citizen’s life than an independent, successful individual who abhors government mandates. It’s quite a strategy for a government pledged to represent all Americans.
American people are being asked to accept a “new normal” of diminished opportunity and significantly reduced importance on the world stage as if it were a good thing. A world of redistribution, where your best efforts are used to pay off interest groups to garner votes to perpetuate political power. A world where you aren’t allowed to keep your health care insurance, but a terrorist regime can keep its enriched uranium. A world where $8 billion of your tax dollars is committed to a PR campaign to promote a health care program most Americans don’t want.
The goal of this government isn’t difficult to discern: It wants—actually demands, in too many cases—individuals to have an ever-increasing reliance upon its services to survive. A society that’s coerced to comply is no longer free. This individual welfare, coupled with increasing corporate welfare, diminishes us all and makes prosperity for the nation an elusive dream.
Self-reliance and freedom are inseparable and sustaining concepts. It’s what differentiated America from the rest of the world. It’s what made us an exceptional nation. According to the Census Bureau, more than 108 million people were enrolled in at least one means-tested welfare program at the end of 2011. Conversely in 2011, there were only 101 million people working full time.
What does that mean for the future of our country? How long can we go on when there are more takers than givers? Every day, each week, all year long, those who work support, through their taxes, more than half the country, who receive some form of government of subsistence. As the Treasury continues to print more money each month to prop up the economy, how great can the deficit grow before the country collapses under its weight? Government dependency isn’t liberating, it’s destructive. It’s fundamentally transforming our way of life.
The nation’s economic recovery is the worst in the past 70 years. We’ve been reaping the fruits of policies that perpetuate stagnation instead of growth. The government’s challenge shouldn’t be taking over a health care system or concentrating on nanny-state and income redistribution fantasies, but rather on instituting policies that promote rapid economic growth. The key to the prosperity of the ’80s and ’90s were reductions in taxes and regulations that created a climate conducive to job creation, reducing unemployment and expanding the tax base.
I’ll close by paraphrasing a thought I recently heard repeated by a local business owner: China is sending its first probe to the moon—as Congress is debating an increase in food stamps.
That’s it for now. Enjoy this month’s magazine.
