Obama and the Death of Capitalism

Obama and the Death of Capitalism, Taxes, Regulations, Lawsuits This administration has been exceedingly heavy-handed in its efforts to demonize businesses, while promising that businesses will be highly taxed and regulated. Whether it is labor regulation by the NRLB or environmental regulation by the EPA, government interference is overreaching and restrictive. Obama has provided the background for a litigation-friendly environment Additionally there have been huge increases in both criminal rules and regulations about what businesses are allowed and not allowed to do — from nitpicky labor rules to dictating employee minutiae to minimum wage requirements which restrict business hiring. More importantly, Obama has provided the background for a litigation-friendly environment. If a larger, more financially stable company wants to steal something from a smaller company, they can sue them or just threaten with a costly legal battle. Or, if labor doesn’t like them, they can force them to shut them down as an alternative to litigation. Obama: “You didn’t build that” Finally, Obama has taken the stuffing out of entrepreneurship by telling people “you didn’t build that” — meaning it’s not yours and it belongs to everyone else. He delivered the further blows that if you are successful, we’re going to take your success away from you by taxing you to death with higher rates and surtaxes. Of course, there will be some successes. It just now takes a higher level of skill, ideas, and money to exercise your entrepreneurial spirit. It’s not like there won’t be the Jeffrey Bezo or the Bill Gates or the Steve Jobs. They’ll still come through everything despite the immense impediments. The problem is that it is the middle entrepreneurs who will have a hard time getting started, and even when they do, they will likely get discouraged in the mess. But it is this middle group, the bread-and-butter of small businesses, that have made this country great. That future is threatened, as we are seeing now in subtle shifts within the realm of business making. The future of this country will continue to decline if the anti-business sentiment that Obama has unleashed is allowed to continue. The middle entrepreneurs, the mom-and-pops, the family businesses are the ones that make up the difference between the very tepid growth that we are seeing and the strong growth and recovery that could be better—that we would be experiencing right now as we have in the past—if businesses actually had better opportunity. Businesses go into business not to comply with government dictates, but to provide a product, a service, to make things. The very liberty for Americans to have the opportunity to succeed and fail, to take risk, to survive, and to thrive is under siege.