To be successful, a business must efficiently employ its capital in order to generate a return on investment for its stockholders. To responsibly manage, it must operate within a budget that monitors sales objectives while keeping costs under control. Governments also require an operating plan, i.e., a budget in order to assure taxpayers their money is not wasted or improperly invested
Let's examine a few cases where capital has been "invested" by the federal government. There's the $831 billion stimulus package. Result: Job growth stifled. Guaranteeing a $535 million loan to Solyndra shortly before the company failed. The government had to pay it back. Huge investment in the Chevy Volt, the car nobody is buying, even with a $7,500 subsidy. And there are many more. Meanwhile, no budget has been passed. The national debt has soared from $10.024 trillion in 2008 to $15.039 trillion in 2011, a whopping $5 trillion (50 percent) increase. While ignoring the debt crisis, the president is blaming his predecessor, doctors, oil and insurance companies, anyone but political contributors.
Then there is "Obamacare," a convoluted partisan bill that attempts to show savings while measuring eight years of services against 10 years of taxes. It is so burdened with mandates that it extended waivers to political friends, shielding them from the law they just passed. To think the federal government could manage the health care industry or any other segment of the economy better than competing private industries is ignoring political history.
Regardless of how you perceive capitalism, socialism or any other ism, you can vote to have your capital allocated to inefficient, wasteful spending which causes inflation and a stagnant economy. Or you can vote to have your capital allocated to free market principles that encourage creativity and develop real jobs producing products the market demands.
Ed Nye,
Upper Sandusky
