The Candidates' Economic Worlds

The debates going on over economic issues stem from, I believe, 2 opposite views of the world that I covered in my initial blog post.

What the "you didn't build it" debate highlights is one side promoting individualism and the other promoting community.

Yes, President Obama's words were taken way out of context. He clearly stated that success doesn't come in a vacuum, but it was taken as though the individual deserves no credit.

In the world of the individualists ("Buchannanism"), only the creativity and hard work by those who start business and make it succeed is what makes America exceptional.

Yet in every company I have worked for that has succeeded, their successes have, in Management's opinion, derived from the employees who have made significant contributions to their products and services.

So we need healthy entrepreneurship AND a healthy environment for those who work for our entrepreneurs. 

The moderates acknowledge the sacrifices of entrepreneurs, but say that they succeeded in an environment where our governments were a catalyst. Yes, there are regulations to keep everyone in line, but business success does not come in a vacuum. Our public schools, public roads, public transit, strong common currency, environmental protection, national security and defense, and - yes - health and retirement protection policies have established a place that keeps our country strong and our people protected.

The individualists fear that the country (government) is taking away entrepreneurship. The globalists fear that we may be going back too far to individualism.

I believe that if we make sure we frame our programs as working to solve a specific problem - and not get too tied down in the overall individualism versus community debate - we could make more progress.  

Let's take, for example, the debate concerning stimulus and infrastructure.

Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnel, John Boeher, and Eric Cantor fully support lots of government spending on America's infrastructure, as they know it will create thousands if not millions of jobs (though it will increase our debt).

The only thing is -  their infrastructure of choice is the military.

(And now with sequestration approaching, there is some fear that defense will take a big hit. I work in defense and I see it)

So there should be no argument about government needing to invest. The difference is - "in what"?

Another aspect of this debate about business versus government is being able to differentiate "entrepreneurship" from "capitalists" (people who do not produce anything, but simply use money to make money). Particularly when it comes to investment. Thom Hartman spoke to this recently. If I put my own money into my own business and it is successful, I should be rewarded. While it is nice to have outside investment, keep in mind that the investors are, like the Vegas crowd, speculating. They want the business to succeed, and may take part in some business decisions, but in the end their gratification not only comes from the business' success, but from their financial reward as a result of it.

When it comes to taxes, the individualists want to combine the entrepreneurs and the capitalists. They feel that both should pay lower taxes than workers.

I disagree.Those who directly create American jobs should get a break, but for the rest, income is income.

Keep in mind that investment in a company does not always result in American jobs. I have a separate post on this.

In conclusion, we cannot allow scare tactics of "government takeover" to frame the debate about what is best for our country. A lot of what we have done has worked but it needs to be tweaked to work better. To lower our debt AND foster business growth, we need to make sure that our government's investments in projects that will help us grow our infrastructure are properly financed, and we give some extra help to real entrepreneurs.

Thanks for reading.