Cinnaman

Don't They Get Tired Slurring Employers?

The history books say the Nazis had an excellent propaganda machine. Telling "The Big Lie" over and over again, so many times that the masses eventually believed it.

I wonder what the history books will say about the de facto propaganda machine of the liberal media and its mounting effort to incite class warfare.

Sometimes an article is so outrageous in its shallow appeal to the emotions that it must be countered. Such is the case with a column in today’s St. Petersburg Times, entitled “The Republicans Millionaire Relief Act,” by Robyn Blumner.

Here is where you can find it
http://sptimes.com/2005/12/04/Columns/The_Republicans__mill.shtml

And here is the Cinnaman response:

Dear Robyn:

As one who spent 20 years as a reporter and columnist in a “first career” with Philadelphia daily newspapers, I commend your ability to move words around and build an argument against the rich and for the poor. I can only wonder how much more intellectually competent your column would have been had you even the most rudimentary understanding of economics and the capitalistic underpinnings of the United States of America.

I quote a recent Wall Street Journal article by former Commerce Secretary Don Evans:

“Nearly 60 percent of those paying capital gains taxes earn less than $50,000 a year, and 85 percent of capital gains taxpayers earn less than $100,000, according to Congress' Joint Economic Committee.”

(Find that article here http://www.financialservicesforum.org/04_press_view.cfm?article_level1_category_id=2&article_level1_id=191 )

My second career involved building, with a newspaper editor partner, a small publishing business from scratch. We struggled mightily, put our homes on the line, had sleepless nights over making payroll, did all the gut-tearing stuff that hundreds of thousands of small business people do daily in America.

Upon selling my portion of the business after some years of success, I paid more money than I had ever seen in taxes -- 20 percent capital gains and 7 percent state income tax. It surely was less than you would have had me pay, but it was a ton in my book

Soon after, I began an Internet business that pumped more than $100,000 into the pockets of writers, editors, web companies and others.

The dot.com bubble busted months later and the venture went south. That’s okay. I took the risk and sometimes the risk does not lead to reward.

But the U.S. economy took in $100,000 of my money because that’s the way it works here. Entrepreneurs take risks. They start businesses and hire employees whose wages are added to the equation and we all are healthier for it.

Would I have taken that risk if the capital gains bite had been 35 or 40 percent? Perhaps not.

These capital gains rates are not arbitrary figures you simply can hike up whenever the “let’s help the poor” emotions are stoked by demagogues exploiting the ignorance of media lapdogs. Lower the capital gains bar and more risk takers jump over to the active economy, bringing their money with them. Raise the bar and they sit tight on their assets.

Oh how easy it is to love the employee and hate the employer. I’ve been both and I can tell you, employer is harder. And riskier.

Your knee-jerk attack on the small business people of this country, the backbone of the economy, reminds me that reporters, as a group, have little understanding or respect for business. The fact is, I was part of that anti-business group until my newspaper folded and I found myself in a small business. It was fun, frightening and honorable.

Don’t you dare smear it.

posted by Lou Antosh @ 11:55 AM