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In a FoxNews opinion piece today, Paul Ryan offers three types of uncertainty that Obama has injected into our economy, which is hobbling our recovery:
1. Regulatory uncertainty: After the stimulus passed, the president turned his attention immediately to costly overhauls of the nation’s financial and health-care sectors. These overhauls needlessly transferred more control over America’s economy to government bureaucrats in Washington, without fixing the problems they were intended to address. The transfer of so much power to the arbitrary dictates of federal regulators has made it hard for businesses to plan for the future with confidence, and things will remain this way until these laws are replaced with real reforms.
2. Tax uncertainty: The president’s ad hoc tax policies, with a mix of tax hikes on job creators and temporary rebates for others being the hallmarks of his approach, have left businesses in the lurch. Moreover, the president’s new health care law imposes a crushing $800 billion tax hike, and he continues to threaten businesses and families with higher rates in the future, even as he dithers on his vague promise to address America’s uncompetitive corporate tax rate, which is the highest in the developed world.
3. Debt uncertainty: The president has not put forward a plan that saves Medicare from bankruptcy, even though nonpartisan experts tell us that this could happen in 9-13 short years unless we act. Each year that we fail to put our critical government health and retirement programs on a path to long-term solvency, we are making trillions of dollars of unfunded promises to future retirees. We are already borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend, and Washington’s inability to solve its spending problems is leading rating agencies such as Standard & Poors to downgrade our credit outlook. Government under this administration is failing at its number-one economic job, which is to create a stable, predictable environment for job creators.
Ryan's right to hone in on uncertainty. Republicans have been talking about uncertainty for awhile in the context of our current regulatory environment which is holding up investment. But they should follow Ryan's example by broadening out the concept and then make persistent reference to uncertainty when talking about Obama. The President should have the word hanging from his person with all the stickiness of, say, RomneyCare's velcro-like hold on Mitt Romney's person.
Related, Irwin Stelzer's weekend Weekly Standard column highlighted the troubles that uncertainty creates.
And John Sununu highlights the problem in his Boston Globe column today on the Dodd-Frank financial law.
As we read in The Sunday Times recently business the USA have £2 trillion in cash in the bank.Also killing off the federal corporate income tax would according to what I heard on Fox News lately bring tens of millions of jobs to the USA.
What we need in the US is a plan to kill off Obamacare,to slash the federal payroll year on year for six years and to reform entitlements & healthcare.Whole government departments such as education,labour & agriculture should die.Many federal functions should go to the state level with no federal funding so if the states want it then they must fund it.Federal mandates need to be scrapped.Procurement needs to be more efficient too.All regulations introduced since January 2008 get an automatic sunset clause meaning that they expire as of January 2013 unless renewed by Congress.All new rules die after a year unless renewed by Congress and small business can opt out of a huge number of federal regulations which could be watered down for big business.For every new rule brought two must die and all federal agencies & departments get the money spent on regulating business as a fixed item of spending to be cut year on year.
Corporate income tax,death tax,dividend taxes & capital gains tax get phased out over six years.Federal oversight needs paring back too.Most personal income tax breaks need to die and Sales Tax could rise.This along with some money from cutting federal spending could pay for reducing personal income taxes so the first $20,000 p/a is free from tax (or $40,000 p/a for married couples),with incomes of between £20,000 p/a & $200,000 taxed taxed at 15%(or between $40,000 p/a & $400,000 p/a for married couples) taxed at 15% and incomes exceeding $200,000 p/a (or $400,000 p/a for married couples ) taxed at 25%.That could be phased in over six years in which time the budget will be balanced.
These tax cuts would send investment surging and with it higher productivity and thus more revenue.Less tax dodging due to lower & simpler taxes would boost revenue too.
We need to see revenue rise and federal spending fall to foster job growth & deficit reduction.Surely these ideas can only be better than the Obama inspired fiasco that we have now ? They mean certainty & stability as well as a sound conservative direction of travel.
Posted by: Matthew Reynolds | June 13, 2011 at 04:31 PM