As a business owner, I am all for lower taxes and smaller government. The lower our taxes are and the smaller the government is, the more opportunity there is for entrepreneurs to build businesses and keep the economy healthy.
Small businesses employ most of the people in the US. If government policies hurt small business, everyone is affected. If businesses are taxed so much that they stop employing people because they are not profitable, everyone loses.
Every decade (no matter which side is in office) our government gets bigger and Americans pay more taxes. Even John Kennedy’s (the Democrat’s Icon) fiscal policy was much more conservative than what George Bush (a modern Republican’s) fiscal policy was. Don’t take my word for it, you can listen to JFK’s 1961 address to the Economic Club of New York or read the transcript here. (it’s a long speech and he doesn’t get into the “Lower Taxes” part till the second half).
Here’s the key portion of JFK’s speech:
Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget — just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions, and any new recession would break all deficit records.
In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. The experience of a number of European countries and Japan have borne this out. This country’s own experience with tax reduction in 1954 has borne this out. And the reason is that only full employment can balance the budget, and tax reduction can pave the way to that employment. The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.
I repeat: our practical choice is not between a tax-cut deficit and a budgetary surplus. It is between two kinds of deficits: a chronic deficit of inertia, as the unwanted result of inadequate revenues and a restricted economy, or a temporary deficit of transition, resulting from a tax cut designed to boost the economy, increase tax revenues, and achieve, I believe — and I believe this can be done — a budget surplus. The first type of deficit is a sign of waste and weakness; the second reflects an investment in the future.
We’re sliding down a slippery slope that leads to less opportunity for everyone living in the Land of Opportunity.
Ronald Reagan was the last truly conservative (smaller government / lower taxes) president America had. If America wants to truly become a stronger, leaner Land of Opportunity we need conservative leaders like Ronald Reagan. WAY more conservative than even the current Republican party.
I’m a conservative - all the way through. My family immigrated from Argentina in 1968 with a willingness to take big risks in search of creating a better life in the Land of Opportunity.
If you want to learn more about conservative thinking read, Robert Ringer’s “Restoring the American Dream.” Another great book is Brian Tracy’s “Something for Nothing.”
Here are some great quotes from Ronald Reagan that touch on all this:
- Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.
- Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
- Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.
- Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.
- Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
- Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
- Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
- Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.
- Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
- Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.
- Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.
- How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
- I’ve often said there’s nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.
- If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.
- If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.
- Man is not free unless government is limited.
- No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!
- Peace is not the absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.
- People do not make wars; governments do.
- Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.
- Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.
- Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.
- Some people wonder all their lives if they’ve made a difference. The Marines don’t have that problem.
- Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.
- The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.
- The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.
- The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
- The taxpayer - that’s someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.
- There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.
- There are no easy answers’ but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.
- There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.
- They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong.
- Trust, but verify.
- We are never defeated unless we give up on God.
- We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.
- We have the duty to protect the life of an unborn child.
- We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
- We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.
- Welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.
- While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.
- Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.
- Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.