“Economic patriotism”

By Tom Quiner

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The Obama years have produced a whole new dynamic when it comes to the way we view the economy.

Team Obama sees two economies that compete with each other: the public economy vs. the private economy.

The public economy, which is funded by taxpayers, has historically been viewed as the servant of the private economy. No longer.

The president makes it clear to entrepreneurs, innovators, and small business owners that they “did not build” their businesses or invent their inventions by themselves. They need to give equal credit to the public economy.

The patent office deserves just as much credit as Edison for inventing the light bulb, goes the thinking.

As Mr. Obama tends to do, he pits groups against each other, in this case, the producers against the bureaucrats. He makes it clear his desire to redistribute resources from those who earned it in the private economy to the public economy, which votes largely for his party. As Obama said to Joe the Plumber, he wants to”spread the wealth around” as long as it runs through the public economy over which he yields great influence.

The Obama viewpoint embraces the moral efficacy of government at the same time it disparages the greed and callousness of the private economy.

The public economy: good.

The private economy: bad.

The latest result of Obamanomics goes by the fancy name of “tax inversions.” What that simply means is a company domiciled in the U.S., say Burger King, gets fed up paying the highest corporate income tax in the world (see chart above) so they buy a Canadian company, let’s say it’s Tim Hortons, and move their domicile to Canada with their 15 percent corporate income tax rate.

You do the math: 15% Canadian tax vs. 35% U.S. tax.

The Obama government is enraged, suggesting that companies fleeing our oppressive tax climate lack “economic patriotism.”

The proper response should be: “Gee, maybe we should cut tax rates and government spending and live within our means.”

But that would suggest that Team Obama cares about the private economy.

They don’t.

The public economy is everything to this greedy band of socialists.

4 Comments

  1. oarubio on August 26, 2014 at 10:01 pm

    Odd, this same group denigrates true patriotism.



    • quinersdiner on August 27, 2014 at 9:54 am

      It is odd, just as it is odd that they are zealous advocates of government regulation in everything … except human abortion.



  2. justturnright on August 28, 2014 at 5:47 am

    Reblogged this on Two Heads are Better Than One and commented:
    This whole ridiculous furor over Burger King (or ANY company which is merely trying to survive right now) is a classic example of ignoring the message and “shooting the messenger”….



    • quinersdiner on August 28, 2014 at 6:24 am

      Seems that way to me.