Corporations can buy unfair favors from government…because government has unfair favors to sell.
Big Government is the problem.
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Tag: corporation
Oregonians have quite a few ballot measures this year.
And only one of them seems obviously nutty: Measure 97.
It would raise taxes on the very biggest of companies. The richest — that is, those with $25 million in sales.
Among the reasons given for this excise hike, which is estimated to be the biggest in the state’s history, are a whole bunch of “ooh, look at what we can do with all that loot!” enticements. Yes, and then there is the tried-and-untrue staple of the left, the “make large and out-of-state corporations pay their fair share in taxes” ploy.
Admittedly, trying to get out-of-state entities to pay for your benefits is classic. What “Let somebody else pay” lacks in nobility and morality it makes up for in avarice’s perennial appeal.
But the practical problem? A tax hike is just a bid on a future expropriation. Tax targets can, in effect, counter-offer by moving, or threatening to move, out of taxing territory.
Imagine yourself a thief. Then imagine first announcing to your victims where, when and how much you intend to take.
Right now Oregon sports the tenth best business environment in the country and, maybe, the lowest business taxes*. Raise taxes to the “middle of the pack” and businesses begin to look at states with lower rates.
Objectionable? Doesn’t matter. Folks go into business to make profits, not pay taxes.
Against this reality? Measure 97’s many bigwig supporters: the progressive Democratic governor, Democratic legislators and big-spending public employee unions eager to expand their bottom lines.
But by seeking to maximize near-term tax rates, these greedy special interests risk losing revenue further off, after businesses flee the state.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* The Oregon Center for Public Policy ranks Oregon as tied with Connecticut for the lowest in the nation.
Building a mega-state to fight corporate power…
…is like giving yourself AIDS to fight the flu.
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On the video page featuring Mitt Romney’s notorious “corporations are people” comment — the one I clicked to, anyway — every comment was negative, with jokes like “Did you hear that S&P downgraded the Tea Party credit grade to KK+?” and economically illiterate whoppers like “Corporations do not help anyone except those who own them or do what they say.” It’s saddening to see ignorance and bigotry so self-righteously maintained by everyday Americans.
Yes, bigotry.
For Romney was right: Corporations are made of people. Those who roil with hatred for corporations, singling them out for more regulation or greater taxation, are attacking actual living, breathing people, who, as Milton Friedman pointed out, are made up of three classes of just plain folks: the owners, the shareholders, who are people; the corporation’s hired workers and managers, who are people; and served customers, that is, people who have chosen, sans duress, to buy stuff from the corporations.
Economist Steven Horwitz, writing in the Buffalo News, cited one study that estimated that “45 percent to 75 percent of the burden of a corporate tax increase is borne by workers,” and noted that, if profits fall, fewer dividends would go to stockholders.
And “stockholders” are often nothing other than workers’ retirement funds.
Yeah, soak the older people. That should make corporation-haters feel good.
Setting aside “some other people” to hate is exactly what anti-corporatists are doing. It’s bigotry. And it’s ugly … and de-humanizing.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.