Franchising Corruption

The recent article, Ten Myths about Budget Deficits and Debt, by Brian M. Riedl, The Heritage Foundation, balances the economic causes, effects and conditions that America faces.

Anyone interested in cutting through the political mudslinging in this election cycle will be well served spending fifteen to twenty minutes reading this non-partisan review which places the numbers in context. The complete article with graphs and sources can be found at www.Heritage.org.

The article doesn’t address the pessimism documented in the national polls; nor was it intended to do so. It calculates the economic health of the nation in objective dollar terms. Mr. Riedl’s calculations are cerebral and honest. He doesn’t play with statistics.

Mr. Riedl, an economic wonk, concludes the country is doing okay, but he doesn’t consider the human condition in his analysis. There is no sympathy or empathy in numbers. He leaves these morsels to the pandering politicians and internet scribes.

By definition the country is not in a recession. That’s hard to believe, but technically true. Productivity and the GDP are up because the US economy is entwined with the global market.

It’s wonderful that the workers in China and Indonesia are doing more with less. This improves the profit margins of the US corporations that have abandoned American workers. Of course, their investors are happy and the annual bonuses of executives will be bountiful.

Once proud American corporations are now foreign employment franchises. To maintain the pretense of being American, most of these companies keep their headquarters stateside. Their stocks trade on US exchanges and their annual reports are still available in English.

The Reagan Administration opened the doors to illegal immigration by handling the issue benignly. Granting a “one time” amnesty all but franchised illegal immigration. It looked like a blank check to the fifteen million illegal aliens that have since swept across our open borders.

This unintended consequence provides at least fifteen million people, ready to accept sub-standard wages. Now throw in millions of underpaid HB-1, educated workers to displace Americans who demand a decent wage and presto, profits soar.

In his book, Lion in the White House, the author, Aida D. Donald, quotes Theodore Roosevelt, then a Manhattan State Assemblyman, about the owner of New York City’s elevated railway, Jay Gould. Roosevelt said that Jay and his partners “belong to that most dangerous of all classes, the wealthy criminal class."

This seems to capture the essence of today's meltdown of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The only goal of their executives was the rapid accumulation of personal wealth. They disregarded the well-being of the companies, the employees, the stockholders, and, most importantly, the nation.

Senator Obama recognizes the problem. His solution: Raise taxes on these robber barons and automatically distribute the revenues to the victims. Rather than eliminating the core problem, his solution franchises it. Obama’s plan legitimates Congressional corruption.

The fraud in Washington, DC won’t end until national revenues are off limits to business. As boring as Senator McCain is, if he cleans government of the lobbyists and the legislation (earmarks and subsidies) that their clients are buying, he will restore confidence in government.