Lost in the Democrats’ lock-step opposition to any tax cuts for individuals, and especially corporations, is the fact that free-market capitalism is a far more virtuous and moral system than government. The leftist narrative (which presupposes the evils of capitalism and capitalists in order to sell their statist/socialist agenda), is that government knows better what to do with your money than you do.
The facts are clear: Free-market capitalism has done far more to improve the lot of mankind wherever it is allowed to flourish. Until this tax bill passed, the U.S. taxed that virtue at the highest levels in the industrialized world. Now we are about the same.
To see the abundance that our historically free enterprise system has bestowed on us, compare the U.S. to the rest of the world. Travel to any third-world country with a strong central government and a stranglehold on business, and witness the poverty, crime and misery spawned in places like Venezuela, North Korea and Cuba.
Virtue is also reflected in that businessmen have to resign when faced with sexual harassment allegations; politicians just use taxpayer money or campaign funds to quietly pay off accusers and keep their positions.
With this trend, 2018 will prove to be the hardest year ever to sleep your way to the top. Even prostitutes are more valuable in society than politicians; no one would walk up four flights of stairs at 1 a.m. to visit a politician.
Trump had to disband his White House Business Council after CEOs ran scared and began quitting over his Charlottesville/Confederate monuments stand. Even the head of Kentucky Fried Chicken’s parent company distanced himself from Trump. With his KFC business, that CEO must live in fear that the Confederate monument protestors will be all over him if they ever connect the dots on Colonel Sanders.
Given what we taxpayers have done for corporations, I ask corporations to do this for us in 2018:
1. The government-controlled airline industry has to price its product reasonably. Because they are given monopoly routes, an Atlanta to Memphis flight costs $850, while a flight to Dallas (where Southwest competes) is $225. And treat customers better. If we have to change our flight, do not double our fare that day if you have open seats. Also, quit nickel and diming us on fees. The United Airlines passenger who was beaten and dragged off his plane feels just about how we all do. On the bright side, United did refund him his $25 Passenger Removal Fee.
2. Fast food places, start rounding up to a nickel on purchases. We do not want to be handed pennies or a receipt when we buy something from you. Wendy’s, do not hand me a receipt. It is like saying, “Here, you throw this away.” I am just buying a Frosty; there’s no need to bring paperwork into it.
3. Target or any online retailer, when we buy something, do not hound us with your emails. I just ordered some socks from you to be delivered; that does not make us pen pals. These companies make opting out of their email database harder than solving a Rubik’s Cube — just to stop emails.
4. Shampoo and conditioner makers, make the labels on your damn bottles clearer. You have us in a very vulnerable state, in the shower with no eyeglasses on. Do not always write “shampoo” and “conditioner” on your bottles so small that you know we will waste your product and use more of it. You know what you are doing. Stop.
5. Printer ink makers, we are on to you too. Stop selling us $38 printers with ink refills that only you sell and which cost $75 a pop.
6. Coffee makers and Heat/Air control manufacturers, stop making them so complicated that we need an engineering degree for a simple on and off.
7. And fried chicken restaurants like Chick-fil-A, quit portraying as healthy the “chicken” you sell in commercials where cows say it is healthier than red meat. Fried chicken has killed more Southerners than the Union Army, the lottery and three-wheeler ATVs combined.
Those are the main areas in which businesses continue to play games with us, but they are a tiny fraction of the games government pulls on us each day. And oh, yeah, businesses — we are tired of your Black Friday sales. They seem racist; we know that “all sales matter.”
