Strict Construction » Bailout http://www.strictconstruction.org The Founders meant what they said! Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:15:48 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 The Rape of Small Business http://www.strictconstruction.org/the-rape-of-small-business/ http://www.strictconstruction.org/the-rape-of-small-business/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:22:50 +0000 Ken Cluck http://www.strictconstruction.org/?p=374 Government bailouts to rescue failing companies who made bad choices has reached record proportions. I have spoken on the constitutional issue of this—there being no constitutional grounds for such bailouts. Few people are considering the moral issue. I know many believe that keeping these companies afloat, bailing out GM, intervention in Chrysler and the money poured into the financial industry are keeping people employed and therefore moral actions. Actually they are theft.

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According to the Small Business Administration small businesses (those with under 500 employees) make up 99.7% of American businesses. These people work hard, invest in their business and try to make solid business decisions. One cot that is beyond their control is taxes. When the government taxes them through corporate taxes, fees, payroll taxes, mandatory contributions or any number of other routes they must pay those increased costs somehow. These bailouts are being paid for by people who have done things right, made bad choices and sacrificed. This is theft, plain and simple.

With the taxes on competing companies and their suppliers then the immorality of these bailouts is even more obvious. Ford Motor Company, her employees and her suppliers are paying to bailout the competition. Imagine owning a company and being forced to keep your competition in business.

A free market requires competition. When the government jumps in to help one business or industry it muddies the water and our nation loses the one factor that has made it so great—freedom to compete, to seek a profit and even the freedom to fail. Subsidies for bad business choices and out of control unions will not bring prosperity.

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]]> http://www.strictconstruction.org/the-rape-of-small-business/feed/ 0 Government Motors http://www.strictconstruction.org/government-motors/ http://www.strictconstruction.org/government-motors/#comments Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:28:10 +0000 Ken Cluck http://www.strictconstruction.org/?p=370 It is official, General Motors has declared bankruptcy and when restructured the US government will own 60% of the company. Of course General Motors and Barack Obama are defending this saying that it makes a GM vehicle a better choice because your warranty will be backed by the US government. One thing not being brought out is the constitutional ground for such an unprecedented action. There is nothing in the Constitution that permits the US government to invest in any business in this way. Think about it, the largest American auto maker is largely government owned.

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The Constitution limits the US government to certain powers and forbids all other actions. If the American people in framing and ratifying the Constitution did not choose to empower the federal government to choose which businesses fail and which ones are saved then this is an illegal act.

Many will wonder what alternatives were possible. If a company makes bad choices then let it fail. When the employees, through their unions, make business unprofitable for the company they deserve to experience the unemployment line. What the government subsidizes you get more of. So long as the government intervenes to remove the pain from bad decision you will get more such decisions.

Every American who loves the Constitution should pass by the General Motors lot and shop elsewhere.

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