HollandeDazed<\/b><\/p>\n
Last July we wrote a squib titled \u201cSeven New Reasons Not to Create Jobs in France\u201d that ticked off seven tax hikes passed by Socialist Prime Minister Francois Holland and then offered:<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Prediction: <\/b>The tax hikes will not generate the expected revenue because job creators will decamp to more capitalistic climes (Switzerland, the UK, the US and Canada). \u00a0Economic growth in France will be even slower than expected and the budget deficit larger. \u00a0Most of these tax hikes reduce the return on investment, so fewer investments will be made in France and fewer jobs will be created.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has all come to pass, leaving HollandeDazed and confused.\u00a0 The courts have thrown out some of his tax hikes.\u00a0 Incensed entrepreneurs have manned the barricades.\u00a0 Economic growth is near zero.\u00a0 The government\u2019s popularity has plummeted.\u00a0 \u201cThe chief political threat facing the government,\u201d avers The Financial Times<\/b>, \u201cis unemployment, which has risen abruptly to more than 10 percent of the workforce.\u201d \u00a0One thing we did get wrong is that, to protect his take-home pay, the truly immense French cinematic talent Gerard Depardieu did not decamp to Switzerland, the UK, the US or Canada, but rather to Russia, which has a low marginal tax rate.<\/p>\n
O-Poverty<\/b><\/p>\n
Unfortunately socialism does not work better in the U.S. than in\u00a0France.\u00a0 Four years of \u201cspreading the wealth\u201d have made America\u2019s poor poorer, along with just about everyone else except federal bureaucrats and the lawyers who fight them:<\/p>\n
The Anti-Poverty Party<\/strong><\/p>\n These lamentable trends are not about to improve measurably.\u00a0 A two percentage point hike in the payroll tax in 2013 will cut take-home pay.\u00a0 Tax hikes on entrepreneurs, imminent Federal spending cuts, and implementation of Obamacare, Dodd Frank, and other regulations will inhibit job creation. So next September, when the Census Bureau publishes its annual study of poverty and household income, we will likely learn that the 2012 poverty rate was 15% for the third year in a row, even though we are supposedly in an economic recovery.\u00a0 Between 1966 and 2009 the poverty rate was that high in only three years, 1982, 1983, and 1993\u2014all recession or post-recession years.<\/p>\n Against this dismal economic backdrop, how should the Republican Party position itself?\u00a0 In a nutshell, as the anti-poverty, pro-prosperity party.\u00a0 That is a two-step process:<\/p>\n Make Republicans the anti-poverty Party in favor of growth and prosperity \u2013 not just the austerity party that wants to cut Federal spending<\/strong>, though that is important too.<\/p>\n Copyright Thomas Doerflinger 2013.\u00a0 All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HollandeDazed Last July we wrote a squib titled \u201cSeven New Reasons Not to Create Jobs in France\u201d that ticked off seven tax hikes passed by Socialist Prime Minister Francois Holland and then offered: \u201cOur Prediction: The tax hikes will not … Continue reading \n