President Obama’s biggest push in this down economic climate appears to be punishing the “evil”, “greedy” corporations who caused this mess (a claim that is dubious at best). He wants to be the next FDR, a champion of the little-man, a champion of those who are poor. That is well and good, it is extremely important that we as a society take care of those less-fortunate than I. But increasing the tax burden on corporations and the wealthy, while claiming to cut taxes for those don’t actually pay taxes is not the way to do it. Among the most basic principles of fiscal economics is that raising taxes stifles business growth, at least in a competitive world – which we reside in. If one pushes and pushes, they will eventually push business out. Thus, losing jobs in America.
In today’s economic climate this is the last thing we need. We need to create jobs, not lose them. But Barack, in continuing to support disasterous policy after disasterous policy, is starting to further lose them. His refusal to cut the corporate tax rate to be more competitive with other countries may now be driving some industries out of the country:
A wave of energy companies has in the last few months announced plans to move to Switzerland — mainly for its appeal as a low-tax corporate domicile that looks relatively likely to stay out of reach of Barack Obama‘s tax-seeking administration…
Over the past six months companies including offshore drilling contractors Noble Corp and Transocean, energy-focused engineering group Foster Wheeler and oilfield services company Weatherfield International have all announced plans to shift domicile to Switzerland.
“Switzerland has a stable and developed tax regime and a network of tax treaties with most countries where we operate,” Transocean Chief Executive Bob Long said in a statement in October, when it announced its move. “As a result, the redomestication will improve our ability to maintain a competitive worldwide effective corporate tax rate.”
“One trend that we see is that particularly Bermuda-based companies are now moving to Switzerland,” said Martin Frey, a partner at law company Baker & McKenzie. “That may only partly be obviously for tax reasons, but also for security reasons and the fact that the Obama administration may go after them.”
There is a reason that various states and foreign governments lower their corporate tax structure: to lure business. This is no secret, yet President Obama seems so bent on “punishing” corporations (most of which are ethical, productive, and valuable to our culture and society) that he completely disregards the economic consequences and, thus, the long-term health of our country; not to mention the long-term negative impact to the people in our country that he says he is most concerned about.
My Dry Fly 