Small Businesses
I could hardly keep my coffee down while reading the moronic words of Veronique de Rugy, research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. (They Say, Jan. 23).
I do agree with her that low tax rates, low levels of regulation and a stable legal structure with protected property rights are good things.
But that basket sanity doesn’t excuse her bushel of idiocy.
First, she refutes the claims that small businesses create 60% to 80% of jobs every year, invoking “analytical and statistical fallacies.” But to what fallacies is she referring?
Her illogic amazes me: Only “innovative, risk-taking” companies such as Apple or Amazon.com, “which tend to start small,” are the chief drivers of the economy. Duh!
She complains government favors small business.
Hmm? Do we favor our young with programs such as Head Start, so they can have the smarts to ensure our nation leads in the business world?
I think if you ask any small-business owner, whether they sell flowers or make muffins, they all have dreams to be huge. Actually, preferential policies seem to favor big business and not the small.
The statistics from Washington have been accurate and disprove almost everything she claims.
Barry M. Gold
(Gold, of Irvine, is a small- business owner and District IX chair of the Small Business Administration’s Office of the National Ombudsman.)
Republicans
You know Republicans have been in office too long when you get e-mails like this: “You must be a Democrat because you believe businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity, and, you think guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology in the hands of communists.”
As far as I am concerned, both attacks are wrong.
In some ways, GOP strategists need voters to believe that Democrats have some strange, incurable disease.
My fiftysomething, baby boomer contemporaries think nothing of painting Democrats as drunken spenders.
That tattered phrase still may appeal to some true-blue believers; but the fact is my party hasn’t controlled the federal checkbook in years. War or no war, President Bush and the GOP majority on Capitol Hill have.
They are the ones writing all the checks these days.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, one of the principal architects of his party’s “Contract with America,” has begun speaking out about the Abramoff lobbying scandal and its implications for the GOP.
As a possible presidential candidate in 2008, Republican Gingrich should be congratulated for his candor.
He not only is willing to expose the ugly underbelly of Capitol Hill powerbrokers, he clearly hit the nail on the head when he told reporters, “You can’t have a corrupt lobbyist without a corrupt member or a corrupt staffer on the other end.”
I don’t mind getting e-mails that take political liberties. In some ways, I look forward to receiving them.
What I do object to is the Republicans’ eagerness to spread their gospel without looking in the mirror first.
If they did, I’m sure many would admit that their chief bogeyman, Bill Clinton, was right when he said, “If you want to live like a Republican, then vote Democratic.”
Denny Freidenrich
First Strategies
Laguna Beach
