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Show 7 S3 CAPITOL ffrfijaff WATCHDOG V J By Bill Hendrix Take a second look at 'free enterprise' ine "free enterprise system" has been taking in on the chin lately. It seems that everything that is wrong with the economy is a direct result of abuse or "over protection" of the system. At trip heart of free enterprise is the businessman, the entrepreneur, who takes the risk, hires the workers, pays the bills, fills out the government paperwork, and markets his goods. Without warning, the government may arbitrarily tax goods, lift import quotas, declare operations unsafe, unhealthy, or unwise, all ot which could stop a business immediately. When business complains the standard stan-dard answer is, "those are the breaks," or "you win some you lose some," or "better luck next time," or "surely you saw this coming." If a product is popular, there is a good chance government will tax it to derive revenue. If, through hard work and ingenuity the business is successful it surely will be regulated. It seems there is something suspicious these days about success. There is, however, a change becoming visible in "middle America." For the first time in recent history people are aware of the inescapable tact that they are directly linked economically to the free enterprise system; that when business is good they prosper, and when the economy is in recession they lose their jobs and " buying power to inflation. They are learning that when the price of beef goes up, or the prime interest rate moves higher, or tuition fees increase and the cost of living escalates, their standard of living goes down. At a recent Harvard Business School Club dinner, Jack Valenti, a former White House aide during the Great Society period of President Johnson said. "In my judgement the largest asset of America is the very one that is so easily squandered. It is the enterprising en-terprising entrepreneur, the risk taker, the competitive antagonist, the builder of plants and factories, the creator of new enterprises and the expander of old ones, the people that make better mousetraps, cheaper and faster. If our economy is not strong we will have neither the zest nor the vitality for other adventures, however useful and attractive they may be." It was the Great Society, you may recall, which identified some of those ambitious, often impractical adventures ad-ventures we are still paying for. It is free enterprise that employs the productive percentage of our workforce. work-force. It is free enterprise that pays for the social and economic changes the nation must have. In short, it is Iree enterprise that pays the freight for all of us, government and citizen alike. It is time to take a second look at the unnecessary social programs, the bureaucratic restrictions. the unnealihy negative attitudes which are destroying those businesses which, in reality constitute the hand that feeds us. |