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Show The Birch Log , T - i Solving Unemployment by John F. McManus Belmont, Massachusetts Unemployment Un-employment in America will be a campaign issue in 1976 not only in the presidential sweepstakes, sweep-stakes, but in Congressional races as well. For once, however, we are being given a real choice between a "business as usual," socialistic dead end and a workable work-able free enterprise answer. The Humphrey-Hawkins Bill The Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act proposes to spend somewhere between $9 billion and $28 billion per year in order to hire hundreds of thousands thou-sands of Americans for "make-work" "make-work" projects that are neither needed nor wanted. The additional addi-tional taxation, inflation, and control over productive America for such a staggering boondoggle could very well kill the free enterprise en-terprise system once and for all. Senator Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.), (R.-N.C.), who opposes the measure, has called attention to its proponents' pro-ponents' claim that this Bill will lead to the hiring of unemployed persons who have been priced out of the job market 'by minimum mini-mum wage laws. Remember what a boon to mankind the minimum wage laws were supposed sup-posed to be? Such laws are now widely known to have added millions mil-lions to the ranks of the unemployed. unem-ployed. Yet, as might have been expected, those who want government gov-ernment to solve every problem now suggest another federal scheme to rescue the victims of an earlier miserable failure. What ought to be known (and undoubtedly is known by some dedicated enemies of freedom) is that too much government causes or aggravates problems like unemployment in the first place, and that more government govern-ment is just the opposite of what is needed. For instance, additional addi-tional unemployment has resulted re-sulted from excessive corporate taxation, which confiscates business profits profits that would have been used for job-creating job-creating expansion and diversification. diversi-fication. More unemployment has developed because of gov-r gov-r emment-caused inflation, which . not only hurts the businessman, but also wipes out private savings sav-ings and investments both foundations of any healthy economy. Additional joblessness results from what Representa- " . tive Jack Kemp (R.-N.Y.) calls "a tax structure which is heavily biased against investment and production." In the face of all this, the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill offers an Alice-in-Wonderland scheme to "create jobs," an absurdity of the highest order. What this Bill actually would do is create more printing-press dollars (inflation), stifle real business growth, and lead to total control over everyone every-one and everything. The Kemp-McClure Bill Instead of the worn-out socialistic so-cialistic way, Representative Kemp and Senate colleague James McClure (R.-Idaho) have offered the Jobs Creation Act, a free enterprise alternative if ever there was one. Designed to stimulate business activity and a need for more employees, this Act calls for easing corporate taxes via credits, reduction, and additional exemptions. It aims at increasing productivity by lessening les-sening government. And it also carries a provision that would encourage saving at the individual individ-ual level. The Jobs Creation Act has already attracted 124 co-sponsors in the Congress. Its proponents propo-nents insist that it will lead to seven million permanent jobs, add $150 billion to the nation's Gross National Product, and even result in $5 billion in addi tional tax revenue at the federal level all in the first year, and all without adding any new burden bur-den to the overtaxed and over-controlled over-controlled businessman. These are the kinds of positive posi-tive results that have always been available when the route of less government is chosen. When candidates ask for your vote this fall, you should ask them to choose either the free enterprise way of the Kemp-McClure Bill, or the socialist way of the. Humphrey-Hawkins Bill. Their choice will help you make your choice. 1976 The John Birch Society Feature) FOR INFORMATION CONCERNING THE BIRCH LOG, CALL: BILL REAGAN 586-6226 : ... |