The fact is that business is only run for one purpose, to make a profit as payment for risk taking, and this is accomplished through free exchange of goods or services by one party with another. Both parties believe they come out better or they wouldn’t complete the exchange. Importantly, business would not be started and grown if investors had little or no incentive to do so.

When government interferes with free market exchange through taxation and redistribution. There are unintended consequences, things that are seen and not seen.

While the current administration will spend the next four years demonizing “rich” people, it is government who gets to decide who is and who isn’t “rich.”

There are rich people in this country, and that’s a good thing, for it is they that create goods and services to make our lives better and more fulfilling.

As consumers, we are king and vote with our dollars every day whether their businesses stay in business and prosper. Rich people in turn respond by delivering what we want at a price we can afford.

Think about it: at one time only the very rich could afford a car; then mass production allowed for even those with moderate income to afford a car. The left-over used cars go to the “poor” or under-advantaged.

At one time only the rich could afford electric windows on their cars. Before long, everyone was clamoring for electric windows. Seen any hand-cranked windows lately?

So, the rich perform vital functions in our society; they create businesses that create jobs, they demand things that only they can afford and eventually we can too. They create hope for the little guy that has an idea, a new mousetrap, by investing their money in those ideas.

Do they want to get a return for their investment? You bet. However, what if they weren’t there? What if everyone was just the same and all had the same amount of money? What if life were “fair” and we didn’t have the rich?

The rich are not to be despised; they are to be emulated. Have your ever heard of a father or mother who say that they hope their kid grows up to be poor?

Of course not; parents want their kids to be better off than they were. Capping income through taxation is not the American way and never has been. The more we do it, the less jobs we will have.

Remember that class warfare always hurts the poor first, no matter what the politicians tell you. At a minimum, redistribution deprives them of opportunities in jobs through lack of job creation and skills training. It does no good for government to train workers if there are no businesses there to use them.

When government takes money from the rich, it deprives them of money that they could use to create more jobs, either through investment, creating new businesses, or simply buying things that other people make. All three scenarios create jobs.

Government may take the money and use it for other purposes, but they are not in a good position to determine what people really want. Only individuals with their dollars can “vote” and truly create value for society.

Through their collective demands, they create markets. By fulfilling the needs of these markets, rich people make our lives better. When the government deprives the wealthy of their money, they aren’t able reinvest in the market.

The government makes the value decision on what we need, and by doing so takes away our freedom to decide for ourselves. Government replaces the creativity, initiative, and energy of collective wealth creation when it redistributes. Government destroys hope, and they make us believe that prosperity is theirs to give and create.

This is far from the reality of markets. These are things that are not so easily seen.

Just what moral high ground does a politician or bureaucrat have that free men and women don’t? What gives them better insight into how to improve our lives by forcibly taking our money and giving it to others of their choosing? In any other circumstance, this would be called robbery, but the political premise is always well-intentioned.

How can they really effectively redistribute? And, what makes them more virtuous than millions of free citizens that are free to chose for themselves? Have we created a coercive “secular church” to distribute our money to those “less fortunate,” including noncompetitive companies? Shouldn’t redistribution of our property be our decision and freely given by us?

My apologies for the length of this, but you know me well enough to know when I get going on this subject it’s hard for me to stop.

Jim Wingo

Peachtree City, Ga.

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