Check Chet ~ Part II

Click here for Part I.....


Thousands of small businesses with equally inspiring stories can be found all across our Keystone state of Pennsylvania. I’m relaying these details to, not only provide some background for my strongly held convictions regarding free markets, but also to offer some encouragement to those who are suffering through the current severe economic downturn.

In trying times like these, finding something you can do to add value to others will open doors for you. Meet a need. What you do, do it well and with a positive attitude. Hang in there. Perseverance is the key. Your efforts may take some time, but you can do it. At least for now.

But how much longer will free market dynamics generate success stories like Naomi’s Cleaning, Amish Country Gazebos, Auntie Anne’s, and Kreider Farms which grew out of difficult, yet promising circumstances, if we continue to encourage an entitlement mentality? Is it possible that our well intentioned safety net is actually stifling innovation, limiting creativity, and reducing productivity?

How much longer will the remarkably productive spirit of enterprise and creativity, which defines America, survive? With steadily encroaching progressive policies of higher taxes, bigger government, more debt, and increasingly burdensome regulations, there may not be much time. An ever-expanding entitlement mentality appears to be poisoning the American spirit. It is making us soft. Progressive policies which use the tax code to create benefits that cannot be sustained present a serious threat to free enterprise.

Sir Winston Churchill’s instructive words ring true: “The inherent advice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”

Big government policies, which find every possible justification to fund an assortment of “good” programs, diminish economic growth and kill jobs. Eventually, misery rises. If we do not reverse course soon, the result will be the antithesis of what our Founders envisioned; a welfare state where most people rely on government benefits. The alarms should be sounding as we close in on the tipping point where nearly half of all Americans pay no taxes while the other half pays for everything, except the outrageous debt. Our children will pay for that. (to be continued tomorrow....)