Wherein Nugent Offers His Services to Uncle Barry. Hoo boy. . .

Human Events:

Uncle Ted's American Jobs Summit
by Ted Nugent
Posted 12/01/2009 ET

Though I am a risk taker, there’s no risk in asking to be be invited to participate in President Obama's jobs summit at the White House on December 3rd. I won’t crash the party, and this president isn’t going to invite me.

But I should be invited. I am a successful small businessman and have been since
the president was in the first grade.

Depending on the adventure, I employ as many as thirty hard-charging Americans who assist in various global rock and roll maneuvers, guiding sporters on big game hunting adventures, the production of award-winning outdoor television programs, and managers, lawyers and accountants to wade through enough stacks of federal and state laws and requirements to sink the Bismark.

A little perspective: If you want something done, ask a busy guy. Any moderately successful small businessman is busy -- very busy. Seventy to eighty hour work weeks are the norm for me and have been from before I graduated from high school in 1967. It is upon our backs that the economic engine of our democracy hums producing the greatest quality of life man has ever known.

With small businessmen employing between 70-80% of Americans, the first step to economic recovery is to ensure the policies, laws and requirements are favorable to small business. Our government cannot punish the producers and expect them to continue to produce and hire Americans. Small businesses need policies that encourage economic growth instead of retarding it.

You have to wonder if anyone in the Obama administration understands these most basic of economic truisms. I doubt it. Very few fans of Marx, Lennon or Mao get it. Ivy League economic theory is one thing. Experience is quite another. As far as I can tell, no one in the Obama cabinet has ever owned and operated a small business. They have no practical business sense. They are not producers. They are the other thing.

Broad-based economic growth begins and ends with tax relief and drastically limiting government spending, two ideas that are anathema to this administration’s agenda.

With the real unemployment rate probably somewhere between 15-17 percent in most states, holding a jobs summit may be laudable in theory, but nothing much will happen to reduce the unemployment rate unless the Obama administration and the Democratically-controlled congress takes a friendlier, more pragmatic approach to taxes, which does not appear within the realm of possibilities. In fact, they will probably let the tax cuts of 2001-2003 expire and will raise taxes across the board to pay for their social programs. Mao would be moved.

Instead of providing tax relief to people who pay no taxes, we need to provide tax relief to small and large businesses. Massive tax cuts across the board including marginal income tax rates, capital gains, and eliminating the cruel death tax would immediately pump life into our lethargic and anemic economy.

In addition to punitive tax rates, economic prosperity will be sluggish at best as long as the administration and congress borrow and spend at alarming rates and put America further into massive, unsustainable debt. Should we pass a trillion dollar health care plan, small businesses will be hit hard to pay for it and therefore put on economic life support. Result: unemployment will rise and investment will shrink. Can we hear a rousing DUH?

We don't need a jobs summit in so much as we need a free market economic summit. You don't need to be an economist to understand that there will be no creation of new jobs until we put our economy back on the free market path and make our economy stronger instead of weaker. No one with an ounce of economic or business acumen believes we can tax and spend our way economic prosperity.

America is quickly arriving at an economic crossroads. States such as California and Michigan are free-falling into economic collapse. Unemployment is at its highest peak in over 20 years. We are trillions of dollars in debt and the unsustainable debt continues to rise. There is no economic good news. Honey, we're broke. Let's go on a shopping spree!

The reason for this economic bad news is that we have permitted government at all levels under both parties to drastically expand over the past fifty years. This big government experiment has failed and failed miserably. Wall Street is not near the culprit as our very own federal government who has mismanaged our tax dollars with reckless abandon and impunity.

We must not look to government for the answers unless we want more of the same. We should instead look to the private sector, specifically the small businesses owner, for the answers. Even a greasy, old guitarslayer can figure that out. Let's hope the president and his cohorts on Capital Hill can as well.

If you're man enough, I am available on December 3rd , Mr. President.