Thomas Fitzsimmons Speaks on Wealth

“I have argued before you that it is necessary for the Federal Government to tax (and to raise revenue in other ways) as well as to regulate commerce appropriately.  While many of my views were rejected in our past deliberations, they have more than been adopted in the present government.  Having served for years as an elected representative on the House Ways and Means Committee, I think I understand the difficulty in obtaining adequate revenue for the operation of the government.  However we must never lose sight of the underlying principles that must govern government economics.

 “It is important that we consider not only what the functions of the central government are, but also how it should accomplish these functions.  A heavy handed approach is totally inappropriate within a voluntary union.  Rather, information and incentives should be the means of achieving the desired goals.  In general, individuals and States should be able to make their own decisions on matters of their own interest and the results of those actions and decisions should be widely available for others to learn from and take, or avoid, similar actions.”

“The current government has strayed far from these principles.  In particular, there has developed a greater focus on “fairness” than on liberty.  The resulting emphasis is on the redistribution of wealth within the country.  This is not an appropriate function of the central government except in the direst of circumstances.  Redistribution of wealth should be avoided as a rule.  Rather, the central government must focus on actions that create more wealth within the country and rely on natural processes to appropriately distribute that wealth.”

“This brings us to the issue of ‘What is wealth?’  This nation has taken a turn toward an economic environment that spends most all its effort in manipulating rather than creating wealth.  The only true wealth creation occurs when a product that has continuing tangible value is made.  The best test of this is whether the product can be legitimately sold and resold multiple times.  Examples are automobiles, music, books, software applications, etc.  Products that are not wealth creating are generally classed as services.  While services are valuable and necessary, they are not, in themselves, wealth creating.  Examples are banking, haircuts, oil changes for the automobile, medical care, etc.  The economic policy of the nation must focus on incentivizing wealth creation, even at the expense of services if necessary.  It is disturbing, and threatening to the national security, that businesses are incentivized to move many wealth creating activities to other countries.  I fear that these policies are driving the country into poverty because the demand for these items is mostly discretionary and, in hard times, can be curtailed with drastic impact on the economy.  Tangible products, unless they become obsolete, will always be in demand somewhere. ”

“The government has evolved into a huge entity that has the unshakable belief that it knows best what is good for all, rather than simply a manifestation of the will of the people.  We never intended that the central government evolve into this God-like entity.  We also intended that the States are the primary governmental entities and decision making bodies.  Little real authority rests in the States today and the result is a stifling of the natural diversity and differences that leads to creativity.  I maintain that a variety of approaches taken by member states of the union will provide better decisions for one of the two following reasons.  First, there are legitimate differences among the states in terms of geography, natural resources, moral beliefs, education, and others.  These differences lead to legitimately different solutions to the same issues.  Second, a variety of approaches lead to data which can be used to refine or consolidate the approaches based on facts rather than opinions.  This implies the need for a trusted keeper of the factual data rather than a central decision maker.”

“Vast amounts of time and energy are spent by today’s politicians arguing ideas and concepts for which there is no way to determine the correct answer.  (Not that we ourselves were immune to this particular vice, but we generally tabled such matters.)  In particular, moral issues, such as abortion and homosexuality, consume so much of the politicians’ time that one cannot help but think that they are simply ways to avoid addressing issues for which there might be a solution.  Just as we did not dictate that everyone who does not attend church on Sunday is breaking the law, so too should these issues, however repugnant to some, should be left to individual choice.  The Federal Government has no place in getting involved with such issues which are fundamentally religious in nature.  The politicians of today appear to use these sorts of issues as a means of making slanderous attacks on their political adversaries to divide every issue.  This is completely counter to the approach we took, which was to recognize that a large percentage of our objectives were common across all parties and we worked to implement these first.”

There is also the case of the marriage benefit or penalty.  Marriage is a social and religious issue and the government has no business in advocating, rewarding or penalizing marriage in any way.  There should be no tax, legal, or other benefits or penalties to any union of individuals be it marriage or civil union or partnership.  No government entity should even be allowed to ask whether or not a citizen is married for any reason other than national security issues.

“Lastly we looked at the individuals.  Personal responsibility and willingness to follow through on commitments has eroded alarmingly.  Pockets of these virtues are alive but large portions of the population feel entitled to being taken care of by the government.  We purposely left social support as an option in the Constitution, but it was our intent that any such choices were made by the States, neither directed nor funded by the central government.  It’s alarming how individual responsibility has eroded to the point where people are unwilling to fulfill commitments freely made.  For example, many people made bad decisions about mortgaging their homes in the early 21^st Century and a rash of foreclosures resulted.  The government has no responsibility to protect people from making such bad decisions or in ameliorating the results.  Similarly, during the same time, financial and other corporate entities were salvaged by the government.  Bad decisions by these business leaders were their responsibilities rather than the government’s and the leaders and their corporations should have suffered from them.  I know that the argument was made that the nation would suffer because of the adverse impact on the economy, but the solution should not have been to salvage the businesses or individuals but rather to provide incentives and information to assure that it did not happen again.  In the most drastic of circumstances the government could replace the function of critical businesses on a temporary basis but must not protect the livelihood, or even existence, of the offending individuals or businesses beyond what it does for every other individual or business.