“I’ve Never Got a Job From a Poor Man in My Life”

Mrs.

Mrs. Fisher of Vevay, Indiana tells it like it is.  The rich aren’t bottomless gold mines for government  – something Marlyand, New York, and California might know a little about.  If laborers are the engine of our economy, the wealthy are surely the gasoline – taking risks, starting businesses, investing, employing.

One of the latest plans to pay for ObamaCare is a surtax on the rich.  To coupon clippers like me it might sound like maybe the rich will have to switch from fancy-pants Fiji water to Poland Springs (the horror!), but Mrs. Fisher and others in her community give us a good example of the everyday effects of this plan. This Real Clear Markets article is well worth your time.

The small business owners of Vevay regard these proposed taxes as a recipe for more jobs lost. Lisa Fisher, owner of the Schenk Mansion Bed & Breakfast Inn, is a cancer survivor who pays for her own health insurance and doesn’t see a need for the government to offer insurance. “I don’t mind paying my fair share of taxes,” she told me, “but the government would rather tax me to death.”

She explained that taxes would hurt the Vevay economy because everyone here is a local business owner. Recent growth in tourism has benefited Vevay and Mrs. Fisher would like to expand and hire more staff. But if taxes rise, she would just be punished for her efforts, so she is not planning to expand.

“I’ve never got a job from a poor man in my life,” Mrs. Fisher told me. “When you stop the guy at the top from making a dollar, he’ll shut down and just live well.”

Anita Danner, co-owner with her husband Mike of Danner’s Hardware Store, on Ferry Street, in business since 1837, is also against tax increases. Another small business owner who buys her own health insurance, she told me that if she had to pay the 8% tax on her employees then she and her husband would close the store. “Taxes and government intervention don’t solve many problems,” she said.

Two blocks away, on Main Street, Barbara Dowdy of the Julia Knox Gift House, a store smelling of scented candles, said, “I don’t think in times like this recession that it’s the time to raise taxes. It would make small business close down. They are limited in what they can pay.”