A Gift for Labor on Labor Day

By:  Dale Weckbacher

Colossians 3:23

 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,

(ESV)

Monday is Labor Day in the United States, a day when the nation honors the contributions made by workers to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of the United States.  (1)  While many states had established state holidays to honor labor, it was not till 1894 that President Grover Cleveland established a federal Labor Day on the first Monday of September.  (2)  In presidential election years, Labor Day has become the official start of the final push by candidates running for President of the United States.

Let us give the hard working people of the United States a great gift this election year by electing a President whose policies, and not words, will provide our hard working citizens good paying jobs by electing candidates supporting,

1)      The repeal of job killing Obamacare – The Obamacare mandate only applies to employers with 50 or less full-time employees.  (3)  While this excludes small businesses of 50 or less employers, it also limits future potential growth.  Many now large corporations, such as Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, and Harley Davidson once started as small businesses.  (4)  Would these companies have been able to expand from 50 to 51 employees when faced with the prospect of having to pay outrageous health insurance premiums for their employees or face severe fines.  The answer is possibly yes for by maintaining 50 or less full-time employees and filling the gap by hiring part-time employees working less than 30 hours per week they could have grown.  However, while this would create new jobs, they would be low paying part-time jobs and not well paying jobs that many working in these companies have enjoyed throughout these companies’ histories.  By repealing Obamacare, these restrictions are lifted and future small companies will once again enjoy the opportunity to grow into the next Apple while creating good paying full-time positions for those currently out of the labor force.  (5)

2)      The infusion of job creating expansion capital into businesses – Most start-up businesses fail due to lack of capital.  Capital is how a business obtains key infrastructure for operations such as plant and equipment as well as providing sufficient cash flow to fund day-to-day operations.  (6)  Profit increases capital for a company, capital it can use for expansion and growth.  The average combined corporate federal and state tax rate is 39.1 percent.  (7)  This is 10.8 percent higher than the average rate of 28.3 percent for the other 33 countries in the study.  (7)  In essence, 39.1 percent of the increase in capital companies gain through profit is confiscated by federal and state governments through excessive taxation and unavailable for job creating expansion.  By reducing the rate to around 15 percent, we would infuse 24.1 percent of additional job creating capital into the U.S. economy as well as making U.S. based companies more profitable.  This increased profitability will also be an incentive for more of these companies to remain in the United States instead of moving to more tax friendly nations. 

3)      The removal of the regulatory brakes on economic growth – In a town hall meeting in Columbus Ohio, Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton vowed that if she becomes president, she is going to “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”  (8)   Clinton went on to promise these unemployed coal miners jobs in the clean renewable energy business.  We must ask ourselves if she is referring to the same types of renewable energy startups that failed under the Obama Administration which left taxpayers with a $2.2 billion hole.  (9)  In other words, Clinton promises to take coal miners out of thriving coal mining jobs that have thrived for decades and move them into risky jobs with a high record of failure.  Not to mention the need for these people to be trained most likely at their own expense.  We must stop excessive regulations like those proposed on coal companies for these regulations act as a brake on these companies’ potential for growth and even threaten to put them out of business, in essence bringing them to a total stop. 

I urge everyone to take a break from the barbeques and celebration this Labor Day and consider which candidates will do the most to insure those working in the United States can find work and be rewarded for that work.  I urge you to consider which candidate will do the most to put the millions currently out of the labor force who want to work back to work. Our great nation was built upon the labor of its hard working citizens and these hard working people deserve a much needed break from the sluggish economy they have had to work in for far too many years.

This election let us vote for the gift of more good paying jobs for the hard working people of the United States.  Happy Labor Day everyone.   

1. United States Department of Labor. History of Labor Day. www.dol.gov. [Online] U.S. Department of Labor. [Cited: August 25, 2016.] https://www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history.

2. History.com. History of Labor Day. www.history.com. [Online] [Cited: August 25, 2016.] http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/labor-day.

3. Obamacare.net. Obamacare Employer Mandate. obamacare.net. [Online] [Cited: August 26, 2016.] https://obamacare.net/obamacare-employer-mandate/.

4. Dunlop, Michael. 10 World Famous Companies that Started in Garages. www.retireat21.com. [Online] Retire@21. [Cited: August 26, 2016.] http://www.retireat21.com/blog/10-companies-started-garages.

5. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey. data.bls.gov. [Online] United States Department of Labor, August 26, 2016. [Cited: August 26, 2016.] http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000.

6. Quora. The Top 5 Reasons Startups Fail. www.forbes.com. [Online] Forbes, March 6, 2015. [Cited: August 26, 2016.] http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2015/03/06/the-top-5-reasons-startups-fail/#24f513c3a1b9.

7. Sullivan, Martin. The Truth About Corporate Tax Rates. www.forbes.com. [Online] Forbes, March 25, 2015. [Cited: August 26, 2016.] http://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2015/03/25/the-truth-about-corporate-tax-rates/#5754b34d20a5.

8. Leahy, Michael Patrick. Hillary Clinton Promise: ‘We’re Going to Put a Lot of Coal Miners and Coal Companies Out of Business’. www.breitbart.com. [Online] Breitbart News, March 14, 2016. [Cited: August 26, 2016.] http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/14/hillary-clinton-promise-were-going-to-put-a-lot-of-coal-companies-and-coal-miners-out-of-business/.

9. Dinan, Steven. Obama clean energy loans leave taxpayers in $2.2 billion hole. www.washingtontimes.com. [Online] The Washington Times, April 27, 2015. [Cited: August 26, 2016.] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/27/obama-backed-green-energy-failures-leave-taxpayers/.