Business climate decayed

Date: 10/3/2011

The business climate in Massachusetts has decayed over the last few decades. As the state raised taxes, increased fees, and proliferated regulations, business soured, wealth creation dissipated, and job opportunities deteriorated. State centralized planning of the economy has been implemented to replace individual initiative. State leaders, most of whom have never participated in wealth creation, put forth their schemes as a replacement for competition. This obtuse thinking has led Massachusetts to its current economic malaise.

Our leaders discount that Massachusetts is in competition with other states and the rest of the world. Expensive and inefficient centralized state planning has cost Massachusetts dearly. Massachusetts leaders have pursued, and are pursuing, social equality and security instead of fostering entrepreneurs working for profit and a better life for themselves and their families.

State leaders who put forth the fiction that high taxes are not ruinous to business are propagating a fatuous creed at the expense of Massachusetts citizens. Ivory tower representatives have unleashed an army of bureaucrats, armed with powers ethically belonging with the legislature, on individual and business wealth creators. There is no doubt that State businesses are suffering under this coercive centralizing of the Massachusetts economy.

State leaders are now about to establish casinos as a prescription to mitigate Massachusetts economic misery. It does not matter to our representatives that citizens have at least twice voted against the establishment of casinos. Our elitist representatives do not recognize the decisions of citizens they consider hoi polloi.

Massachusetts citizens have suffered a long arduous descending economic journey into misery as our leaders have taken power and initiative away from individual citizens while centralizing authority. State planning is a progression away from and a substitution for competition. The key to prosperity lies with the citizens, not with the state elitists. Competition and the desire to improve one’s lot in life are the bedrock of a vibrant society. Such a free society comes with responsibilities and risks. The government that replaces personal responsibility and risk taking with forced equality and security is doing citizens a disservice. Individual freedom to pursue happiness, in a moral and ethical environment created by government, will bring an economic revival to Massachusetts.

Tom McCarthy

Springfield

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