The Senate race in Nevada between Harry Reid and Sharron Angle just got nastier.  It seems that Reid’s campaign took the code from Sharron Angle’s old website and reposted it in an effort to collect information, or “spoofing”.  The Reid campaign activated the email and user information pages, even going so far as to accept campaign contributions and volutneer to work on “Sharron Angle’s” campaign.

This tactic is extremely unethical.  I think that Angle’s campaign has a great opportunity to exploit the lack of ethics from someone who is suppose to be representing the citizens of Nevada with the utmost ethics.  Harry Reid has enough campaign and Senate experience to know that such a tactic, when collecting information and money under false pretense, is fraud.   

You can read about this in detail at the links below:

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/07/06/reid-campaign-targets-angle-supporters-with-phishing-website/

http://www.lvrj.com/news/angle-accuses-reid-s-campaign-of-dirty-tricks-over-old-website-97827114.html?ref=114

President Obama has absolutely no idea of the revenue-generating process in America. He was raised and educated on handouts, freebies, and welfare while studying Socialism, Marxism, and Communism. So, in his mind he thinks that government is the source of revenue and that government is responsible for job creation. However, it’s no coincidence that every major GDP boom in American history has followed a huge tax cut. This tax hike is going to cripple this already-stalled economic recovery.

One of the major changes in this tax bill is that small business equipment expensing will be reduced from $250,000 to $25,000 while expensing itself will be slashed 50%. I employ nine people and we work in the tourism industry in Las Vegas.

I buy five touring vans a year, which is my major equipment purchase. It’s better to replace them than to fall into that trap of trying to keep a van in operation than just replacing it yearly. I will no longer be able to write off my van purchases and will have to depreciate them (keep them longer and invest into the expenses I want to avoid).

The general expensing that will be reduced by 50% includes the cost of breakfast, lunch, park entry fee, and hidden costs like commercial auto insurance, general liability insurance, gasoline, van maintenance (tires, repairs), application fees, wages, rent, and utilities. Fifty percent of my expensing on these costs will disappear.

Here’s how these changes on businesses will fall through the economy and trickle up into other areas. I’m being forced to leave more tangible goods into the system than what I use to take out. This is NOT the path to economic recovery and will cause serious deflation. What will happen is that I won’t buy five vans a year anymore, meaning GM and the suppliers for GM will have five less vans to build in 2011. The government won’t collect sales tax from me, the DMV won’t have my vans to collect fees on, employee taxes on the union guys and suppliers who built the vans and parts, and less corporate sales tax for GM. I’m also going to have to make some changes to reduce my general expenses.

I will have to re-evaluate how and where I cut some of the general expenses. I’m most likely going to cut out the McDonald’s breakfast that we include with our tours. We spent $63,000 last year at McDonald’s and always frequent the same store. That means that McDonald’s will be losing this revenue, in addition to all of their suppliers. Once again, there will be no sales tax, employee taxes, or anything to collect because of this transaction being removed from the system.

These two tax changes are going to cost one or two of my employees their jobs. It will also cost millions more their jobs as the dominos fall through the economy. The changes that I make at my level are going to trickle through the economy, effecting workers at every level; GM, suppliers, McDonald’s, government agencies. I know I’m just one small business but I’m one of 24.7 million small businesses in America. We are all contemplating the same decisions right now. The scary thing is that laying off one employee (for me) doesn’t sound catastrophic. It does when you consider that there are 24.7 million small businesses who are contemplating the same decisions right now. And that translates to 24.7 million jobs lost nationwide just with what we are considering. This does not include jobs lost because of the tangible goods that we are forced to leave into the system with companies like GM, McDonald’s, or their suppliers.

The asset values (of stocks) for corporations like McDonald’s, GM, and their suppliers will decline because of decreasing demand.  Money never goes away.  Asset values do, which is the price at which a buyer and seller agree to conduct a transaction.  Gaps on stock trades reflect new value (or lower value) for the agreed transaction.  The scariest part is that shrinking asset values means that there are less people willing to conduct a transaction.  People lose wealth when asset values fall, which means they have no ability to consume, support debt, or stimulate production through consumption.  People losing wealth, in this case, can mean GM or McDonald’s or me and you.  As wealth goes, so do jobs.  And that means that the GM and McDonald’s employees who use to come to Las Vegas and take my tours won’t be able to now because I can’t purchase the vans and food that kept them employed.  

There is a revenue-generating process in America and it works best when the government gets out of our way.  Obama will never understand this.  I agree that it’s not perfect and attracts ugly trolls like Bernie Madoff and Enron but there isn’t a better model in the world.  Marxism, Communism, and Socialism have never created a country close to America.  The USSR was nothing more than a shadow to the sun of America.  It is in remembering this that we must stand and fight and to not give up and say that it’s better to close a business.  It’s better to stay open, to fight, to never forget all those who sacrificed their lives for us, and most of all….that we are Americans and Americans never quit!

Happy 4th of July, everyone!  We are and always will be the best!

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.” – Ronald Reagan