Innovation Investment Tax Credits Hurt Free Markets

According to Dictionary.com, innovation is “something new or different introduced”.  The caveman that turned a round rock into a wheel and used it to move things was an innovator. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple was an innovator. Even the neighbor kid who convinces you to let him mow your lawn is an innovator, because he tapped a new market. And the single mother who gets her kids to band practice, finds the time to help her kids with homework, and goes to work to provide for her family – that’s innovation.

So innovation is good, right? It expands our economy, helps businesses thrive and improves lives. Businesses, in turn, hire more people, buy more equipment, invest in more innovation.

However, not all innovations are equal.

In free markets, entrepreneurs are rewarded when they bring valuable innovations to their customers. And only the free market can determine whether those innovations are valuable. But when government decides to reward “innovators” it becomes a political decision - not a free market decision. Politicians have a notoriously bad track record when it comes to making good investment decisions.

My opponent in my campaign for State Representative believes her “Innovation Investment Tax Credit” idea will create jobs. However, that has just never proven to be the case.

An innovation tax credit requires that all taxpayers pay more taxes so that the few politically favored businesses (those that the government defines as “innovative”) can receive gifts from the government. If your neighbor kid somehow innovates the best, most innovative lawn mowing service in the world, he will likely not be popular enough with the State Legislature to get payouts.  

This is not government by consent of the governed - - it is government by elitists who believe they know what’s best for you and your family.

It’s what caused the debacle with Solyndra, the solar panel manufacturer that received $535 billion in federally guaranteed loans and then went bankrupt, eliminating 1200 jobs, and leaving you and me to pay the bill.

It is what nearly forced Colorado taxpayers to spend $300 million on the Gaylord Hotels project, a project which Gaylord itself decided is no longer financially viable. We dodged the bullet on that one.

My opponent’s “Innovation Investment Tax Credit” scheme is just another example of her flawed understanding of how economies and businesses work. In her vision for Colorado, entrepreneurs who have more concern for politicians and bureaucrats than customers will benefit – regular people like you and me will be left to struggle on our own against her redistributionist policies.

Many politicians seem to believe that government’s main purpose is to help them buy votes. I believe that my fellow citizens are smarter than that. They can run their own lives, they can build their own businesses, they can find employment in a thriving economy - if only government will get out of the way.