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.

Rush was wrong,but the market will correct him

Rush Limbaugh went too far when he called activist Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute. No woman deserves to be called those disgusting words and Republicans do not support or tolerate that, at all. That kind of cheap tactic does more damage to Republicans and conservatives than to Ms. Fluke.

Rush established his career by “using absurdity to illustrate absurdity”. But this was far beyond absurd. It was cruel and stupid. As a result, well over 100 advertisers are leaving his show. Rush will most likely survive the firestorm and live to insult again. But he will have learned an important lesson – the market punished his bad behavior, and we’re not likely to hear a repeat performance. If he does repeat it and more advertisers walk out, it may be the end of his show. 

That's both the power and beauty of a free market – behavior gets rewarded or punished based on people who are free to pursue their own values. It doesn’t require a government intervention to bring about important change. It only requires people acting on their own free will.

Perhaps this disgusting incident can help teach us a lesson that people who are free to make their own choices, not Government, can better solve our problems.