As I write this, our president is attempting to justify caving into Republican blackmail. The party wanting to kill government spending held our nation's unemployed hostage until we extended tax cuts to the wealthy. Apparently, we do negotiate with terrorists.

The Republicans like to claim that extending these tax breaks will create jobs. Well, I have to call shenanigans on them. The wealthy have enjoyed these tax benefits for years, and it did nothing to prevent this recession.

Frankly, the only thing preventing us from being owned by the Chinese in the next 50 years is taxes! How about we make tax incentives for investing in companies which have all American workforces? Doing so would encourage investment in those companies, which would result in growth of the American economy. As a by-product you'd have less unemployed sucking at the teat of federal and state governments, and more people paying income taxes, which will help reduce the deficit.

Sadly, the manner in which capitalism functions is not designed to help a waning economy. When businesses see less business, they lay people off. That means there are fewer people with money to buy goods and services. And then the process becomes cyclical. Companies with stockholders have to show annual gains, lest those stockholders lose interest and sell. This need for business to best itself every year only causes layoffs and cutbacks during a slow economy. It's a real chicken-and-egg scenario.

If you had consensus among businesses willing to accept short-term losses, recessions would be short or even nonexistent. So how about tax breaks directed toward businesses who did the right thing and didn't lay anyone off? Businesses that operated at a loss in lieu of keeping people on the payroll could be exempted from all federal taxes until they return to profitability.

They say there are only two things that are guaranteed in this life: death and taxes. Well, I can say with 100 percent certainty that without taxes, death will come to us all a lot sooner. If we don't work toward making sure every American has a job, then we simply aren't being American. We must not give away tax incentives to just anyone. We must find a way to reward people and businesses with tax incentives for taking steps to maintain our nation's economic security.

Something given has no value.

"Brandon Wertz
Oklahoma City

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