Pocketbook Patriotism Insurance Program

This is an extract of a political point as the second part of The Seed of Individualism Was an Appleseed. I decided to pull this out & expand it because of the just-recent Unemployment & Job-Creation report.

Unsigned Contract

For years and generations, we have paid our dues as citizens. We paid our taxes to build an eco-system of infrastructure to support our businesses and, ultimately, each other. We have court systems (80% of which is used by business), we have transit systems, communications systems, utility systems, banking systems — all built from our taxes, our contribution to the whole, for the good of all of us by supporting business.

We the people have allowed our elected officials to codify benefits (the infrastructures, tax breaks, loop holes, etc.) for business because it’s from business the jobs come.  Keeping businesses happy and healthy will result in their producing jobs, which keeps the economy (the rest of us) happy and healthy. The idea behind reducing taxes (for instance) on businesses is that the money they save will go toward hiring people.

It’s a type of insurance program or health-maintenance program — an ecosystem of interdependencies.

It’s been a program unmonitored for whether jobs are being created. We working people, as a nation, have been paying into it with no strings, no assurances, no protections, no controls, no way to recuperate our money if companies renege on the deal by either cutting or not producing jobs.

We were promised … or led to believe.

It’s an insurance payment that isn’t paying back when we need it. “Them with the jobs” need to live up to their contract. Shareholders need also to understand that their investment was an investment in an insurance contract, for which they bear the risk, not the working people.  Companies need to feel the squeeze just as we humans are, because that’s where the squeeze should be happening based on the social (or political) contract inherent in the benefits bestowed.