cozcommunio

Now that there is a lot of talk about the country going in to a recession we have two presidential candidates,Clinton and Obama, that want to increase taxes and move toward increased protectionism. They want to pull out of NAFTA or rewrite NAFTA. Hillary is calling for a pause in free trade.

These are ideas right out of Herbert Hoover’s play book for turning a reccession in to a depression. Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930 which raised the taxes (tariff) on over 20,000 items. This tariff set off a wave of protectionist retaliation that undid the globalization of the 1920’s. In 1932 Hoover undid the Calvin Coolidge-Andrew Mellon tax cuts, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 63% from 25%. Higher taxes and protectionism take freedom away from the people and lead to disastrous economy. Free trade and free market are the answers to our economic problems not more money and control going to the political class in Washington.

This entry was posted on April 5, 2008 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Markets & Freedom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.