Who Killed the Middle Class?

Ever wonder what happened to the middle class in America? Are you joining the class warfare whack jobs led by Barack Obama blaming the rich for the decline of the middle class? Do you think the rich got rich off the backs of the middle of the middle class? If you do, read Karl Marx…except for him it was the middle class who got rich off the working class. Who knew?

Folks, the middle class has declined in America not because of the rich, but because government policy has encouraged the decline and demise of things that allowed the growth of the middle class.  It’s the government stupid. Here are 5 reasons for the decline of the middle class.

1) Bad Tax Policy: It’s very simple. If you can build your factory over there and pay a lower tax rate….you will build your factory over there and pay a lower tax rate, and leave the money over there along with the jobs that go with it.

2) Minimum Wage: What a scam on the American public. Not all jobs should justify a wage that will support a family of four. The largest segment of unemployed people is those under the age of 25. Entry level jobs have become so expensive they just don’t hire grocery baggers anymore. It’s cheaper to buy a scanner.

3) Union Regulations: If you can build a factory where workers don’t have to join a union as opposed to where they have to join a union, you will go to where the workers don’t have to join a union. And unfortunately for union advocates, one doesn’t have to join a union in China or Mexico or Indonesia or Korea or Vietnam. Even within the United States, job growth occurs in "right to work" states unless there is a compelling reason for the manufacturer to be in a union state peculiar to that business.  Watch Catepillar, Canada, and Indiana.  America should take a lesson.

4) The EPA: If you can build your factory where you can get through a reasonable regulatory process without having to worry about the welfare of some obscure bug and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure you have high efficiency toilets…you will build your factory where there is a reasonable and timely regulatory process. As the man said, we fought WWII and beat the Nazis and Japanese in 3 ½ years in a world war…but it has taken more than 8 years to study the Keystone XL pipeline and Obama deferred it for political reasons. That's not funny.

5) Government Regs: Pretend you are Boeing. If you could build your plant in China where the government will not tell you what state you must build in through a fascist NLRB, you will build your plant in China. Contrary to what has been in the papers, Boeing will never build another plant in the United States.

And here is the interesting thing. Obama thinks that a muffin shop is the be all and end all of small business. It’s not. Small business is a factory that employs a couple hundred to a couple thousand people. As those companies move overseas to get away from all of that stuff, the owners of those small business GET RICH!!!!!! What a surprise as these folks learn how easy it is to do business over there as opposed to over here.

So…if you want to know where all those middle class jobs went, and you want to blame the rich robber barons, you better take a look at that government, the supposed defender of the middle and the working classes in America. With friends like that, who need enemies? This is not complicated stuff. Faced with the above, where would you build your factory?