Steyn: We Weren't Dumb Enough!

Dumb enough to vote for Kerry that is. Mark Steyn is at it again. Here's a sample, but you must read the whole thing, especially if you are a small business owner.

Secondly, assume for a moment that Bob Kerrey was right - that voters in Gallia County really were "terrified about the loss of their job, health care, their pensions". Even if that's true, do you want the government to do anything about it? In many Continental countries, it's all but impossible to lose your job - which is why so many companies are reluctant to hire anyone and Germany's unemployment rate is twice that of America. And once healthcare and pensions are the province of the government, the basic relationship between the citizen and the state is altered. By 2040, Greece's government pension liabilities will be 25 per cent of GDP, as opposed to 6.8 per cent for America, which is quite colossal enough, thank you.(/snip)

Ouch! We desperately need Social Security reform and Bush is in perfect position to deliver on this. Domestically speaking, this issue is the most important one we face. Let's continue:

When he [Kerry] goes to his favourite restaurant in Washington, the waiter's an employee. When he drops by a diner on Main Street in some nowhere burg to pretend to eat a hot dog for a photo op, the waitress might well be like the lady who served me lunch on Sunday: she has her own house-cleaning business, but does some part-time work at the local school and a couple of shifts at the diner for a bit of extra cash.

She's a small business, and she knows more about her tax return than Teresa Heinz Kerry knows about hers. Mrs Kerry farms it out to the best advisers money can buy, and they do a grand job: she's one of the richest women in the world and she paid 12 per cent tax last year. It makes no difference whether the tax rate is 20 per cent, 50 per cent or 88 per cent: the Kerrys of the world will still pay 12 per cent.

The American people don't want to be condescended to by ketchup heiresses, billionaire currency speculators, $20-million-a-picture Hollywood pretty boys, and multi-millionaire documentary-makers posing as bluecollar lardbutts.

The Democrats keep talking to people as if they're like John Edwards's 40-year mill-workers, but that's not what work is any more, and a 23-year-old hairdresser can know enough about starting and running a business to be unimpressed at a few footling tax credits dangled in front of her by a 60-year-old lifelong "public servant" lucky enough to be living a grand old life thanks to his billionaire wife's first husband.

Steyn makes some interesting contrasts between Europe and the US, and it all must be read! Don't miss it.