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means that we cannot afford such programs unless we pay for them in the form of taxes. Otherwise, the taxation that we pay for such programs is the "hidden tax" of inflation that John Maynard Keynes identified as the means by which the government "confiscates wealth."

Of course, anyone promoting policies to reduce spending to only that which is collected as revenue will be opposed by people promoting marketing slogans that he or she hurts children, opposes good roads, and hates the elderly and infirm. Unfortunately, popularity is opposed to responsibility, and, like I said earlier, popularity is the basis for democracy.

INCREASING UNEMPLOYMENT

Perhaps the least fair tax of all on businesses is the unemployment tax. The unemployment tax is collected based on the wages paid to employees of companies. As such, companies who employ many pay the tax, while those that outsource employment are relieved of the tax. This policy is counter-productive to decreasing unemployment. It should be replaced by increasing the tax rates on individuals and companies that make great amounts of money, with a credit given to those individuals and companies for the wages paid to employees.

If we were to simply place tariffs on imports, we not only increase the price of imports to consumers, but we also face retaliatory tariffs on American produced goods exported to those same countries.

To understand this, consider that two like products are on the shelves of stores. The import costs $5, and the domestic product costs $6. Certainly a tariff of $1 on the import levels the playing field, but consumers will pay $6 for either product. In addition to that, the country from which the product is imported will retaliate with a tariff on exports from America.

If, however, we were to increase the tax rate such that the import would cost $5.50 and a tax credit that will allow the domestic product to also sell for $5.50, we have also effectively leveled the playing field. Consumers pay less for both products. The combination of greater revenues from companies paying the higher tax rate and taxes paid by employed Americans will more than offset the reduction in revenue derived taxing companies that employ Americans to pay to the unemployed.

Again, though, someone promoting such policy will be going up against the marketing slogans created by the very rich who want us all to believe that lower taxes are good for business. Despite some merit to the slogan, it does not take into account that employed Americans

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