Monday, March 02, 2009

Declaring war on entrepreneurs?

Larry Kudlow has a post on the current administration's approach to entrepreneurs and business more generally:
Let me be very clear on the economics of President Obama’s State of the Union speech and his budget. He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds. That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all -- either for this recession or from the standpoint of expanding our economy’s long-run potential to grow.
Many of the current crop of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are too young to remember the era of confiscatory tax policy prior to President Reagan. The relatively low marginal tax rates of the early 80s were the sine qua non of the hyperentrepreneurial era that ushered in the PC, associated software, and the commercialization of the internet, and those who believe that entrepreneurship and an innovative American economy are inevitable irrespective of governmental policies are likely to be in for a bit of a rude shock.