Lambs to the slaughter
To the editor:
We the masses are clearly not playing our role in a capitalistic America. Capitalism is production of GOODS and SERVICES based on supply and demand in a market economy and characterized by competition. The utilities and corporations are competing against us for subsidies and the maximum rates they can charge us to please their stock holders. The middle class is not competing back though. Won’t that cause an imbalance? There are incentives for middle class citizens that create three times as many jobs as dollars invested in utilities, fossil fuels or automobile industries. They give independence to those who invest and lower the cost of production for the whole. Just the opposite happens when the incentives are given to the utility.
We seem to not be paying attention. Republicans insist tax increases and/or regulation will cost corporations more and be passed through to the consumer. It follows the reverse would be so as well. Do incentives (tax cuts) for corporations “Trickle Down.” Have they?
This seems fine by us. We’re shouldering the cost, believing more jobs and all. Incentives for the individual, though, have been off the table. Some actually say, “why should we have to pay for the solar incentives?” There is no such restraint for the utility incentives. Note, half the cost of electricity is the grid and is eliminated by individual distributed electricity production. You get clean atmosphere, cheaper rates and jobs at a lower cost of investment than to the utility, the fossil fuel or auto industry
Pardon me, but it is clear as mud why we fight for tax cuts (incentives) for a legal construct entity but deny it to ourselves and our neighbors. The former is now proving to swell the wealth and income gap between the middle class and the billionaire class, and a very expensive job creator. The latter is a 3-to-1 job creation advantage over the other and grows middle class wealth while lowering the cost of energy by avoiding grid expansion and giving us a little thing like a clean environment.
Is this on us and we are just sick?
Michael Bartley
Fort Myers Beach