CLINTON TALKS JOBS, PURSUES POLICIES THAT DESTROY THEM

Cognitive dissonance. How's that for a fourteen-dollar, out-of-town phrase, a "gift" to the language from psychologists? Roughly, it refers to that condition of mind in which a person simultaneously thinks two thoughts that are incompatible, or which flatly contradict each other.

Here's a case study for psychobabblers to reflect upon. Let's consider President Bill Clinton, with his ceaseless chatter about "jobs," over against his economic plan now moving through Congress, which is nothing less than a war on jobs and on small business, our great engine of job creation.

Taxes are going up on middle class Americans. This is "job creation"? Let's see ....

We'll all pay some form of the tax dearest to the President's heart his "broad-based energy tax." This one's a real beaut; it threatens competitiveness; it will increase the cost of literally everything that takes energy to produce or be delivered; its animating premise is that the folks who brought you the House bank scandal can "invest" your money better than you can. A job creator? Not in the private sector.

Senior citizens currently working, who saved all their lives and now receive Social Security benefits, and whose incomes are above $32,000 for a married couple, are staring at steep marginal tax rate increases of up to 70 percent on income above that level. Is this an incentive to remain in the work force? Are these the greedy "rich" who, after profiting from a "decade of greed" must now be brought to heel?

Marginal income tax rates are going up sharply but only, we are told, on "the rich". This ignores the fact that more than 40 percent of small businesses are either unincorporated, or they are organized under Subchapter S of the tax laws. In either case, the small business owners pay income tax through individual rates, not corporate tax rates. These small business owners will get hit unmercifully at $200,000 and above, but such an income level is not much for a healthy small business that needs to be planning, innovating and investing in future technologies and more jobs. By such measures does President Clinton propose to confiscate the very seed corn for future jobs.

Can you have employees without employers? Risk taking without reward? Jobs without strong profits to guarantee the security of those jobs?

Nor is the fallout limited to small business. The last issue of National Review magazine reported this jolting but unsurprising datum: General Mills corporation, owner of Red Lobster restaurants, has prepared a list of more than 20 marginally profitable restaurants it will close if Clinton's higher taxes make it into law. Higher taxes simply won't leave room to justify keeping open the marginal performers. Look for businesses shuttered, dreams deferred, jobs destroyed.

How about the spotted owl? Well, it's clear that in the Clintonians' worldview, owls and other animal critters posess far more rights than mere human beings. Last week the President announced his long-awaited "compromise plan" on logging in the Pacific Northwest. It's Al Gore's environmentalist fantasy, a virtual death blow to the timber industry. Take that! struggling timber workers throughout Oregon, Washington and Northern California.

Ah, but this President has thought that one through. When he's done shutting down our productive timber industry, he plans to spend $1 billion of federal money to re-train these unemployed loggers for different work.

Beginning to get a certain pattern here? It is becoming clearer every day, and it can be simply stated: President Clinton's design is to create dependency. He doesn't like people who have no need of government, productive workers who ask for no handout, but only to be left alone to prosper in the private marketplace. He doesn't want people to stand on their own two feet and breathe the bracing air of freedom.

And if this isn't enough dependency, we can all look forward to Hillarycare, and more taxes, as the Clintonians get their mits on the one seventh of our GNP that is our health care system, currently the finest in the world.

Also certain to follow a federal government death sentence for the logging industry are higher lumber prices, an inevitable consequence of restricted supply of this vital commodity. Fewer homes will be built; fewer families will be able to afford them; fewer jobs for carpenters and bricklayers, electricians and plumbers.

Ah, but we will have punished "the rich", won't we! Hardly. The "rich" are already that way, and are talking now to tax lawyers about sheltering income and deferring gain-producing investment.

Bill Clinton's economic plan is a war on dreams and their realization, an assault on our productive classes, and on workers everywhere.