In light of these “protests” and what is somewhat fair but clearly misdirected anger, I’d offer Madison’s words in Federalist #62. In discussing the importance of a Senate to provide some level of calm and order to legislating, government, etc., Madison explained the ills of arbitrary and unstable government:
[i]To trace the mischievous effects of a mutable government would fill a volume. I will hint a few only, each of which will be perceived to be a source of innumerable others.
In the first place, it forfeits the respect and confidence of other nations, and all the advantages connected with national character. An individual who is observed to be inconstant to his plans, or perhaps to carry on his affairs without any plan at all, is marked at once, by all prudent people, as a speedy victim to his own unsteadiness and folly. His more friendly neighbors may pity him, but all will decline to connect their fortunes with his; and not a few will seize the opportunity of making their fortunes out of his. One nation is to another what one individual is to another; with this melancholy distinction perhaps, that the former, with fewer of the benevolent emotions than the latter, are under fewer restraints also from taking undue advantage from the indiscretions of each other. Every nation, consequently, whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability, may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of their wiser neighbors. But the best instruction on this subject is unhappily conveyed to America by the example of her own situation. She finds that she is held in no respect by her friends; that she is the derision of her enemies; and that she is a prey to every nation which has an interest in speculating on her fluctuating councils and embarrassed affairs.
The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?
Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few, not for the many.
In another point of view, great injury results from an unstable government. The want of confidence in the public councils damps every useful undertaking, the success and profit of which may depend on a continuance of existing arrangements. What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? What farmer or manufacturer will lay himself out for the encouragement given to any particular cultivation or establishment, when he can have no assurance that his preparatory labors and advances will not render him a victim to an inconstant government? In a word, no great improvement or laudable enterprise can go forward which requires the auspices of a steady system of national policy.
But the most deplorable effect of all is that diminution of attachment and reverence which steals into the hearts of the people, towards a political system which betrays so many marks of infirmity, and disappoints so many of their flattering hopes. No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.[/i]
Take a keen look - if you wonder why businesses aren’t hiring, look no further than this explanation. What business-owner is going to hire new workers when the results of new Frank-Dodd legislation and ObamaCare still up in the air?
ObamaCare was (originally) passed with a punitive 1099 tax that would cripple small businesses - it was added for no other reason than to make the initial cost score more favorable (since it generates so much revenue) to make ObamaCare look like it didn’t add a trillion dollars to the deficit. You’re a small business owner about to get vaporized by this tax - why hire someone when you may not be able to afford them after you get blitzed?
What about the mass of regulations that are yet to come down - how much will they cost? You’re a business owner - - what reason do you have to take money and hire someone that you might very well have to fire when you realize the new regulations eat up their salary?
And note Madison’s other point - the perverse consequence of all this wild legislation (and its complicated and arbitrary regulatory schemes) is that is benefits the already wealthy, not the little guy.
Employers don’t owe anyone jobs - they will hire you if (1) there is work to do, and (2) you are the best candidate. Because of the uncertainty in the market, there’s no #1. And camping out in the financial district in Manhattan won’t change that in the slightest.
