Derek Miller, the president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber,
recently
expressed deep concern about “the assault on free enterprise from the far right
and the far left, from the halls of government to the sidewalks of Main Street.” He then noted that while “Utah makes free
market principles work better than almost anywhere else….We already see
anti-growth, anti-job sentiments creeping in.”
He concludes by commending Governor Herbert for “calling for financial
literacy courses in high schools” in order to “combat fascination with
socialism.”
In my opinion, what Miller fails to grasp is that the
“fascination with socialism” is fueled, at least in part, by the U.S. and Salt
Lake Chambers of Commerce as they go about socializing business costs while
privatizing profits. In fact, the Salt
Lake Chamber has actively worked to socialize costs while privatizing profits
for decades.
The Salt Lake Chamber was recognized in 2006 by Americans
for Tax Reform as an “Enemy
of the Taxpayer.” Since then, it has
stepped up its efforts to socialize costs and privatize profits by exempting large
businesses from taxes while supporting tax
increases that fall most heavily on low and middle-income Utahns and on small
businesses. The most recent example of
this is the leadership role the Chamber has taken in pushing
for a sales
tax on services.
The Chamber relies heavily on front groups and
fellow-travelers to drive public opinion in favor of its efforts to socialize
costs—Utah
Transportation Coalition, Housing Gap Coalition, Utah
Tax Modernization, Prosperity
Project, Our
Schools Now, Kem
C. Gardner Public Policy Institute, Envision
Utah, etc.
The Salt Lake Chamber recently created the Utah Jobs PAC. The PAC will provide financial support to
candidates running for city, county and statewide offices who “recognize the
importance of economic and community prosperity and champion business success” or,
in other words, who will support the Chamber’s ongoing efforts to socialize
costs while privatizing profits.
During the past legislative session, the Chamber supported
an affordable housing bill that encourages local governments to socialize
developers’ costs by waiving construction related fees and covering the costs
with taxpayer funded subsidies. It also supported
mandatory water metering in order to free up water for developers even though it
would cost low and middle-income homeowners a whopping $286 million dollars
to install the meters.
And, like the U.S. Chamber, the Salt Lake Chamber supports unlimited
free trade and porous-borders since these allow U.S. businesses to socialize
their costs by replacing American workers, who may be forced onto taxpayer funded
public assistance, with low-cost, easily exploitable foreign labor.
Unfortunately, low and middle-income families are the
collateral damage of the Salt Lake Chamber’s corporate socialism initiatives as
their quality
of life declines and their standard of living drops. At the same time, the Chamber’s crony
capitalist/socialist elites become even richer.
So, in my opinion, if the president and CEO of the Salt Lake
Chamber really wants to know what this “fascination with socialism” is all
about, he has only to look at his organization’s efforts to socialize costs
while privatizing profits. After all, if
socialism is good for the Chamber and its big business members, then why wouldn’t
others think it is good for them as well?
All of the financial literacy courses in the world are not going to change
this perception.
Ronald Mortensen, Ph.D., Co-Founder of CitizensForTaxFairness.org
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
