Bring back incentive for innovation

Politicians, quit adding more and more “fees” to replace taxes — we know what you’re doing. There is a thirst now for simplification in the way that government finances itself: No less than five presidential candidates have put forth flat tax plans, including one in which your tax return would be the size of a postcard! Along with the flat tax, there is a real possibility that simplification would “redistribute” the government workforce (layoffs, hopefully) of the thousands of IRS workers though the elimination of all the loophole rules. Sorry about the fallout from accounting firms going belly up — there will be plenty of jobs in the health care industry for accountants if the new health care law is actually implemented.

The country needs to eliminate millions of government jobs like those at the IRS and look to educate more of our workforce in engineering and science. This will allow us to retake the lead in inventions and technology, and therein lies the solution to unemployment. This creativity needs to be unleashed by rewarding success through restoring the economic system that produced the best country in the history of the earth. Inventions, more efficiencies in production, all will be encouraged by rewards of promotion and/or financial success so that creators will go back to working enthusiastically through sacrifices in time and energy. This cannot happen in government work where one is locked into a system of burdensome work rules and an archaic “GS” salary stepladder, political intrigue, and backdoor lobbyists and graft money.

I understand that the fastest-growing salary area in the country is around Washington, D.C. Is it that these workers are the most intelligent, creative and productive in the U.S.? Hardly.

Dave Souders

Arlington Heights