A reader e-mailed me some good quotes — famous lines from Voltaire, Reagan, P.J. O'Rourke, Shaw and Churchill: The first, from Winston Churchill, should be nailed to Mayor Murphy's door: "We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." In the Pittsburgh economy, in short, the solution for too few jobs isn't a new payroll tax. The solution for too many people leaving the city isn't an $8 margarita. The second quote is from Voltaire, in 1764: "In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other." Applied locally, one might say that the art of buying votes consists of paying eight guys to stand around a pothole and taking as much money as possible from commuters who can't vote in the city. The third is from P.J. O'Rourke: "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." In our case, the mayor's team seems to see cars and whiskey as the way out of the bucket, so long as we hike taxes on the former when they're rented and boost taxes on the latter when it's poured. The fourth is from Ronald Reagan, 1986: "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases. If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." In the case of Pittsburgh, we've taxed it, in spades, and it's stopped moving, and City Hall is now saying that it's time to subsidize it, time to bribe Tiffany's to open a shop on Liberty Avenue. The fifth is from H.L. Mencken: "Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." And so, the happy old ladies at Wal-Mart have now been busted for playing free bingo, and, thanks to the taxman, the happy-go-lucky smokers and drinkers are up to $35 a carton and heading for $8 beers at the stadiums. And here's one quote of my own, from Gore Vidal, that might help explain our current situation: "For certain people, after 50, litigation takes the place of sex." In Pennsylvania, sorry to report, we're abnormally old, with a near-zero batting record on tort reform. THE ANSWER And so, what's the answer• Complimentary Viagra, to lessen lawsuit abuse• A new Christmas slogan• More balls on the Unity Tree• Dress up as Mohawks and toss Murphy in the Mon• Another subsidized Home Depot to kill off locally owned businesses• One more stadium• A sizeable bribe for Tiffany's• The mayor's answer is that Pittsburgh's economic and budgetary woes can be cured through more taxes, and through more levies on liquor, car rentals and payrolls. In fact, that's a clear prescription for greater economic declines, fewer jobs and more red ink. Writing recently in The Austin Review, for instance, Jeff Judson, president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, points to how higher taxes are directly correlated with slower economic growth, less job creation and significant drops in population: "Over the past 10 years, almost 3 million American citizens moved from income tax states into non-income tax states. This is one of the great migrations in human history that has gone unnoticed by the liberal tax experts. It is equivalent to 1,000 people fleeing high tax states every day of the week except Sunday for the past 10 years." Job-creating entrepreneurs, explains Judson, move to escape high taxes and find a better business climate; they "certainly don't go to the expense of relocating in order to see better football." ECONOMICS 101 It's a basic economic reality — something students learn in Econ 101 — that you hike taxes on anything you want to discourage, like smoking. The problem in Pittsburgh is that we treat job creators like cigarettes. Instead of seeing entrepreneurs, small-business owners and corporations as our best anti-poverty program, our chief source of investment and jobs, too many of our local politicians just see a deeper pocket to pick. Winston Churchill had it right when he noted that "some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked, but few see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon." The mayor, unfortunately, thinks the horse is in his office. Simply put, the best economic stimulus package from Pittsburgh is one that cuts our anti-growth glut of taxes, litigation and regulation, one that gets the government off the backs of the horses that are pulling the wagon, and one that transfers money back to those who earned it, back to where it produces less waste and fraud and more incentives, productivity and economic growth. What the record shows is that lower taxes and limited government are associated with higher rates of economic growth. Mr. Murphy, rather than looking for more things to tax, should instead be working to rein in spending. His strategy of hitting people with higher taxes simply means that he'll end up with fewer people to hit. Pittsburgh, in short, won't get in the forefront of economic advancement by way of that $8 margarita.

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