Murray’s help not helpful

Sen. Patty Murray says she wants to create jobs and cut taxes. She says she wants to help by “aggressively pushing for policies that support households and businesses on Main Street.”

Please. Stop trying to help. Adding new entitlements requiring more than 16,000 new IRS agents is not helping. Adding tax credits with more red tape is not helping. Adding regulations, no matter how well-intentioned, is not helping.

Small businesses do not add workers because they get a “tax credit for every new employee retained for one year.” We hire workers because we have work – widgets to make, coffee to serve, buildings to design and build. If there is no work, there are no wages. A tax credit does not offset a lack of work.

While Sen. Murray is working on those “smart bills that are targeted at getting Washington workers back on the job,” I wish she would try eliminating an agency, removing regulations, working on smarter government not larger government. Regulatory overload is a major impediment to growing Washington business.

To quote from Henry David Thoreau: “Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.” Don’t be foolish.

Sue Lani W. Madsen

Edwall, Wash.