Now the elitists in Washington are arguing about tax breaks for businesses. The Democrats say it’s another break for the rich and the Repubs say it’s an incentive to create jobs. I am absolutely sure that a small business owner can do a lot more with his money than the Federal Government. He might not necessarily choose to spend it on salaries.

I owned and operated a fairly successful small business for 24 years. I mean really small. It would not have made a blip on the federal radar but it got the kids thru college.

I can tell you without reservation that if the government gave me a tax break it would not have been an incentive for me to hire people. Hire people to do what? "Yes sir, I am putting you on the payroll because I got a tax break although I have absolutely nothing for you to do".

Are the Washington elitists who run this country so far removed from reality? Businesses hire people on the basis of need. When you are profit motivated you pretty well stick to that agenda. Government is not profit motivated so they work on an entirely different set of guidelines, bad ones.

Do the politicians who regularly use the promise of "jobs" to promote their own careers not realize that we are no longer the greatest manufacturing nation in the world where "Made in the USA" meant something in every corner of every market? Do they not realize that we have been reduced to the lowly status of ‘debtor nation’? We are borrowing money from our enemies just to pay our existing international debt and yes, China is our enemy. Today it is the political and economical battlefield and they are winning. Tomorrow?

We use borrowed money to continue to rattle our sabres across the face of the earth. Our enemies are contemptuous of us. Look at the latest headlines. The US is preparing to "take a greater military role in Syria!" "The US will not allow Iran to have a nuclear bomb!" How about the other 195 countries in the world spending a little of their money, and far more importantly, a little less of our blood? How about someone else taking a "greater role in Syria"? Where is the rest of the world on the problem with Iran? I’ll tell you, they are waiting for us to bankrupt ourselves and send thousands more of our best into winless wars. Allied token forces of "rear security" that pack up and leave the second one of them gets wounded does not count.

We still pretend to be the wealthy and powerful nation we once were. We were a nation with a strong economy based on innovation, free markets, inventions, scientific discovery and, most important of all, the resultant manufacturing of goods.

We are now teetering on the brink of financial disaster. Many millions of people are out of work, our manufacturing base has disappeared. We had the talking heads on TV declaring how we were to replace the massive exodus of our manufacturing by becoming an "information processing" nation. They sent all of that overseas also! The problem solver person with Bank of America always seems to have a very strong Pakistani accent! All our overeducated leadership can think of is to argue about whether or not to give business a tax break. It sounds good during an election year. The fact of the matter is that we are feeding on our own fat right now. That can’t go on much longer.

Richmond Hill’s Roy Hubbard is a former green beret who writes an occasional column for the Bryan County News.