Props to Jared Polis

Jared Polis was recently elected to the United States Congress from the 2nd Colorado congressional district.

He is a democrat, but he is also a succesful businessman.

While perusing CompleteColorado.com (which everyone should read every day) I found a Wall Street Journal article penned by Polis on the impending bailout of Detroit automakers.

He is against the bailout, but unfortunately he does not get a vote until he is sworn in on January 6, 2009.

Polis understands that politicians may have diverse areas of expertise, but business is rarely one such area:

People who have never before in their lives seen -- no less implemented -- a business plan are now trying to decide if these companies will succeed by means of a "capital infusion" with various imposed preconditions and negotiate what we taxpayers (investors) should be getting for our money. Something is wrong with this picture.

As an alternative, Polis proposes waiving the capital gains tax on all investment in the automobile industry, so private equity firms have an extra incentive to try and turn around the colossal failures in Detroit - without any taxpayer money.

He concludes 

Among the reasons I ran for Congress, one was to make government work. Let's get government back to doing the work of government. Reading business plans and making investments is the job of equity funds and turnaround specialists, not members of Congress.

As a member of the Libertarian Party, I carry water for neither the Republicans nor the Democrats. I carry water for free markets. And Polis deserves credit for his pro-market stand on this issue.

If only the most recent Republican nominee for president understood economics as well as this soon to be freshman congressman.