Bad policies are driving the talented out of the US. For decades we were the beneficiaries of other governments’ bad policies. Their best and brightest came to the US in what was known as the “brain drain.” Foreign government policies have not improved, but ours have gotten progressively worse.
At this point, US government policies put us at a disadvantage in the competition for capital and talent against many other countries. The “brain drain” is no longer into this country but out!
Democrat, socialite and songwriter Denise Rich it the latest “name” to flee the United States. Capital has no country and goes to where it is treated properly. So, eventually, does human capital. Although Ms. Rich is not what one might consider a “brain” in the traditional sense, she has/had talent and acquired significant wealth.
Her renouncement of citizenship is not the first high-level departure and it will not be the last. Talent and wealth around the country are weighing the benefits and costs of similar action. Each new onerous regulation or tax tilts the balance further toward leaving.
The Wall Street Journal speculated on Ms. Rich’s possible motivations for this move. The general factors that were pushing the US into this difficult situation have been speculated on in several articles on this site over the last two or three years. The Brain Drain Begins was one of them.
The bottom line is quite simple. A spending problem cannot be solved by higher taxes and more onerous regulations. As John Stossel points out, regardless of how important the political class believe higher spending is necessary, individuals refuse to be enslaved:
Even if you think — despite all evidence — that government spends money more usefully than people in the private sector, there is a limit to how much government can tax before people work less or flee.
As taxes and regulations take their toll on initiative, growth slows and jobs decrease. Capital is invested outside the US. Wealthy individuals plan their personal escapes. Even the flow of immigrants from Mexico stops or reverses. People seek opportunity. Taxes and regulations kill opportunity.
End of story and end of country if bad policies are not reversed.
HappyinHowell: 
Mr Misno: 
Marsha: 
Brian Wilson: 
Steve: 
Larry Crouse: 
Brian Wilson: 
Monty Pelerin: 
Bob Snyder: 
Syrin:
This issue is only going to get worse until there is a complete collapse. The reason is social security. Eventually even the many poor people who come illegally to the US will go home realizing that they’ve only been allowed to go the United States and work because the government needs young hard working slave to be able to pay for the generation of baby-boomers who never saved a penny for their retirements but instead are loaded down with credit card debt. The young people, both the immigrants and the natives, are going to refuse to work to pay for the mistakes that have been made and the over spending.