Guns, Santa, taxes and our love for political statements

Americans have an unusual ability to turn just about anything into a political statement. I say this, having just read about how the Scottsdale Gun Club in Arizona is offering a chance for your family to have a picture taken with both Santa and an AK-47. In the photo I saw, six smiling young ladies surround the jolly old guy, flashing arms that would make the president's security detail envious.

The message may be vague, but it does seem to be an extra incentive to make the "nice" list this year and to put a little extra effort into the cookies you leave out on Christmas Eve.

This is a season in America for statements. The Occupy movement is busily making its anti-corporate statement all over the country. Some politicians, worried the group is resonating on some frequency with a common anger toward wealthy corporations, are trying hard to show they get it.

The problem with statements, however, is that they tend to come in simple symbolisms that mask real complexities. They are long on emotion and short on solutions.

A lot of states are running headlong into this as they prepare for their 2012 legislative sessions. If Americans truly are aiming their guns at corporate tax breaks and giveaways, or favoring higher corporate taxes, how is a lawmaker supposed to finesse the very real problem of attracting business in a competitive marketplace?

In Illinois, lawmakers and the governor passed a massive tax increase earlier this year in an attempt to deal with its budget deficit. Personal income tax rates rose from 3 percent to 5 percent, but corporate rates went from 4.8 percent to 7 percent.

At the time, Illinois' governor rejected the notion this would hurt business. But in the meantime, such Chicago staples as Sears, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade began threatening to leave the state, and several small businesses actually did go.

Other states were more than happy to offer them deals in an effort to reduce their own unemployment rates.

So now, as the Associated Press reported this week, Illinois is thinking about a $250 million package of new tax breaks specifically aimed at keeping those companies put.

"If we don't do it, another state will," said one Democratic state representative. That's not exactly a mantra that would resonate with either the Occupy movement or the tea party, but it reflects cold, hard reality.