Watching Bernie Sanders in the sad excuse for the Democratic Party’s presidential debate last week, persistent questions pop up in inquiring minds. Such as where the heck has this guy’s brain been for the last 100 years? In the freezer?
Sentient people can’t help but notice that the whole point of the 20th century was that Socialism and Communism do not work for working people. See, e.g. East Germany v. West Germany, North Korea v. South Korea, Venezuela v. Colombia. But there was Bernie Sanders last week, the self-appointed tribune of working people, presenting precisely the outdated, defeated, failed ideas of Socialism and Marxism as the future for America and the American people.
By Socialism and Marxism, I mean in practical terms basically doubling the already way too high U.S. tax rates of 35% to 40%, at least for the nation’s savers, investors, employers, and successful small businesses (filthy capitalists). I mean adding to the enormously destructive overregulation of the Obama years a further regulatory jihad that would fundamentally attack (with literally the intent to destroy) American producers of low cost, reliable American energy, in the name of the thoroughly documented FANTASY of potentially catastrophic “climate change.”
I mean perpetuating a further explosion of government spending, deficits, and debt. And I mean further destabilizing the dollar and American financial markets.
There is no point in quibbling about the intellectual definition of Socialism and Marxism. The above policies are precisely today’s definition of Socialism and Marxism, in that they take away the power of the American people to control their own lives, and enjoy jobs, rising wages, and incomes, and prosperity (the pursuit of happiness). Indeed, the above is a comprehensive policy prescription for continued American economic stagnation, rather than renewal and restoration of economic growth and prosperity, and for the continued, fundamental transformation of America into just another poor, weak, South American country.
In fact, these Bernie Sanders Democrat policy prescriptions are exactly the opposite of the policies needed to restore such booming economic growth. That is because the foundation of rising jobs, wages, incomes, and economic growth is increased savings and capital investment.
Such capital investment is the wellspring of new businesses and the expansion of existing ones, which is where new jobs come from. It is the foundation of increased demand for labor and increased productivity of labor (by providing the most modern tools for labor to be productive). Which is the predicate for increased wages, income, and economic growth.
But the Sanders Democrat Socialist/Marxist policies would effectively drape an enormous Closed for Business sign across the USA. Raising tax rates still further is not going to promote savings and investment in the United States. Just the opposite, it is going to promote capital flight instead. Defenestrating production of low cost, reliable, American energy production, causing electricity prices to “necessarily skyrocket,” cuts short the budding opportunity to restore booming, good manufacturing jobs for America.
Draining billions and billions more from the private sector capital supply through still more federal spending, deficits, and debt is just going to divert the necessary capital investment in American business and industry to the Democratic Party project of buying more votes with still more corporate welfare and poverty-inducing freebies. Monetary destabilization and zero interest market intervention will further discourage U.S. capital investment.
But it is not just Bernie Sanders. He offers just a more honest, outspoken version of the same cutting edge thinking of the 1930s as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Lesson to be learned — there is nothing progressive about progressivism.
The one new idea allowed in the Democratic Party of today is to abandon retro blue collar working people, clinging to their guns, their Bibles, and their religion, for the more hip, metrosexual, green, crony capitalists, who will recycle a portion of their corporate welfare handouts to finance the Democrat Party political machine.
