The Democratic Party aka The Democratic Socialist Party
The Democratic Party
aka
The Democratic Socialist Party
July 10, 2018
The Democratic Party has been dying a slow death since the 2010 midterms. Yes, they’ve had a few peaks of sunshine in the special elections since 2016, but for the most part, they have lost seats in the House and the Senate, and also hundreds of seats in State Houses all over the country. Is this the beginning of the end of the Democratic Party? The answer is yes and no. The Democratic Party of Harry Truman and John Kennedy is fading into oblivion. What is emerging to fill the void is the Democratic Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has moved so far to the left that, in my opinion, it is becoming more of a Socialist Party than a Democratic Party. To be clear, the word Democratic, as it appears in Democratic Socialist, is only there to make the name of Democratic Socialist more palatable to moderate Democrats and the average American voter at large.
The Democrats are expecting a big Blue wave in November. I can’t think of a single reason why this will occur. Who but the most hard core left-wing zealot would vote to change the direction of the country? Economic growth is way up and for the first time in my memory (which is quite long) there are more jobs available than there are people to fill them. As a result of this, wages and salaries are rising faster than has been the case for quite some time. With the exception of Bill Maher and people of his ilk who are hoping for a recession, I would think that just about everyone else would be happy with the current direction of the country - everyone, that is, who is not a socialist.
There are numerous examples of just how radical the Democratic Party in its new form will be. One example of what these so-called Democratic Socialists are in favor of is the elimination of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). We currently have an unsecured southern border. Illegals are coming across into our country everyday. Because of that, thousands of Americans are dying every year. Some of these Americans are being killed directly by illegals and thousands more are dying from the tons of heroin and fentanyl that are smuggled into our country every year. Eliminating ICE would only make the situation worse. My guess is that most of the moderate Democrats would not be in favor of eliminating ICE.
Last December, both Houses of Congress passed the Tax Reduction and Jobs Reform Act, and the President signed it. This legislation reduced taxes for about eighty percent of the American public and also cut taxes on corporations. Since it passed, job creation and economic growth have skyrocketed. Because of tax reduction, hard-working Americans have been receiving more money in their paychecks and over five million employees have received billions in bonuses. This was done because of President Trump’s Tax Reform Act. He cut taxes on business, and they responded by giving bonuses to their employees. As most of you know, Nancy Pelosi called the generosity of these employers “crumbs.” This comes from a woman who, along with her husband, is worth between $130M and $170M. Can you imagine for just a moment how out of touch with the American public this elitist Democratic Congresswoman is? This is a woman who says she’s for the middle class. It gets worse. Congresswoman Pelosi has actually stated publicly that if the Democrats retake the house in November and if she is elected speaker, she will bring legislation to the floor to repeal the Trump tax cuts. Knowing this, who in their right mind would vote to put the Democrats back in power?
Another policy embraced by the Democratic Socialists is Universal Basic Income. In short, this program guarantees a fixed income - paid by the government - to every man, woman, and child, who is a citizen of the United States. I am unable to explain in strong enough terms just how far off the rails this plan is. The cost to the American taxpayer would be between $2.5T and $3.0T per year. After taking into account the additional tax revenue generated from the plan, I estimate the net cost to taxpayers will be between $1.9T to $2.4BT per year. This would increase government spending by about fifty percent.
A plan of this type is currently being considered at the local level in Stockton, CA. As is the case with many liberal / socialist ideas, no thought whatsoever has been given to the many unintended consequences that would result from the implementation of such a plan.
One such problem is that there are absolutely no restrictions on what the recipient can use this money for. This government handout could be used for drugs, gambling, prostitution, or even child porn. Another problem with this plan is that income taxes and every other tax known to mankind would be raised to near confiscatory levels to pay for this plan. Even with the increase in GDP, I believe that the economy would still lose jobs and some businesses would close. This would be due to the extremely high income tax burden.
Another problem that I see is that normally law-abiding, tax-paying citizens would begin to bury income. It would also cause more people to resort to bartering as a means of transacting business. These methods of conserving cash would be done, not out of malice towards the country, but as a means of self-preservation. Do we really want to make criminals out of hard-working Americans? This is Socialism, and this is what it will do to a thriving economy like ours.
Another plank of the Democratic Socialist Party is single payer health care. We currently have the best healthcare system in the world. People from all over the world come to the US to get medical procedures done. This fact alone should tell everyone something - and that is that the United States does healthcare better than any other country on earth. The system doesn’t need to be fixed. All we have to do is leave it alone.
Under a single payer system all providers would receive the same compensation for the same procedure or service. All consumers would receive the same level of care regardless of their ability to pay. The issue, as I see it, is who is going to determine the level of payment? Well, the answer to that is the government. This is just as bad (and in some ways worse) as Obamacare. Obamacare made it mandatory for everyone to have health insurance. If you chose not to purchase health insurance, you were charged a fine by the IRS. This is socialism.
Single payer health care would be automatic. It would be like medicare for all. Everyone would be covered. There would be no uninsured. This is about the only positive attribute of this plan. There are many negative aspects of a single payer plan. For example, because the plan is run by the government, it is the government who decides how much doctors and hospitals are paid for each service or procedure. The government would also be able to approve or disapprove whether a patient would receive a procedure or not.
Single payer would pay medical providers at a lower rate than private insurance companies, and doctors would have to take what the government gives them. Some doctors may decide that it’s not worth the money they’re receiving to see patients and would end their practice. Promising young science majors may decide not to go into medicine because the amount of money that they would be able to make would not be sufficient to justify the cost of medical school. There is already a concern in this country about a shortage of doctors. Government-run healthcare would only make the problem worse. If the number of doctors diminishes, the availability and the overall quality of healthcare in America will diminish. Also, if payments from government-run healthcare to hospitals and medical facilities are not sufficient, staff will have to be cut, and other expenses as well. The other option is to hire less costly and less qualified people. Either way, the quality of the healthcare will go down. Will these lower payment rates make these medical facilities unsustainable? I would say probably not. But the facilities will deteriorate. Money is the life’s blood of any business. So when cash flow is reduced, it’s a good bet that the quality level of that business will go down. This is socialized medicine. One size fits all. In my opinion, it won’t work very well here. The reason I say that is that people in this country demand more value for their money than socialized medicine will ever be able to deliver.
The other potential downfall is how to pay for all this. We’ve already raised income taxes and every other tax known to mankind to pay for Universal Basic Income. So where the money will come from to pay for a program of this size is a mystery to me. In order to pay for a program of this magnitude, a very broad-based tax, such as a national sales tax, would have to be imposed. Would anyone really want to burden the already overtaxed middle class with still another tax? Of course, this would be in addition to the confiscatory levels of all the taxes that have already increased. My opinion here is that the citizens of this country, at least the tax-paying ones, would not stand for it and would mount some kind of a revolt against the government. I am also of the opinion that it might get bloody.
The purpose of this post was to show that what we currently know as the Democratic Party is morphing into the Democratic Socialist Party. I have discussed several of the policies and programs that I think people such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez would be in support of. There are other people in the current Democratic Party that are just as radically left-wing as Bernie Sanders. People such as Keith Ellison, Maxine Waters and Elizabeth Warren would also be very open to a Socialist Party.
Socialism encourages mediocrity. There is no motivation to strive for excellence. Capitalism makes people compete. It motivates people to “build a better mousetrap.” Why, you ask, does capitalism do this? The reason is that people who excel in what they do in a capitalist society get rewarded. They get promotions and raises. They move ahead and their families benefit. There is no reason to excel in a socialist society. The government takes a larger piece of your income and then decides how to best spend it. Why would anyone want to work hard and then have the government take their hard-earned money? People who live in socialist countries are so lucky that their government relieves them of the burden of having to decide what to do with their money.
One of the so-called benefits of being in a socialist society is that college tuition would be free. Is a college education in a socialist country not worth paying for? Is it as good as the quality education that students in America receive? My answer to that question is probably not. Also, if the government is paying for the education, is it not reasonable that the government is going to want to set the curriculum and tell the teachers what to teach? This is called brainwashing and, as I said earlier, it’s already happening. It is a myth in this country that if you can’t afford to pay tuition you will be unable to attend college. There are all kinds of financial assistance programs available. Publicly funded institutions have numerous programs that are need-based. Our local community college, which is now part of the SUNY system, has one such program and I personally know people who have benefited from it. Not only did one of these individuals graduate from this school, but the school’s placement office helped find this graduate a job in his field. I’m sure that private schools have similar programs, especially for exceptional students. In addition, the federal government has grants and low-interest loans to assist students in finishing their education.
Everyone is born with the same opportunity to succeed in this country. Even though everyone is not born with the same amount of intelligence, it is still possible for anyone who wants to attend college to enroll. Once accepted, it’s up to the individual to do the work and succeed. The opportunity is there.
Young people in this country have been brainwashed by their teachers and college professors from the time they entered kindergarten until they finished college. They have been, and our entire society has been, under constant bombardment by educators and the mainstream media. When I was in business, I would talk to young people quite often during the course of business. Surprisingly, I found that many of these young people had rejected the socialist narrative. They see how this country has thrived under a capitalist system and become the greatest economic powerhouse in the history of this planet. Socialist countries and communist countries have not fared as well. Almost all of these countries are in worse financial condition than the U.S. Their debt to GDP ratios are much higher than ours which is bad enough. That being said, the interest rates that they pay on their debt are quite a bit higher than ours.
My final comment regarding socialism is that it’s just not as good as the capitalist system we have. For well over two hundred years, capitalism and the desire to make profit has been the driving force that has put the US way ahead of every other country on earth. Only very stupid people would try to fix something that in addition to not being broke is working better than any other system known to man. Will the new Democratic Socialist Party try to move the country towards Socialism or will they be smart enough to leave well enough alone? This remains to be seen.
In a previous post I wrote that when you live in a country like this it’s easy to get lost in your life. You get up in the morning, go to work, take your kids to soccer practice or dance class or whatever other activities are available to them. We are a busy people with a lot of things to do. Sometimes it’s just easier to let government take care of things. The only problem with that is that you will wake up one morning and find that the country is on the edge of the fiscal cliff. Worse yet, you may wake to find that we’ve become a socialist country. You will also become aware at that point that the rights that we have fought for and have taken for granted for years are no longer there. You might want to keep this in mind the next time a socialist runs for President or any other elective office.
