The Democrat, a.k.a. the Socialist debate is commonsensically challenged. Bernie says,
“… When you have half a million Americans sleeping out on the streets today… and then you also have three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society… That is a moral and economic outrage… So, if you are asking me, Do I think we should demand that the wealthy, the wealthiest, the top one tenth of one percent should start paying their fair share of taxes… Yes, that is exactly what I believe.”
Bernie Sanders wants a 97.5% tax rate on the 400 richest Americans. Bernie has big plans with a big price tag.
But what has happened in Bernie’s home state over the last 50 years of Bernie’s career? Let’s assume Bernie is influential in Vermont politics. Let’s also assume some version of his policies is reflected in Vermont. The statistics show us that Vermont’s population has shrunk marginally and its economy has grown but slower than inflation. How have Vermont’s neighbors faired over the same time frame?
Elizabeth Warren says,
Look, what the Democrats, a.k.a. the Socialists have is millionaires arguing with billionaires about who hates millionaires and billionaires the most.
The debate
That’s what is on their debate stage. Commonsense should be telling us it is time to step back from the heat of the rhetoric. Did Democrat leadership or Republican leadership put more purchasing power in my paycheck?
There are considerations here.
Let’s think about it. If you take away 97.5% of everything someone makes for their efforts; the basic math says, that person is not going to do anything anymore. Would you work if you only got to keep 2.5% of what you make? That’s all that needs to be said.
Then there’s also the simple fact of the situation. If you are one of the very rich, you have significant accumulated wealth. If the country you live in suddenly decides to tax you at 97.5%; are you going to stay there? Will you continue to live there or will you go where you can keep a better percentage of what you make? Isn’t that also a consideration we should keep in mind?
Here’s another possible consideration. The people who are generating income and accumulating wealth do so by selling something. Whatever it is that they sell must have value for the people buying it. Those goods and services must have more value to the buyer than the retention of the money they pay for the goods and services. If not they would keep the cash.
Why does it make sense to drive out the people who are the most creative and productive in the economy? Do we really believe that demotivating those people makes society better? Once they are gone so is the stream of benefits they generate. Isn’t that approach really killing the goose that laid the golden egg?
Where does that leave us?
We are all fundamentally lazy people. It is in human nature to not work harder than we need to. Given a choice between doing something the easy way and doing it the hard way we going to default to the easy way, right? What these Democrats, a.k.a. the socialists are doing is promising something for nothing.
They are buying votes with promises of “free stuff”. So the question is if some free stuff is good why not more? Aren’t we adult enough to understand there really isn’t any free lunch? Can we all really expect to eat the rich guy’s lunch?
Look, incomes for the average American family have gone up $5,000 in the Trump years. What are the Democrats, a.k.a. the socialists countering with? “That’s not enough.” Oh really!
Conclusion
The response should be… so riddle me this Batman: What did you guys do when you had control for the two terms before DJT? The answer is real wage growth was negative. Our purchasing power went down. Sure, you promised more but you delivered less. You raised taxes and left us with less to spend on the family. The Democrat, a.k.a. the Socialist debate is commonsensically challenged.