So what really happened? Most importantly, what happened is that many of us chose to reprehend the Republicans for their failure to win in Iraq. If they had won and democracy was now spreading to engulf the Axis of Evil the election would have been an overwhelming and historic victory for Republicans. In no analysis, however, did the Democratic victory say a thing about the ascendancy of their political philosophy because, in fact, Democrats don't have a political philosophy, unless you call opportunism or exploitation a philosophy? Democrats are merely the opposition party which gains power by default when there is a sad circumstance, such as an American loss on the battlefield, to exploit.
But now that they have gained some power let's once again look at the Pelosi Democratic plan for the first "100 Hours", and what's so goofy about it:
The Pelosi Democrat Plan
1) Raising the minimum wage.
2) Halving the interest rate on college student loans.
3) Rolling back subsidies to big oil companies.
4) Stopping any privatization of Social Security.
5) Committing to no new deficit spending.
6) Authorizing the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare.
Why its plain goofy:
0) The War- Democrats won the election because America lost in Iraq, and yet they have no legislation planned regarding Iraq? Imagine that? They have not even unveiled their plan to finally capture Bin Laden, despite having stomped their feet about it everyday since Tora Bora.
1) Minimum Wage- A Federally mandated increased minimum wage means fewer jobs, higher prices, and a distorted, less efficient economy. The net benefit is zero or worse. Raising the price of labor or of a TV will always result in less demand for labor (fewer jobs) or TVs. Most Democrats simply lack the intelligence to understand this; those who do understand it chose to exploit it with a know nothing populism that, seemingly, makes them look "sensitive" to poor people.
2) College Loans- Arbitrarily giving money to a relatively smart, rich, healthy constituency such as college students is unfair to many other constituencies who may need the money more, i.e., patients in nursing homes or kids with cancer, for example.
3) Oil Subsidies- Rolling back subsidies to oil companies is probably a good thing but will not do one tiny thing to increase energy supplies or lower prices, whereas subsides might.
4) Social Security-Maintaining Federal Social Security is a blasphemy when the gov't continues to this day to steal every last penny from the Social Security Trust Fund even as baby boomers begin to retire and the work force begins to dramatically shrink. Democrats love to claim that Bush made a crisis out of the budget, debt and deficit, but somehow they still claim there is no crisis in Social Security?
5) Deficit Spending-No more deficit spending is good, but perfectly innocuous and utterly meaningless without a commitment to higher taxes, reduced spending, or freeing up the economy for more growth. This is the exactly the kind of no reform, reform we'd expect from a Party that throughout its history has opposed a Balanced Budget Amendment for the Federal Gov't like the ones that impose an exacting fiscal discipline on each State of the Union.
6) Drug Prices-Negotiating lower drug prices is preposterous and perfectly Democratic . If it were possible, they could negotiate lower prices for everything and we'd all be rich thanks to the miracles performed by socialist elites.
If the Democrats had landed at Plymouth Rock in the 17th Century their economic proposals would have sentenced every new American to slow starvation because they contain nothing whatsoever to increase the production and quality of goods and services offered by business. Democrats, like Marxists, hate business and so do not propose anything to encourage business. Nevertheless, it is business innovation that got us from the 17th Century, when an indentured servant had to work 5-7 years to pay for a dangerous months long trip across the Atlantic, to today, where a minimum wage worker can pay for a safe seven hour transatlantic trip with only two days work. It is exclusively this Republican capitalist supply side miracle that transformed humanity, with innovative goods and services, that wonderfully serves the poor and minimum wage workers of today who have seen their real wages increase 1095 times since the 17th Century.
So let's look at some Jeffersonian,Republican, Libertarian, Supply Side economic policies that might be implemented were it not for the Pelosi Democratic cancers which have consistently interfered with the higher standards of living business has so magnanimously bequeathed to us since the 17th Century.
1) Imagine if there were no capital gains taxes on venture capital firms so they could have more money to invest in new businesses with new ideas that raised our standard of living? Imagine if venture capitalists were rewarded for success rather than punished for it by the gov't ?
2) Imagine if there was no taxation on any business profits so business wasn't punished for success. Businesses would be free to invest for economic growth rather than to, in part, pay or avoid taxes.
3) Imagine if there was just one simple flat tax or fair tax for individuals so armies of IRS workers, tax accountants, tax lawyers, court workers, tax preparers, life insurance company employees, estate planners, payroll tax workers, securities brokers, and State tax workers would have to get real jobs that produced real goods and services that contributed to, rather than depleted our standard of living?
Imagine if there was one fair or flat tax, from which the gov't received all its revenue so every politician had to state exactly what your total flat tax or fair tax would be every year? As it is now a politician's free spending ways can be hidden behind a thousand different taxes, collected in a 1000 different places, at a 1000 different times, and implemented by 1000 different politicians most of whom no longer even hold office. Imagine just one big flat or fair tax that each politician had to go on record as wanting to raise or lower each year?
Imagine if tax day was moved from April 15th to election day? Clarity and honesty in the system would mean that the Democrats would be gone in a flash.
4) Imagine if health care, instead of consuming 14% of national wealth and rising, were free of gov't and insurance company laws, rules, and regulations so that the quality and price of health care was subject to the same capitalistic, supply side , competitive pressures and incentives as transatlantic travel?
Imagine if Democrats were smart enough to realize that health care is the most screwed up, inflated, expensive, and threatening sector of our economy precisely because they control 50% of health care spending already. Republicans, of course, want freedom and capitalism in health care, transatlantic travel, and all sectors of the economy.
5) Imagine if the Federal Reserve were not free to direct a huge proportion of the national wealth into the residential real estate market when it might be directed into competitive international industries that raise our standard of living? The Fed has changed course 12 times in the last 22 years; each time artificially inflating and then deflating the housing industry. This is an incredibly inefficient way to allocate capital in a free society that is absolutely dependent on steady, efficient, coherent capital allocation .
6) Imagine if all pension money were in private hands 1) so the gov't couldn't steal and waste the money, as they do with Social Security, rather than invest it productively, 2) so pension money would still be there if companies went bankrupt, 3) so companies would be free to concentrate on new goods and services rather than pension obligations, funding, administration, and management, and 4) so future increases in benefits were paid for by a rising stock and bond market rather than higher taxes?
7) Imagine a Constitutional Amendment to prevent the Democrats from taxing more than a tiny percentage of national income so more of our money could then stay in private hands where it would be used productively and efficiently to improve our standard of living rather than wasted or used inefficiently by gov't monopolists who necessarily operate in a hugely wasteful noncompetitive environment with a huge percentage of the national income.
8) Imagine the change in mentality, if instead of a Nobel Peace Prize and Nobel Science Prize there was an huge American prize given to the business person who raised our standard of living the most each year? Only the anti business Democratic mentality prevents this.
Indeed, it is not a stretch to imagine that if more Republican Libertarian supply side efficiencies were introduced, transatlantic travel for minimum wage workers could quickly be reduced to the cost of only one days work. Only Democrats, Communists, Socialists, Dictators, Liberals and others who naively believe in gov't miracles can slow the march of Republican capitalism to transform the lives of poor people. In fact, in the last six years when Republican free trade (globalization) has really taken hold, the world's poor have experienced the highest rates of economic growth in recorded history.
Sadly, not only are the Democrats ruinous to our economy but they are ruinous to our souls too. The Republican supply side approach is designed to encourage everyone to get out there, make no excuses, and offer superior goods and services that other people want to buy, and to then define themselves largely by how well they do in that effort to please other human beings. But, it is a sine qua non among Democrats that everyone must be discouraged from playing on the same team with the same goal of service to humanity. They seek to win votes by dividing America, creating class warfare, encouraging a victim mentality, or as John Edwards says, making us aware of, "Two Americas". The idea is to redress your grievances or assuage your victimhood through the gov't; not to please or serve your fellow man or respect him by what you offer or give him in a free market place. In the seriation of Democratic political life, not withstanding what JFK said, what your country can do for you is seen as far more important than what your productive capacity can do to serve your fellow man.
In the example above, young, healthy, intelligent college kids get money that might have gone to nursing home patients or children with cancer. How can that be a correct Democratic guess about how precious American capital should be allocated? Life is unfair to Democrats; everyone gets to feel a sort of therapeutic alienation, no matter what their real situation, that frees them from having to work and produce for others in a loving, civilized, and capitalistic way. Instead, they are encouraged to elect politicians who will steal for them what they need through taxation or change the rules to make things easy and fair. In the case of college kids, they are encouraged to believe they deserve cheap money and to pray that at the moment they need it, they are in, by pure luck, one of hundreds of favored and arbitrary Democratic special interest group constituency.
No group has been more subject to this Democratic thinking than American Blacks and no group has suffered more, and so no group illustrates the ultimate manifestation of Democratic thinking more than Blacks. You see it in their poverty, the incredible incarceration rate (which seems to indicate that assault, larceny, and drug use are more acceptable than honest capitalistic work), in their illegitimacy rate, and even in their Hip Hop music. Their music has replaced simple and sweet love songs about respecting, and, getting and giving love to other people. The viscous Hip Hop Democratic songs are about stealing from or degrading other people or being better than they are and bragging about all of it. Everyone is against somebody as an excluded, bitter, resentful, and hostile minority with a legitimate grievance who is then encouraged to steal from everyone else rather than to drop the nonsense and give to everyone else in a capitalistic marketplace. It is exactly opposed to the Republican capitalist spirit of giving and loving. But tragically, it is what Democrats wish on our entire economic and spiritual life. God help us now that the Democratic children have finally won an election!
Ted Baiamonte
bje1000@aol.com
121006:42
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