Jul 14, 2019 | Economy, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, were not the first presidential candidates to introduce socialism into mainstream America. Previous presidents did so and it has been in our diet for most of a hundred years. All twenty Democratic Party 2020 presidential candidates, as per their recent debates, would make militant socialist Eugene V. Debbs, founder of the Socialist Party of America (1901) and five-time presidential candidate, look like today’s conservative republican. Why are many Americans accepting socialism? Because socialism promises everything for free.
Athenian democracy (the “great idea”) profoundly changed the world that was formerly ruled by monarchies; a king stayed in power and passed it on to posterity until removed. It gave ever-larger portions of vote power to the masses but democracy had no brakes. Should everyone have an equal vote? Are they equally informed, equally intelligent, equally gifted? No, but as it expands the next level wants everything as well. Once tasted it enlarges until all have equal participation despite their differences, gifts or ignorance.
Nearly 300 years after democracy was first introduced in Athens, Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), wrote of democracy’s inherent weakness, that being, when every man is allowed to rise to the level his talent and industry permit him, some will become rich and others poor. The rich will always despise the poor, and the poor will always envy the rich. When the poor obtain the same vote power as the rich under a democracy, as they always will given their greater numbers, they will use that power to take from the rich.
It may take time for this to happen because democracy does initially encourage the profit motive, which stimulates everyone’s desire to get rich. This is good for society because to do so they invest, creating additional businesses, employing more people, and developing an ever-larger middle class. The middle class, Aristotle believed, should be the ruling class as it is closer to the poor and better understands its legitimate needs and, at the same time, it has enough of the world’s goods not to covet, thus destroy, the rich class. Still, in time the less productive will grow and become more politically powerful, especially as they learn to attach their vote to politicians who, to get elected, promise freebies.
Democracy self-destructed in both Athens and Rome because it had no brakes. Every western civilization history textbook speaks to the “bread and circuses” (free food and entertainment) of Rome.
Thus the Founding Fathers rejected democracy as our form of government in favor of a republic inserting, in their Constitution, the brakes democracy lacked. Today’s enemies of a republic intentionally favor the word democracy over republic because they despise the brakes.
At what moment is society democratized or socialistic enough? As things become freer for the non-productive part of society, more money must be confiscated from the productive middle and upper classes and it is the rich class and entrepreneurial middle class that risk their money to create the jobs making the republic successful. When has a poor man ever created a job for anyone?
In time the productive classes cannot provide the money that is demanded of them to feed and otherwise subsidize the less productive class. They are disincentivized, and then destroyed, by ever-higher taxes. All too soon the definition of rich is lowered until socialism devours the middle class as well—even until all are poor. Despite unrealistic promises, socialism gives only slavery and shared poverty.
Aristotle recognized this when he wrote, “Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.” The force to democratize more increases as voting becomes more universal which is what democracies encourage. Shouldn’t everyone have an equal vote? Those in Athens came to believe so. Wrote Aristotle, “Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.”
As voting becomes more universal vote power favors those who seek government favors as they, in time, become the majority. This process is accelerated, and corrupted, when politicians link government gift-giving with their election. As the less productive, as a class, always tend to favor financial favors from government to their benefit, and since all government money comes from the middle and upper classes through ever increasing taxes, (presently 47% of the adult population pay no federal income tax and a good share of these make up the less-productive class) they eventually destroy the productive base of society as government takes over more of the economy by confiscation or regulation. The overriding principle is, the more socialism the higher the taxes and burden on the producing class. Why? Because in exchange for the vote the socialist politician advocates that everything be free. This is his most powerful lure and works well on the idealistic youth and already dependent.
As government controls more portions of the economy, democracy transcends to socialism. Sometime in this transition democracy ceases to be democracy although the term continues to be used, hence Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s warning in 2009 to Fidel Castro, both devout socialists, “We have to be careful lest we become right of Obama.” It needs noting that all twenty of the 2020 democratic presidential contenders are far left of Obama, thus decidedly socialists.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Jul 1, 2019 | Constitution, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
A week before the 4th of July everyone dons patriotic symbols . A week later few do. The event comes and goes: colors red, white, and blue are popular for a day. One might be viewed as “super patriotic” (as though this were bad) were one to display the symbols too long.
The evening is filled with fireworks (the bigger the better) but few know why. When asked, the most common response is freedom. “Freedom from what or whom?” I ask. If a stare could kill, I’d be dead. But there is no real understanding behind the expression. It is rare when anyone answers correctly, “Freedom from excessive government.”
The cause of the American Revolution was excessive government. Some say, “taxation without representation” but this is but a part of excessive government. Every U.S. History text has a chapter dealing with the causes. It is filled with the rules and regulations that were most oppressive to the colonists: the Stamp Act, Tea Act, Currency Act, Iron Act, Molasses Act, Sugar Act, even the Hat Act. Such acts were viewed by the colonist as restrictions on their freedom to act independent of governmental permission. When they descended like rain, as they did prior to the Revolution, the colonists demanded to know why, when not satisfied, they resisted the rulings without success, then, “Where is my rifle?”
For one day of the year there is peace between liberals and conservatives. Each wear the emblems of the Revolution and demonstrate their patriotism by raising bigger flags, exploding bigger fireworks, eating bigger steaks and guzzling more alcohol. Parades too are non-partisan and show patriotism, but for what? The next day we ask the federal government to place more restrictions on our neighbor and give us more free stuff at his expense, totally ignoring the Constitution and the reason for the Revolution.
Few share with their children the reasons behind these symbols and still fewer tie the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution which essentially ended the need for a future revolution by restricting the federal government to a handful of areas in which they can constitutionally restrict our behavior (Article I, Sec. 8), freezing forever, if we adhere to the Constitution as designed, our legislative branch doing the same thing to us as had parliament to the colonists. If the two are not tied together then the American Revolution was just a revolution, rightly commemorated by having a longer weekend and an excuse to get drunk.
Lost in the translation and replaced by the blank stare previously mentioned, is your right to do most everything you wish without permission from a government, more especially one located hundreds, often thousands, of miles away. Outside the short list in Article I, Section 8, which, incidentally, has no restrictions on the individual himself, the Constitution left the individual to manage himself. When his behavior offended the right of others to also self-manage, his community, starting at the lowest level (cities, counties, and finally his state government), may regulate his behavior protecting the right of self-management for others as well. Please review this list with family and friends.
This is called freedom. And this is the end result of a 13-year transformative period from the Declaration of Independence through the Articles of Federation to the Constitution, which included the Bill of Rights. The federal government constitutionally could only increase its power through Article V, which required the permission of the states. Today it does so at will because legislators openly oppose these documents or do not care.
The collective view of the Founders was to never elevate to a higher level that which could be resolved at a lesser level. Resolving problems at the lowest level of government, the city for example, allows the individual access to his elected representatives for redress and the offended to those he has most directly offended. A more just outcome is likely.
The 4th of July and Constitution Week in September are our best opportunities to share the message of why the Revolution and the Constitution interconnect and are among the more important events in U.S., even world, history. These two events are our best opportunities to remember and convey to friends and family what liberty is and how and why it must be preserved. Do they know that the vast majority of all inventions on earth came from within the United States under this Constitution, from the clipper ship to moon landing technology? Liberty incentivizes creativity. Do they know that it was purchased by blood and if lost will remain lost until purchased by blood again? Have you told them that if just one generation fails to convey to the next these precious ideas, it will be lost to their posterity. Freedom is not free and never will be.
We are grateful to those who know the real meaning and significance of this event in history and are willing to share it with others. We are forever indebted to those who gave their lives for our freedom in the Revolutionary War and thereafter. We remain grateful for fireworks and parades as long as we do not forget that excessive government is the enemy of liberty, then and now, whether it is taken from us by a parliament, as then, or a Congress, as today.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Apr 15, 2019 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles, Taxes
Harold Pease, Ph. D
As a nation under the U.S. Constitution we are 230 years old. It may surprise readers to learn that for the first 124 of these years we had no federal income tax and handled our expenses quite well. Today the 55% who pay federal income taxes (77.5 million do not), pay nearly a fifth of their income to the federal government. Prior to 1913 one kept what is now taken from them.
How would you spend it if not taken? You would spend the extra fifth of your salary on thousands of items that are made by others as well as services you might like. This not only would enrich your life but it would provide jobs for others making those items or providing those services. Many middle class folks could purchase a new car every other year with what they are forced to give to the federal government.
Would you spend it more wisely than the federal government? Certainly! Most of the money taken from you by the federal government is spent on perpetual war, foreign aid, grants to privileged portions of our society, and endless unconstitutional subsidized programs; the last two categories of which basically take the money of those who produce and redistribute it to those who do not. Even some non-tax payers get income tax refunds—so corrupt is the system.
Of course, those receiving and benefiting from these programs will defend them. But the fact remains that tax monies provide largely government jobs, which are almost entirely consumption jobs (jobs that consume the production of society but produce little consumable). Such jobs cannot produce for public consumption a potato, a carton of milk, or even a can of hair spray. They bring another person to the table to eat, but not another to produce something to eat.
What largely brought about the give-away programs of the Twentieth Century was the now 106-year-old 16th Amendment—the federal income tax. All three 1912 presidential candidates Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, and their respective parties, wanted this financial water faucet that they could turn on at will. With it they could purchase anything—even people.
Prior to 1913 the federal government remained mostly faithful to her grants of power in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which left them with only four powers: to tax, pay the debts, provide for the general welfare, and provide for the common defense. Because the federal government has the inclination to maximize their authority the last two power grants, general welfare and common defense, each had eight qualifiers to harness them more fully. Outside these qualifiers the federal government had no power to tax or spend.
General welfare then meant everyone equally (general), as opposed to “specific welfare” or “privileged welfare” as it is today, targeting those to forfeit and those to receive monies. The Constitution did not deny states, counties, or cities from having such programs, only the federal government. But politicians soon learned that the more they promised to the people, from the money of others, the easier it was to get elected and stay elected.
The problem with the federal government going off the list and funding things clearly not on it was that each time they did so the stronger the inclination to do so again. One minor departure begets another until one notices that what the federal government does has little or no relationship to the list. I ask my students what would happen if they took to kindergarten a lollypop and gave it to one child? What would the others say? Where is mine? Try taking away long provided benefits from a privileged group, as for example food stamps, and see how popular you are with that voting group in the next election.
So why does the government now need a fifth of everything you make and it is still not enough? Answer, because we went off the listed powers of the Constitution and every departure required more taxpayer funding. The solution to less tax is less government. A side benefit is more freedom. The productive classes would not be hurt. Seldom do they qualify for the federally subsidized programs anyway.
The fifth taken from the productive classes would be spent by them creating a haven of jobs for those who wished to work. The cycle of dependency would be drastically reduced. The federal government would no longer be an enabler to those not working. States would decide for themselves what assistance programs they could afford with some states offering more and others less as the Tenth Amendment mandates.
So, how did we cover the expenses of the federal government—even wars—our first 124 years? Products coming into the country were assessed a fee to market in the U.S. called a tariff. We got product producers in other countries to cover our national expenses and thus we were able to spend on ourselves every cent of what the federal government now takes, which inadvertently stimulated the economy. No one should be able to argue that our exceeding $22 trillion national debt is fair, has really worked for any of us, and is a better plan. I personally like the idea of being able to purchase a new car every other year.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Mar 5, 2019 | Immigration, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
Most think that the 2020 presidential election is almost two years away. Not so!! The first vote, the vote of the billionaires who choose our candidates, is happening right now. It happens every four years and Democrats and Republicans simply change places. This time it is the Democrats lining up with alms bowl in hand—not to their constituents or the little donors that used to be their base long ago, but the super rich who they pretend to be against.
Candidates each take their “dance” before the billionaire club and are picked by one or more of them. Almost everyone has noticed the dramatic shift to socialism made by the Democratic Party presidential candidates, not because their constituents necessarily demand such, but because their real bosses, the moneyed elite, do. Their moneyed sponsors, primarily George Soros , the leading funder of far-left causes and elections the past two decades, who is said to have spent $25 million on Hilary Clinton and other democratic candidates in 2016 and another $15 million in the recent midterms, and Tom Steyer, who “promised to spend at least $30 million to elect progressives this campaign season,” making him the “most important Democratic donor in the United States.”
Tucker Carlson reported last week on Fox News, “This coming Saturday, Sen. Cory Booker is attending a Silicon Valley fundraiser. It is hosted by Gary and Laura Lauder. They are heirs to the $14 billion Estee Lauder fortune. Kamala Harris just had a fundraiser in Beverly Hills that was attended by an army of wealthy studio execs. Kristin Gillibrand did not even start her campaign for president before asking the permission of Wall Street.”
Yes, Republicans do something similar when it is their turn to oppose a seated Democrat president. Trump was the exception as he financed his own primary making him the only presidential candidate since William McKinley that is not largely purchased by wealthy donors. There are more Democrat political billionaire activists than Republican, taken together Soros money and organizations, and now, Steyer’s money, easily dwarf that of the Koch brothers, said to be funding most of the right side of the political spectrum.
The billionaire club easily favors the Democratic Party and the far-left side of the political spectrum. What is far worse is that Soros and Steyer seem not to be promoting rank and file Democrats but instead radicals who want to upend our political system. It appears that the rich who initially controlled the Republican Party, then both major parties for over 100 years, now has much greater dominance over the Democratic Party. Should they succeed, we will become a socialist country.
So why are the super rich overwhelmingly progressive—code for socialist. Tucker Carlson argues “They love mass immigration — it brings them servants. They support federally-mandated snobbery, masquerading as environmentalism. Abortion is essentially a sacrament to them, especially when practiced in poor neighborhoods” (February 21, 2019).
What is certain is that essentially socialism allows them to command society with their money, to right all wrongs. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex is now wondering if society should limit its number of children. Everything is managed from cradle to grave. Other forms of government deny them this kind of control.
So if most of the billionaire club are progressives and Democrat why do they overwhelmingly fund the party and philosophy that purports to seize their wealth and control? Have not Democrats identified the enemy as “old white men,” which most billionaires are? Taxing is their favorite instrument of control and Democrats have been for higher taxes on the “rich” for decades. Cortez advocates 70%, Elizabeth Warren even higher.
Don’t they pay more taxes because they make more? Yes, but only to a point. The secret is that the rich will never pay more than 24% no matter how much they make. And they, being the financiers of the presidential candidates, will never be required to.
Carlson explains how it works“The top federal income tax rate stops at about 500 grand. So what’s the difference between someone making $500,000 a year and someone making $50 million a year? The answer: The richer one can much more easily evade paying full freight, and they do.”
The rich that the Democrats want to tax are not the “real rich,” only those who make less than $500,000 per year. Those making more are locked in to no more than 27% and the richest of the rich only 24%. “According to the IRS, the top 1 percent of Americans pay about 27 percent of their income in taxes. But the top tenth of 1 percent — that’s people who make $35 million a year — pay less than 26 percent. And the top thousandth of a percent — the absolute richest — pay less than 24 percent. In other words, past a certain point, the richer you are, the less you pay. That’s why billionaires back socialism. It doesn’t cost them much.
The first election is theirs as they fund the candidates who share their socialist views and get a tax cut as well. The show part of the election, the one acknowledged by everyone, does come in two years but well after their candidates are safely placed to win. The masses then salivate over which one of of the anointed the moneyed elite have preselected for us.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Feb 26, 2019 | Constitution, Economy, Healthcare, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
Our national debt just exceeded 22 trillion dollars. To pay this debt today each citizen owes $67,033. Since children pay no taxes, nor do about 45% of our adult population, each taxpayer actually owes $179,908. Our largest creditors in order are: Medicare/Medicaid $1,091,280,000,000, Social Security $1,005,651,000,000, Defense/War 676,814,000,000, Income Security (welfare) $293,531,000,000, Net Interest on Debt $350,206,000,000, and Federal Pensions $272,980,000,000 (USDebtClock.org).
Even with the present robust Trump economy (the best in several decades) this cannot continue to escalate. We are on a collision course with Armageddon which, at this late date, may not be avoidable. Any hope depends on three things (1) our ability to make significant cuts in the top six expenditures noted above, (2) our not electing a big spending congress or president in the next decade, (3) our not entering into any new big funding events such as war, infrastructure overhaul, or open borders allowing new groups to “eat out our substance” without having already paid their way.
Of this enslaving debt, four trillion comes from eight years of George W. Bush and ten trillion from eight years of Barack Obama—the two biggest spending presidents in U.S. History. Obama alone accumulated more debt than all previous presidents put together. Donald Trump is responsible for over two trillion dollars in two years.
So what is a trillion dollars? To begin with a trillion is the number one followed by twelve zeros. A trillion dollars is a thousand billion and a billion is a thousand million. This still means very little to students who count their money in fives, tens and twenties.
One mathematician gave us a more practical way to evaluate our outstanding debt. One trillion, one-dollar bills stacked atop each other (not end to end but flat) would reach nearly 68,000 miles into space—a third of the way to the moon (See CNN News Cast, Feb. 4, 2009). If so, the debt incurred under President Obama alone, $10 trillion, would have reached the moon and back and to the moon again. Moreover, if you like traveling atop this stack of ones, our total $22 trillion in debt would take you to the moon and back three times and to the moon a fourth time and a third of the way home again.
I ask students, “Who gets to go without so that this debt can be paid?” “Go without!!!?” That is a concept foreign to this generation!! They do not know, and neither do their parents and grandparents who laid it on their backs. When they are told that their share of the debt is $67,034 and up to $179,908, depending on how many of their fellow non taxpayers they can get to pay their fair share (see USDebtClock.org), due immediately, they are angry. Someone should have told them that government handouts are not free.
The 13th Amendment ending slavery has been rescinded, they are America’s new slaves. Bondage was given them before their birth, or while still in the womb, or before they were old enough to know what it meant to be sold into slavery. The past generation wanted nice costly programs for free and were willing to sell their children in order to have them.
The latest new theory to avoid fiscal responsibility and continue unlimited spending, used by Bush in late 2009 and Obama thereafter, is referred to as Quantitative Easing. Crudely it means printing more money out of thin air to cover our debt, but it is far more sophisticated than that. For Bush the money supply was greatly expanded by having the Federal Reserve purchase $600 billion in mortgage-backed securities (Harding, Robin. 3 November 2010, Quantitative Easing Explained. Financial Times). Obama purchased $600 billion of Treasury securities over a six month period of time beginning in November 2010 in what has been called Quantitative Easing or QE2 to distinguish it from QE1, the Bush expansion of the money supply (Cesky, Annalyn,3 Nov.2010, “QE2: Fed Pulls the Trigger” CNNmoney.com. Retrieved 10 Aug. 2011).
The biggest problem with expanding the money supply is that it reduces the value of the money that you have in your pocket. Prices go up. My Camaro, purchased in 1968, cost $2,700, purchased today at least ten times as much. In this instance money has lost 90% of its value since 1968. Those on fixed incomes are robbed as surely as if a thief had lifted their wallet or purse. They cannot return to their employer for a raise to compensate for the loss caused by their own government.
Still, with all the sophisticated “doublespeak,” as for example quantitative easement, it means that we will print whatever money we need to purchase whatever we wish. Neither party is serious about stopping the debt and removing the bondage that we are imposing upon our children and grandchildren.
Democrats propose “free” college and a salary for everyone, whether they work or not, under their proposed Green New Deal. Donald Trump’s proposed trillion-dollar infrastructure program, also does not suggest a change. Who cares if our debt of dollar bills stacked upon one another can go to the moon and back almost four times so long as the government fills our stomachs and, in the case of Obama, purchases our cell phones
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Feb 18, 2019 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles, Taxes
(Presidents’ Day, Article)
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Perhaps America’s most beloved and respected president was Abraham Lincoln, who now shares a national holiday—Presidents Day—with George Washington. Today most Democrats would oppose him, as they once did in 1860. He opposed slavery and socialism. He saw nothing in the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, worthy of emulation.
On the ownership of property Abraham Lincoln’s feelings were especially strong, he said, “Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprises” (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, pp. 259-260). Lincoln might have added “which produces jobs for those not rich.”
To him there was no need to take by force the wealth of those who produce and give it to those less productive, as has always been the prescription of socialism. The “share the wealth” philosophy of socialism brought on by “envy politics,” so articulated by the Democratic Party today, was a foreign ideology to the Civil War president, who had read and rejected Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.
The answer to ending poverty is not class envy, first identified by Aristotle some 2,500 years ago as being the natural inclination of those with less, a philosophy implemented by Lenin in Russia when the communists identified those holding property as enemies of the state and liquidated some four to eight million farmers, the “Kulaks” (“The Russian Kulaks,” InDepthInfo.com). Then, they wondered why the country had such a horrific famine in 1921-1922 when millions starved.
No money was set aside for, or provided to, any class or special interest group in our Constitution. The power distributed benefited all equally and at the same time. The federal role was as referee only. Our Constitution does not redistribute wealth; it leaves the individual to do that for himself by his work ethic. It remains the fairest way.
Will income inequality be the outcome? Yes! Free men are not equal and equal men are not free. But all will have more under capitalism than had we instead forced income equality by taking from those who produce and giving it to those who do not. We remain anxious to share our wealth producing philosophy with our less prosperous neighbors and the world so that all can have more, but individuals stealing it from us, or using the government to do it for them, known as legalized plunder, is just wrong and disincentivizes those who produce.
Lincoln’s answer to the poor, from which he sprang himself, “Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him labor diligently to build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence….” Unfortunately, many in our society have forgotten the “labor diligently” part of his phrase and have come to expect the government to provide, from the industry of others, their every need. On that score Lincoln said sarcastically. “You toil and work and earn bread, and I will eat it.” He viewed this principle as a form of tyranny/slavery on those who work. Today approximately 47% of the adult population pay no federal income tax; many actually receive benefits for which they have paid nothing.
Watching others acquire wealth was, in fact, a sign of a healthy economy for Lincoln. “I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.” Nor would he have supported the hundreds of laws that we have today that disincentivizes a man trying to acquire wealth.
His view sounds similar to those expressed by President Trump in his 2019 State of the Union Address. “Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination and control. We are BORN FREE, and we will STAY FREE. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will NEVER be a socialist country.”
The new calls for socialism in our country referenced above were recently dropped by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s long-awaited Green New Deal endorsed by recently announced Democratic presidential candidates, Senators: Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand seemingly each attempting to “out socialize” opponents.
Paying the estimated $7 trillion price tag required would result in a 90% tax take which, ironically, is the definition of slavery—the very thing Lincoln is credited as having ended. It would end air travel and radically effect every other aspect of life. It would also redistribute vast new sums of less valued printed paper money making all equally poor.
Socialists may hate the “Walmarts” or the “McDonalds” all they want, but these provide the poor tens of thousands of jobs. Do not bite the hand that feeds you, then wonder where the jobs and prosperity went, as did the early Russian socialists. The “share the wealth” philosophy, which Lincoln opposed, and endorsed now by the Democratic Party, has never brought long term general prosperity for any people, any place, or any time.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
