My God,The Children Finally won an Election !
By Ted Baiamonte Comments: bje1000@aol.com (12/02/06)
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 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 Republicans are losing 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 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 makes them look "sensitive" to poor people.
2) College Loans- Arbitrarily giving money to a relatively smart, rich, and 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.
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 the economy to grow at a faster rate. 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 one's that imposes an exacting fiscal discipline on each State of the Union.
6) Drug Prices - Negotiating lower drug prices is preposterous. If it were possible, they could negotiate lower prices for everything and we'd all be rich thanks to the miracle of socialism.
If the Democrats had landed at Plymouth Rock in the 17th Century their economic proposals would have sentenced every American to slow starvation because they contain nothing whatsoever to increase the production and quality of goods and services offered by business. Democrats 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 perfectly safe 7 hour transatlantic trip with only 2 days work. It is exclusively a 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 Republican Libertarian Supply Side economic policies that might be implemented were it not for the Pelosi Democratic cancers which have consistently interfered with the economic growth 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? Imagine if venture capitalists were rewarded rather than punished by the gov't?
2) Imagine if there was no business taxation at all so all 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, and securities brokers would have to get real jobs that produced goods and services that contributed to, rather than detracted from, our standard of living? Imagine if there was one fair or flat tax, from which the gov't received all its revenue and every politician had to state exactly what your total flat tax or fair tax would be every year? As it is now a politician can hide behind a thousand different taxes collected in a 1000 different places at a 1000 different times. Imagine one big tax and then imagine if tax day was moved from April 15th to election day? The Democrats would be gone in a flash without the smoke and mirrors on which they are perfectly dependent.
4) Imagine if health care, instead of consuming 20% 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, 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 ominous sector of our economy precisely because they control it the most?
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? The Fed has changed course 12 times in the last 22 years; each time artificially inflating and then deflating the housing industry. It is an incredibly inefficient way to allocate capital in a free society that is absolutely dependent on efficient capital allocation .
6) Imagine if all pension money were in private hands so 1) the gov't couldn't steal and waste the money, as they do with Social Security, rather than invest it productively, 2) pension money would still be there if companies went bankrupt, and 3) companies would be free to concentrate on new goods and services rather than pension funding, management and administration.
7) Imagine a Constitutional Amendment to prevent the Democrats from taxing more than a tiny percentage of national income so our money could then stay in safe 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.
8) Imagine the change in mentality, if instead of a Nobel Peace Prize and Nobel Science Prize there was a 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 Republican Libertarian supply side efficiencies were introduced, transatlantic travel for minimum wage workers could quickly be reduced to the cost of only one days labor. 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. Interestingly, in the last six years as Republican free markets have opened up all around the world global income has increased more than it has at any time in recorded human history. This is the greatest blessing ever bestowed on the world's poor.
Sadly, not only are the Democrats an impediment to our economy but they are also an impediment to our souls. The Republican supply side approach is designed to encourage everyone to get out there, make no excuses, and to offer a superior product that other people want to buy, and to then define ourselves largely by how well we do in the effort to please others. It is a sine qua non among Democrats to discourage everyone from playing on the same team with the same goal of service to humanity. They seek to divide America, create class warfare, encourage a victim mentality, or as John Edwards says, make 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 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 far more important than what you can do for your fellow man. It is the philosophy of destruction.
In the example above, young, healthy, intelligent college kids get money that might have gone to nursing home patients or children with cancer. But, 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 Democrats who will steal for them what they need or to 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, a 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 may indicate that assault, larceny, and drug use is more acceptable than honest capitalist work), in their illegitimacy rate, and, not coincidentally, even in their Hip Hop music which has replaced simple and sweet love songs about respecting and giving love to other people with something very dark. The viscous Hip Hop Democratic songs are about stealing from or degrading other people or being better than them and then bragging about it. Indeed, it is a wholly Democratic attitude that life is not about offering love or goods and services to your neighbor that will improve his life. To Democrats it is about developing a gang mentality. You find sustenance in defining, defending, and promoting your turf, not in offering to others.
It is exactly opposed to the Republican capitalist spirit of giving and loving, but 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
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