To pick up on the old joke, we can say that the Democrats have very promising candidates. They promise just about anything to get elected. Virtually everything they promise to provide to the American people is either aspirational – meaning a hope more than a plan – or impossible.
Whether they know it or not, Democrats are flying in the face of Benjamin Franklin’s dire warning about protecting the Republic from promises that appeal to greed more than need. Franklin said that “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.
Apparently, Democrats are counting on Franklin, that the people will vote for those who promise enormous monetary benefits.
Socialized medicine
The biggest bogus promise is the various versions of free health care for all – commonly referred to as Medicare for all. They also call it “single payer,” suggesting that Uncle Sam is the payer when, in fact, it all comes out of the taxpayers’ pocket. Fortunately, the idea of putting America on a socialist healthcare system is not likely to happen. It is just ridiculously too expensive and therefore too unsustainable. That does not, however, stop the Democrats from dangling free healthcare in front of the voters in the hope they will take the bait.
The Green New Deal
The Green New Deal that is being credited to neophyte legislator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is such an impractical fantasy solution to an exaggerated problem that even endorsers admit the Deal is more aspirational than practical – simplistic wishful thinking that fails to address the realities of any number of complex issues. It is so ill-conceived that even some the leading Democrat presidential candidates have rejected key elements. It is an example of something we too often see in campaigns – selling the sizzle when there is no steak.
While it is the rallying point for the radical green constituency within the base of the Democratic Party, it offers nothing that is reasonably implementable – unless you wish to recreate the low energy usage lifestyle of America of the mid-1800s.
“Free” education
Then there is the promise of free education. That snake oil promise is designed to get the younger generation voting for Democrats.
Not only do Democrats promise free education for future students, they actually propose to “forgive” the current student debt. That would have Uncle Sam covering more than $1.5 trillion in debt owed by more than 44 million student borrowers. The average student in the Class of 2016 owes approximately $37,000 – and that figure increases each year as colleges and universities increase their tuition fees. Students are only the vehicle by which huge sums of money are redistributed from the federal treasury to the schools.
Student debt is the second largest category of consumer debt – with mortgages being the first. It represents more debt carried by people than credit card obligations and auto loans. It is developing into the kind of bubble that took down the real estate market and kicked up the Great Recession of 2008.
National minimum wage increase
It sounds good. Give everyone a $15 minimum wage by law. That is purely political bs. It will do nothing for anyone in the long run. It will produce only four results. Fewer jobs, fewer future pay increases (essentially erasing any economic benefit from raise), increased prices and more robotics replacing workers. The youngest, less educated and minority workers will be hit the hardest.
Less than one percent of all workers (2.7 percent of hourly-pay workers) receive pay at or below the minimum wage, and most of these are in the hospitality industry — hotels, restaurants, resorts – where tips contribute to the overall wage package – essentially putting many of those workers above the official minimum wage.
This is one issue where the economic results will be worse for virtually everyone if Democrats were actually successful in increasing the minimum wage.
Ending the male/female wage disparity
This is an issue in which California Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris makes the most outrageous proposal involving an issue of dubious legitimacy. While women across the board earn, on average, slightly less than men, there is minimal disparity – if any – when performing similar work with similar productivity.
A statistic that rarely surfaces in the debate is the fact that women workers are more costly to employers for a number of reasons – a few of which include more sick days, maternity leave, shorter time with an employer, the nature of jobs women take up and lower levels of productivity.
One can find anecdotal exceptions, but in general – across the workforce – women are not discriminated against in wage considerations.
That makes Harris’ proposal to use federal enforcement – by Executive Order if she must – particularly egregious. She would force every employer to “prove” a negative – that they are not discriminating based on gender. She would reverse the American tradition of placing the weight of proof on the prosecution – not the defendant.
The so-called wage disparity is an evergreen issue in the Democrat platform. It makes a good campaign issue, but in terms of policy, it sucks – and it is not likely Harris would change things very much despite her tough rhetoric.
Paying for all the goodies
One of the first questions regarding all these very expensive things Democrats promise to do if elected is the cost. Since they cannot simply say, “I don’t know” when it comes to sourcing the money, they have to say something … anything that can sound remotely credible to people who do not have time to immerse themselves in the economics of it all.
Put simply, there is no way the Democrats can fulfill their campaign promises without tanking the American economy in the short run and without placing a burden on future generations that would make the current god-awful National Debt look like chump change.
In trying to make their proposals sound legitimate, Democrats are falling back on one of their oldest schemes – soaking the rich and sticking it to the corporations.
Confiscatory taxes on even the super-rich would not come close to paying for all the “stuff” the Democrats are promising. They are hoping beyond hope that enough voters are too ignorant or too greedy to see the reality of the economics. They are depending on class warfare as a motivator because the economics are not on their side.
And they are totally deceptive in their promise to tax the big bad corporations. They seem to forget that corporations do not pay taxes, they merely collect them from the consumer and pass the money on to Uncle Sam. That’s right. Every time the left taxes a business, you and I will pay the tax when we buy that shirt, hire that accountant or rent that apartment.
Democrats offer up Fantasy Land
You do not have to visit Disney’s theme park to explore Fantasyland. It is the very foundation of the Democratic Party platform – at least as expressed by most of the score-plus-three candidates seeking the Democrat presidential nomination for 2020. If you eliminate all the aspirational talk, you discover that the left-wing Democrats have no legitimate programs or proposals to offer the American people. Just overly hyped fantasy-based campaign promises that will never be kept because they cannot be kept in the real world. Should Democrats gain power through their ruse, the nation should brace itself for disappointment on an unprecedented scale.
So, there ‘tis.