Bernie Sanders is many a progressive’s fairy-tale candidate.
Well, yeah.
Not “once upon a time,” but today … the federal government’s public debt is in the double-digit trillions. The total debt — consisting also of unfunded/underfunded welfare state “promises” — may be in the triple digits. Still, politicians pat themselves on their backs when they deliver annual deficits under half a trillion per year.
Meanwhile, Senator Sanders, former member of America’s Socialist Party and current caucuser with the Democrats, is running on the “freebie” platform: let’s spend more!
He serves as the pusher of a very old folly: thinking that good things come to us without cost.
But the costs have to be paid.
And will be.
That’s the essence of common-sense wisdom since ancient times. Usually I conjure up an accountant or an economist to explain this, but why not go back to folklore? Folk and fairy tales, along with myths both ancient and modern (remember Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings?), tell us that magic powers come at a price.
And those costs can be killer.
Far-left-of-center magic pretends that not only can Bernie provide “free” stuff for everyone (including those of us in his “hard-working middle class”), but also that the wherewithal for these goodies (college, medicine, food, shelter, meaningful work) can easily come from … three pot-of-gold sources: “the rich,” “print more money,” and that least plausible sprinkle of fairy dust, “government efficiency.”
We tell children fairy tales not to make them wish for magic solutions, but to illuminate the logic of responsibility.
Bernie didn’t get that lesson.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
7 replies on “Weekend with Bernie: Fairy-Tale “Free””
“Vote for me and I’ll give you ice cream. ” was very effective for Sally in 3rd grade.
Should work for Democrats.
Same mindset.
Well put, drrik. I like ice cream.
My Dad always told me that nothing was free in life. Everything comes with a price.
Paul, how a voting public & in particular wealthy celebrities, can buy into this “give-away” fairy tale just stuns me. Keep taxing the wealthy & they will move elsewhere. They have the means.
On the Fairy Tale theme, I think it was G.K. Chesterton that said- and a paraphrase as close as memory serves- Fairy Tales are written, not to show children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy Tales are written to show children that dragons can be killed. It’s time for that lesson to be applied to the monster of national debt and deficit spending. Bernie Sanders is telling a tale of good monsters. There is no such thing, he is just using the deception of the wicked sorcerer. Bernie is, to be fair, as authentic as a politician ever is these days. You know what you get with Bernie. But I can’t believe he really believes his own rhetoric. He is just a zealot for Marxist redistribution, which is the most murderous dragon the modern world has ever known.
Wonderful analogy, Rollin. Only place I disagree is that I do think Mr. Sanders believes his own rhetoric. He is unlike Mrs. Clinton who will say or do anything if it is expedient in the moment. She blows with every wind of public opinion. But i could be wrong… just another politician buying votes with promises.
Paul, have you already gone into the fact that if Bernie were focused solely on ending the wars, bringing home the troops, ending the war on some drugs and releasing the non-violent prisoners, ending crony corporate welfare and bailouts, fining and jailing the banksters who defrauded us in the derivatives scams, and scaling back the war machinery itself … he would then have more than sufficient tax revenues already to provide all the goodies he wants to, AND fix the infrastructure, with lots of jobs available for those contracts! He could also even give tax rebates to everyone who has been extorted already over the recent years, and even provide a minimum income safety net for pretty much anyone he wanted to — without taking everyone at 90% as some claim he wants to!
So basically you’re saying if his program was actually followed, hundreds of billions would be saved annually, but instead of using the savings to reduce debt we could continue to get free stuff?