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Tag: Bernie Sanders
In Tuesday night’s debate, Democrats put all their egos in one ideological basket: progressivism. Even Jim Webb managed to sound progressive … until he identified his prime personal enemy — the man he shot in wartime.
Bernie Sanders once again insisted on lecturing Americans on what it means to be a “democratic socialist.” Martin O’Malley relentlessly pursued an impossible dream, 100 percent carbon-free electric production by 2050 — far enough off to avoid any possible accountability. And Hillary Clinton said that, sure, she’s a progressive, “a progressive who likes to get things done!”
But what has she “got done,” ever?
It was her secrecy regarding the initial health care reforms back in her husband’s first term that helped spark the firestorm of opposition that led to the Revolution of ’94, and to the triangulating successes of the master of manipulative compromise, Bill Clinton. His was not a “progressive era,” though Democrats still use the 1990s as proof that their (“our”) policies “work.”
With exception of Bernie on gun control and Hillary on foreign policy and spying (Snowden gave out secrets to the enemy: traitor; she gave out who-knows-what via her insecure email server: blankout), the spend-spend-spend mantra of progressivism, mixed with “fair taxes” (higher tax rates) on the top 1 percent, was not challenged on the stage.
How far would they go to close ranks? Bernie sided with her regarding “your damned e‑mails.” That’s so ideological as to eschew any consideration of character or loyalty or trust.
Quite a revolution … in the party.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Tonight, the Democratic Party holds its first presidential debate of this cycle. Finally! It’s one of only six total throughout the entire campaign for the party nomination.
And all the other debates will be on weekends, with much lower TV viewership.
What does it suggest when a political party wants to minimize rather than maximize the degree to which the public gets to see its candidates and hear the party’s message?
“[I]t seems infelicitous,” writes The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, “for Democrats to be embroiled in a very public fight in which party leaders are increasingly being accused of limiting the exposure of the candidates to voters.”
Is Supreme Democratic Party Commander Debbie Wasserman Schultz afraid that familiarity will breed contempt?
As party chair, Wasserman Schultz unilaterally decreed that debates shall be limited to just six. She also warned that “candidates will be uninvited to any debates if they accept invitation to any debates outside the 6‑debate schedule.” (Meanwhile, Republicans are holding nine presidential debates, but likewise, dictatorially, blocking participation in additional debates.)
Wasserman Schultz, facing protests and heckling, claims her only aim is to prevent the debate schedule from getting “out of control.”
Or out of her control, perhaps?
Presidential candidate and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley called it a “rigged process,” asking, “What national or party interest does this decree serve?”
The limited debate schedule serves as a huge advantage for frontrunner Hillary Clinton by limiting the breakout opportunities of her opponents.
But, at least tonight, all the world’s a stage.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Weekend with Bernie: Sanders’ Eleven
Bernie Sanders has a horde of helpers. Consider the attached visual meme; “Occupy Democrats” seem to have captured Bernie’s philosophy: spend and meddle.
All of the spending in the first item of Bernie’s 11-Step Economic Plan are best directed at the state level. Bernie voters should wonder: why haven’t politicians in the states kept up infrastructure?
There are reasons why some of us want to privatize more infrastructure: more responsible upkeep.
Oh, and why hasn’t the doubled amount spent on public K‑12 schooling in my lifetime led to better schools or better-educated grads?
Just let that one hang there, and then contrast it with the disaster the feds have made of college costs while trying to “make college more affordable.”
Expanding Medicaid in one plank, and making “healthcare available to all,” in another, I take as repetition for emphasis. But the fact that Bernie’s backers want to expand spending in programs that recently have seen dramatic expansion — Social Security (in the form of radically increased rates of disability retirements), Medicaid (Obamacare), and food stamp participation (SNAP) — even while the programs lurch into insolvency, along with the whole federal budget, sends up a red flag … for irresponsibility.
Then there’s all the fiddling with free employment contracts that they pretend helps the poor, but can’t: unionization, raised wage minimums, and “equal pay” … for, presumably, unequal work, since we already have laws enforcing equal pay for equal work.
Several points are vague enough that, as stated, I could jump on board: I, too, want to reform the tax code and … “close corporate loopholes.” So does, famously this week, Donald Trump.
But what I mean by this and what progressives like Sanders mean? Big differences, I suspect.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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.
What is a “democratic socialist”?
According to leading presidential candidate and Senator Bernie Sanders, such a socialist “takes a hard look at countries around the world who [sic] have successful records fighting and implementing programs for the middle class and working families.”
I don’t believe him. He shows his cavalier attitude in his next few words: “When you do that you automatically go to countries like Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden …”
Competent comparative economics doesn’t simply focus on a few policies one happens to admire and then trumpet them for America. Other countries following Bernie-branded socialist policies are in or headed into the proverbial toilet, i.e. PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain).
The common-on-the-left meme runs like this: “No Other Advanced Country,” which Kevin D. Williamson handily demolishes in a recent article:
If we are to go around the world cherry-picking policies from happy countries, we might pass over French paid-leave laws in favor of the Swiss capital-gains tax (generally 0.00 percent) or the Swiss national minimum wage (there isn’t one), or Finland’s very liberal (in the good sense of that word) education system, or Sweden’s free-trade regime and its financial-regulatory system. We’d have to make radical improvements on our federal balance sheet to get our public debt down to Norwegian levels.
American success has never really been about copycatting Europe. We need to look hard at those who pretend otherwise — like nova Bernie, the rising star of the left, who’s now besting Hillary in polls in New Hampshire and Iowa.
And about “democratic socialism” — extreme redistributionism in a putative republic — Bernie needs to look hard at the worldwide experience … not hardly look.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.