Mr. President, America will never be socialist?
I would be remiss without calling this one out.
The bull in the china shop has done much to curtail regulations. No one can question that. Considering that he has to fight not only an entrenched bureaucracy, but also a Congress that never met a regulation it didn't like, he has done remarkably well. This one is bipartisan. And it has to stop. Congress passes "frameworks", themselves hundreds or thousands of pages, and hands them off to the Deep State, or Swamp, where it takes those hundreds or thousands of pages and turns them into thousands or tens of thousands of pages.
There is no accountability in the Deep State, they are permanent civil service, impervious to politics, or even job performance for that matter. Guess where else there is no accountability? Congress. That is right, Congress can point their fingers at the Deep State and be aghast at what was spawned.
In other words, there is no accountability, except at the Oval office.
President Truman had a plaque that said "the Buck stops here". And ultimately that is correct. And the President could do something about that, and he could do it immediately. How? He could tell Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader McConnell that he will veto any bill that requires regulations to be fleshed into the law. And then he needs to do it. Period. Let them know that any bill that is put into law will be enacted exactly as passed by Congress, and that is that.
What about the title of the post?
The President spoke some very powerful words last month in his State of the Union address. None resonate more with conservatives and libertarians than declaring Socialism dead. Is it?
Nope, not even close. Now most talk about socialism as the people controlling the means of production. In most cases, that is that all caring government, a government of the people, planning the economy, running all production. Making sure that you have what you need, and perhaps not what you want. Of course, that model never works, as it takes away the incentive to be productive. If you are paid the same no matter how much you produce, or even produce at all (think GND, money for those unwilling to work) Will you go out and break your back, or drive up your blood pressure and stress levels when someone else will reap the harvest of that labor? Of course not. That was why the USSR was always buying grain from the US, bad weather for decades. Or maybe farmers who didn't care?
Or maybe a country awash in oil, giving everything to everyone, seizing control of the assets of the corporations producing that wealth, with no compensation. It started with oil, but went from industry to industry. Oh well, Who is John Galt?
But there are other forms of socialism. Where private entities control their production, but they themselves are regulated by the government. Fascism comes to mind, as an alternate form of that same old control. Big business in cahoots with the government at the highest level. Where regulations, tax credits, subsidies and loop holes help to keep their competition out, and to keep their politicians in line. This is the most insidious form of socialism, as it gives the veneer of "capitalism", and market based economy.
When the President calls up the CEO of GM and demands that they reopen a closed factory, that is not free market. If one believed in a free market, one would make the conditions here more conducive to creating jobs. We know that businesses have to adapt with what is happening in the economy, but by tilting the scales one way or the other, it makes the market less free.
Subsidizing skyrocketing healthcare and education costs, and limiting incentives or opportunities for alternatives to Big Medicine, Big Pharma, and Big Education, is not free market. But most of all, let me ask a question.
How is your trade deficit with your local grocer? What are you doing to reduce it? What demands have you made of that grocer to reduce the deficit? Okay, three questions. That is the same thing with tariffs. Tariffs harm the people they are designed to protect. Candidate Trump complained about Nabisco moving OREO production to Mexico, not realizing that it is the Sugar tariffs that forced the move, or rather made a tipping point where it was no longer profitable to make them here.
Subsidizing farmers who have been hurt by the tariffs is not free market.
I have no issue with minimal tariffs, spread across all markets as a source of revenue. For the first one hundred + years of our country that was primarily how the government was funded. Now they are used as punitive measures. And who pays? We all do. Another socialist move by the government.
Those nations touted by the likes of Ol' Bernie (I-VT) were socialist, until they reached the edge of the cliff. They then backed away, and while still carrying a sizable welfare state, their economies are very free market with minimal regulation, and no minimum wage. The welfare state is carried with all taxpayers carrying the burden. A very high burden as all pay 40% and a much more shallow curve to the "rich" paying around 60%. Certainly not FREE!
President Trump can't talk about us not being a socialist country, and then act as if we were. That is too bad. The words will haunt him without a course correction.
The bull in the china shop has done much to curtail regulations. No one can question that. Considering that he has to fight not only an entrenched bureaucracy, but also a Congress that never met a regulation it didn't like, he has done remarkably well. This one is bipartisan. And it has to stop. Congress passes "frameworks", themselves hundreds or thousands of pages, and hands them off to the Deep State, or Swamp, where it takes those hundreds or thousands of pages and turns them into thousands or tens of thousands of pages.
There is no accountability in the Deep State, they are permanent civil service, impervious to politics, or even job performance for that matter. Guess where else there is no accountability? Congress. That is right, Congress can point their fingers at the Deep State and be aghast at what was spawned.
In other words, there is no accountability, except at the Oval office.
President Truman had a plaque that said "the Buck stops here". And ultimately that is correct. And the President could do something about that, and he could do it immediately. How? He could tell Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader McConnell that he will veto any bill that requires regulations to be fleshed into the law. And then he needs to do it. Period. Let them know that any bill that is put into law will be enacted exactly as passed by Congress, and that is that.
What about the title of the post?
The President spoke some very powerful words last month in his State of the Union address. None resonate more with conservatives and libertarians than declaring Socialism dead. Is it?
Nope, not even close. Now most talk about socialism as the people controlling the means of production. In most cases, that is that all caring government, a government of the people, planning the economy, running all production. Making sure that you have what you need, and perhaps not what you want. Of course, that model never works, as it takes away the incentive to be productive. If you are paid the same no matter how much you produce, or even produce at all (think GND, money for those unwilling to work) Will you go out and break your back, or drive up your blood pressure and stress levels when someone else will reap the harvest of that labor? Of course not. That was why the USSR was always buying grain from the US, bad weather for decades. Or maybe farmers who didn't care?
Or maybe a country awash in oil, giving everything to everyone, seizing control of the assets of the corporations producing that wealth, with no compensation. It started with oil, but went from industry to industry. Oh well, Who is John Galt?
But there are other forms of socialism. Where private entities control their production, but they themselves are regulated by the government. Fascism comes to mind, as an alternate form of that same old control. Big business in cahoots with the government at the highest level. Where regulations, tax credits, subsidies and loop holes help to keep their competition out, and to keep their politicians in line. This is the most insidious form of socialism, as it gives the veneer of "capitalism", and market based economy.
When the President calls up the CEO of GM and demands that they reopen a closed factory, that is not free market. If one believed in a free market, one would make the conditions here more conducive to creating jobs. We know that businesses have to adapt with what is happening in the economy, but by tilting the scales one way or the other, it makes the market less free.
Subsidizing skyrocketing healthcare and education costs, and limiting incentives or opportunities for alternatives to Big Medicine, Big Pharma, and Big Education, is not free market. But most of all, let me ask a question.
How is your trade deficit with your local grocer? What are you doing to reduce it? What demands have you made of that grocer to reduce the deficit? Okay, three questions. That is the same thing with tariffs. Tariffs harm the people they are designed to protect. Candidate Trump complained about Nabisco moving OREO production to Mexico, not realizing that it is the Sugar tariffs that forced the move, or rather made a tipping point where it was no longer profitable to make them here.
Subsidizing farmers who have been hurt by the tariffs is not free market.
I have no issue with minimal tariffs, spread across all markets as a source of revenue. For the first one hundred + years of our country that was primarily how the government was funded. Now they are used as punitive measures. And who pays? We all do. Another socialist move by the government.
Those nations touted by the likes of Ol' Bernie (I-VT) were socialist, until they reached the edge of the cliff. They then backed away, and while still carrying a sizable welfare state, their economies are very free market with minimal regulation, and no minimum wage. The welfare state is carried with all taxpayers carrying the burden. A very high burden as all pay 40% and a much more shallow curve to the "rich" paying around 60%. Certainly not FREE!
President Trump can't talk about us not being a socialist country, and then act as if we were. That is too bad. The words will haunt him without a course correction.
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