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Benjamin Franklin was for sure a visionary and a fountain of wisdom. One piece of that wisdom, often quoted, is an eternal truth that Americans would be wise to remember. “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Yet, a new Wall Street Journal survey tells us that, alarmingly, most Americans are willing to give up their liberties in exchange for what they mistakenly believe represents economic safety. As Dmitri Bolt, writing for Townhall, put it, the United States is in danger of literally voting its way into socialism.
There’s an old adage that is tragically true: You can vote your way into socialism, but you will have to shoot your way out.
Price controls and centrally planned economies always end badly, in the long run. Still, they appear to be concepts to which Americans are warming. The Wall Street Journal polled 1,500 registered voters across the country between Sept. 16 and 21, asking their opinions on a range of interventionist economic measures.
Socialism on the Rise
Ideas such as rent control, raising taxes on millionaires, a $20-an-hour federal minimum wage, and a pied-à-terre tax– a tax on second homes – were all favored by a majority of those polled. Other popular proposals included Medicare for All and capping childcare costs and credit card interest rates.
It’s easy for anyone unversed in economics to look at all of these ideas and assume they would improve the quality of life for Americans. The problem is twofold, though. In the first place, there are few, if any, historical examples of a government so heavily putting its thumb on the scale of commerce and private industry and, in doing so, creating long-term prosperity and economic stability. In the second place, once a nation hands that much power to its government, there is inevitably no limit to the additional powers that government will grant itself.
Tomorrow it’s raising taxes on the rich, but next year, the fairly wealthy become the target. Four years later, the moderately well off see their taxes go up – and 10 or 12 years down the road, everyone who is not considered “poor” is taxed to the eyeballs. Europe has already shown where this road can lead.
Let the government slap caps on drug prices and rents and, before long, it is expanding price controls to many other products and services.
The Curse of Government Control
Give the government this much power over the entire private enterprise system and, well, it’s no longer private enterprise. It’s now whatever the politicians decide it is. And, without a doubt, they will take their kickbacks and carve out loopholes for their friends and family and campaign donors. So, Americans can claim the system is somehow rigged against them now, but let the government implement these ideas, and the system will still be rigged – only then, it will be the elected leaders who are rigging it.
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The fact is, that’s what socialism is all about. It’s not a philosophy or an ideology – it is one huge scam, a way for those whose craving for power and money is limitless to control everything and everyone. It is no coincidence that the new breed of American “Democratic Socialists” comes, with few exceptions, from wealth and privilege.
Here are some of the poll results: The most popular suggested measures were “Pass laws to ban surprise medical bills,” approved by 90% of respondents; “Require health insurance companies to cover services and medicines prescribed by doctors,” favored by 88%; and “Cap the maximum prices of prescription drugs,” with 87% approval.
Some of the least popular ideas were government-run grocery stores (37%) and sending Americans $5,000 checks if Republicans retain control of Congress (23%). So perhaps there is still hope that a majority of Americans have not decided full-blown socialism will make everything right.
Still, 59% liked the idea of Medicare for All, 61% wanted a new federal tax on Americans who have a net worth exceeding $1 billion, and 66% said yes to a federal tax hike on people who make more than a million dollars a year.
This all appears easy to explain. Wall Street, ironically, leans left politically – and so does its namesake newspaper. Obviously, for this poll, The Wall Street Journal over-sampled Democrats. The startling truth is that, no, that’s not what the WSJ did. The party affiliation breakdown of those polled was 36% Republicans, 8% Republican-leaning independents, 33% Democrats, 9% Democratic-leaning independents, and 9% independents.
How is it, then, that American conservatives appear to be abandoning their traditional fiscal values and love of limited government to embrace at least a kind of watered-down socialism? Perhaps it is because President Donald Trump, in his second term, has flirted with certain ideas that aren’t too far from socialist concepts.
What was it President Ronald Reagan said? The nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”
Since probably no one can name a single example in living memory of the US government running anything efficiently and at a reasonable cost, what makes people think all these hypotheticals from the survey would not turn into disasters if the federal government was given the green light to make them a reality? Life can be difficult, and times can be hard – but beg the government to “fix” everything for you, and, at some point in the future, you’ll be like the lady in the old Soviet-era Russian joke.
“Do you have any meat?”
“Madam, this is a fish shop, so we don’t have any fish. The meat shop is next door, and it is they who don’t have any meat.”
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