Economics

Why I’d Take Castration Over Bernie Sanders

January 20, 2016

1540

Beginning this article, it’s only fair to lay out the few things I do enjoy about Bernie Sanders.

I enjoy the fact that he is one of the few members of the Senate who stand for criminal justice reform with regards to the War on Drugs (not as good as Rand Paul or Cory Booker, though).

I enjoy the fact that he seems against NSA and PATRIOT Act spying.

I enjoy that he was against the War in Iraq (well, when he doesn’t vote to finance it).

I enjoy how, unlike Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, he shows some principle (like writing articles on why he supports 100% tax rates).

I enjoy how he doesn’t want to talk about Hillary Clinton’s emails. I do not buy into the idea of negative campaigning and feel he is genuine in that effort.

With that said, he still holds as the absolute worst person I could imagine on this earth becoming president. I’d rather dress like a 60 year old man and become a Jeb Bush fan. I’d give Hillary Clinton her Goldman Sachs paid-for back massage. I’d even go as far as to begin cheering with the Hitl… TRUMP Youth. I would do anything to avoid seeing a Bernie Sanders administration take office.

Yet, why? Why do I have such pains about Sanders and why would I do almost anything to avoid him becoming president? What reasons make me literally more open to the idea of pulling my pants down and having scissors slice me into a world of pain, over seeing him take office?

Firstly, I’d just want to point out the history of the last time a socialist became president.

An entire decade where unemployment was never once below 10%.

A time in American history where the President would make orders to have Ag products and cattle literally killed and destroyed in the name of protecting the market.

A time where government rose to such absurd powers, it managed to remove over 100,000 people from their homes based purely on race and intern them in very similar camps to what we called our enemy’s camps.

A time where people didn’t act as entrepreneurs or innovators, but acted as listeners to the radio expecting to hear from their leader when the economy would recover.

A time in which, despite America seeing the greatest expansion of government in history, it saw no economic growth and no gains, even marginal, with the previous decade.

This was called the 1930s and the man behind it was Franklin D. Roosevelt. And more importantly, if people don’t understand the damage Bernie Sanders can bring in, there’s something very important to note about FDR. He started out running a fiscally conservative campaign on lowering taxes, capping spending, eliminating the largest tariff in history, eliminating prohibition and telling people that Herbert Hoover was a socialist who was bringing down America with big government. In the national convention of the DNC for 1932, FDR had on his platform a plan for a 25% across-the-board tax cut and elimination of the Smoot-Hawley tariff. FDR’s vice presidential nominee, James Garner, entered the convention openly calling Herbert Hoover a socialist and claiming themselves to be the ‘capitalist ticket’. If Bernie Sanders was alive and of voting age in 1932, he’d likely have voted for the socialist party candidate and called FDR some fat cat who does not favor the American interest.

That was the platform a socialist ran on and America received a decade of hell instead. Imagine for a moment an America with a candidate running on a plan blatantly lying to the American people in promising what many say will be $1.8 trillion in new spending yearly, but just claiming “oh, the rich will pay the bill for it.” It’s a joke… and only funny for every single country currently going through liberalization who will obtain the jobs Bernie will push out of America.

Diving into this more, I don’t want to discuss the basic flaws with Bernie. His childish dreams of a $15 minimum wage have been beaten to death so badly by economists and America’s own CBO that anyone talking about it should probably talk about how vaccines gave Jenny McCarthy’s kid autism. His fiscal logic is so pitiful that his supporters are relying on some garbage Salon article with no real math or economic basis, to say he’s not going to increase the national debt. Those obvious wake up calls to reality have been done time and time again and do not need to be done. Instead, in explaining my issues with Bernie Sanders, I’m going to just ask his supporters five very basic questions. It could be more, but these are the five most basic ones. In this, I can show why I’d rather have my genitalia taken from me and perhaps people feeling the Bern can see the delusions.

Question One

America currently stands slightly above the global average having a government spend 30% of GDP. In Bernie’s plan, he would raise spending to the point America becomes officially the biggest spender, now hitting above 50% of GDP and breaking the 49% that Denmark holds.

How could you not see such a dramatic shift in the economy and tax burden happening without a direct hit on American jobs or companies? How does someone increase the government and tax burden to points where it now doubles all other manufacturing or agriculture-based economies and still hold halfway competitive?

Question Two

If taxes were raised on the top 5% of Americans to 100% while incomes held exactly the same (they wouldn’t), Sanders would still add $400b to the United States deficit. If taxes were raised to 75% on the top 25% of income earners and deductions held flat, there’s still a small deficit which would happen.

Aware of that, do you believe Bernie Sanders is genuine in claims that he can just tax the rich to care for America’s problems?

Question Three

In Bernie’s tax reality, to keep taxes balanced so people don’t end up earning less compared to people who actually made less money, there would likely need to be a 30-50% tax increase across the board on payroll, income and corporations for people of all incomes. The average income for people ages 35-60 years old is about $65,000 a year, which has a current federal tax rate of 25% before deductions. The average American aged 40-55 spends on average about 5% of their annual income on health insurance. With that, the Sanders plan would very likely, in income taxes alone, have the average middle aged person to just pay for his single payer healthcare plan go from a 25% tax rate to anywhere between a 32-40% tax rate to get a 5% savings.

With that knowledge, do you feel that this could hurt people who are a segment of the population most likely to be saving for retirement, and most likely to have children?

Question Four

Many people are simply going to college and getting degrees the market has shown as undesirable, while also having people spend four years of their lives obtaining them. Many people believe about 20-30% of students attending college should have probably avoided ever even applying, due to it not being a worthy experience for them.

With the Sanders plan for free college; couldn’t this lend itself to risk of further degree inflation for people? Also, if this plan did have major or GPA quotas attached to it, wouldn’t that universally help wealthier students who are statistically far more likely to excel in school?

Question Five

The last time a major tariff was put into place, it was done by Herbert Hoover and called Smoot-Hawley. Within five months, unemployment shot from 6% to 15% and in one year, it was at about 25%. It stood as a bill which was called ‘economic poison’ and over 1,000 economists signed a letter to Herbert Hoover begging him not to sign it.

Bernie Sanders, next to Donald Trump, is the most tariff-friendly candidate running. Does this history of protectionism where everyone from Murray Rothbard to Paul Krugman to Milton Friedman can join together praising free trade offer any fears on Sanders regarding trade?

With that, I’d enjoy hearing thoughts on those questions from Bernie supporters and see if they have any defenses on those basic points. Condensing down all my questions from five hundred to five was difficult, but these were the broadest and felt they can get a general sense on why I find Bernie Sanders to be living in economic illusions.

Wrapping this up, I understand the feelings Bernie does give to people. There is a feeling of economic pain and the only answer just seems at a time to crawl to government for an answer. That said, history with FDR showed what happens with government expansion and with that and many other things can hold a clear case for why America should value Hong Kong, Chile and Sweden as examples of liberalized economies improving due to the rise of capitalism.

Capitalism is the idea which created the growth seen in the past, it holds in the present producing great innovations daily and will be America’s future leading society to new heights.

Do not allow the Berning Sensation to stop it!

* Editor: the text above has been reviewed for readability, but not content. The opinion(s) reflected therein are those of the author, and not of the BeingLibertarian.com website or Being Libertarian LLC.