Well, here’s a shocker (not): Newsflash! Bernie Sanders Fans: All That “Free Stuff” Will Break the Middle Class. Excerpt:
Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Similarly, it could be said that for liberals, how the real world works is indistinguishable from magic.
They want “free” birth control, health care, college, “Cash for Clunkers,” free housing for the poor and paid time off for women who are having a child. They want welfare with no preconditions for anyone who wants it, a $15 minimum wage and they want to open our borders to anyone who wants to come here illegally, have a child and live off the American people for the next 18 years.
Unfortunately, as Thomas Sowell has often said, “There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs.” Put another way, giving away “free” stuff may seem appealing, but it often has terrible consequences.
First and foremost among them, if you give too much away, you can go bankrupt. It’s not the least bit controversial to say that even with our current level of spending, we’re on pace to become Greece. You don’t have to take my word for it because even a diehard liberal socialist like Bernie Sanders admits that we can’t keep piling on debt.
“Everyone agrees that over the long-term we have got to reduce the record-breaking $13.7 trillion national debt and unsustainable federal deficit.”
Incidentally, our record-breaking debt is now up to almost $18.4 trillion and Bernie Sanders is proposing another $18 trillion in spending over the next decade on NEW programs. That’s in addition to the deficit spending we’re already doing, all of which is theoretical because at some point in the next decade or two, no one will be willing to loan us any more money and our economy will splatter like a bug on a windshield.
Let’s interject a moment of realism here: Bernie Sanders is not going to be the Democrat nominee, and he’ll never be President. And that, True Believers, is manifestly a Good Thing.
Bernie Sanders repeatedly reveals his economic illiteracy, but his entire economic plan – such as it is – reveals the single most glaring flaw in his reasoning: He has no idea, none whatsoever, how wealth is created in a free society. Even more, he is sadly ignorant of one important principle: Wealth is not “distributed.” It is created and earned.
Bernie Sanders thinks “wealth inequality” – an inescapable fact of the human condition – can be addressed by taking resources away from people who have earned them, and giving them to people who have not.
The article concludes: You lose your job because the company you work for can’t make it with a $15 minimum wage, because of Obamacare costs, or if the company goes overseas because we already have the highest corporate tax rate in the free world – well, that’s too bad! Don’t worry about it though, here’s some “free” stuff for you. Sure, you’ll have to downsize your lifestyle, swallow your pride and cut back on your dreams, but at least it’s “free,” right?
We don’t need more “free” stuff in America; we need more opportunity! We also need to start putting the interests of the people who work hard, play by the rules and pay their taxes ahead of illegal aliens, refugees and the people who want something for “free.”
As the late, great Robert Heinlein said, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” When someone starts promising you one, smart people put their hands over their wallets and start looking for the catch.
Every single policy Bernie Sanders has advocated is anti-growth and anti-opportunity. That’s no way to get out of our fiscal mess; it’s how we got into it in the first place.