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Five Completely Absurd Economic Ideas That Keep Winning Votes For Democrats
Townhall.com ^ | August 12, 2019 | Scott Morefield

Posted on 08/12/2019 3:38:58 AM PDT by Kaslin

Liberals fall short in many critical areas, but they ARE full of one thing (OK, one OTHER thing besides what I know you’re thinking) … ideas. ‘Big’ ideas. ‘Bold’ ideas. Ideas all over the place, most of which in some form or another were on grotesque display during the last two series of Democratic 2020 presidential candidate debates. 

Of course, it’s one thing to have an idea, but how many are actually realistic or even theoretically possible? Sadly, such is the fate of pretty much every ‘big, bold’ idea Democrats manage to projectile-vomit out of their mouths, especially when it comes to how to spend YOUR money. The sad part is, they almost always sound so good in theory that a significant percentage of voters are completely duped, thus enabling Democrats to win national and statewide elections.

After the latest round of debates, even a seemingly frustrated Washington Post editorial board asked: “Why go to the trouble of running for president to promote ideas that can’t work?”

To get elected, that’s why ... Based on silly economic ideas like these:

Healthcare should be ‘free’

The idea that everyone is entitled to get treated for ‘free’ when they are sick sounds great, at least on the surface. Everybody gets sick, right? So why should anyone have to pay for good healthcare? The obvious problem is, if someone isn’t paying for it, that means someone has to be forced to provide that “free” healthcare for, well, free.

Democrats will say that’s not their argument, that a taxpayer-funded program like Medicare-For-All would fix everything. Except, when you introduce socialism into the equation you’re bound to get things like insane tax rates (because again, nothing is really ‘free’), deadly inefficiencies (because government) and absurd price and wage controls that stifle innovation and drive anyone and everyone with a lick of smarts who don’t want to work for less than they are worth out of the industry. See Canada and virtually everywhere else socialized medicine is practiced. Which means that eventually, if you want to have people to provide all that “free” healthcare, you’re going to have to force them. Did we abolish slavery over a century and a half ago?

Everyone should make all the money

Who doesn’t want to make more money? What if you could vote for your pay raise? Push a button for the person with a D beside their name, and watch that cash start rolling in. Yes, Bernie started it. But now, everyone with a D beside their name thinks it’s a good idea to force employers to pay $15 an hour and up, no matter what work their employees perform. Because nevermind economic laws like supply and demand, everyone should make all the money! And while not even Bernie Sanders wants to live to his lofty wage standards when it comes to paying his own campaign workers, that doesn’t stop him and all the other Democratic candidates from promising the world to lower-skilled workers, at someone else’s expense. 

Hey, while we’re giving away ‘all the money,’ why not make the minimum wage $25 per hour? How about $100 per hour? Hell, why not go for broke and make everyone multi-billionaires. Then, everyone can live in giant mansions with their sportscar of choice parked in their beautiful, long, concrete driveways. Sure, it’ll probably take a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy a loaf of bread or pay someone to do a simple home repair, but hyperinflation is a small price to pay for ‘equality,’ right?

Laws will solve the “gender pay gap”

“Equal pay!” they shout as if U.S. companies actually make a habit of paying women less than men doing the exact same work, with the exact same qualifications, at the exact same performance level for the exact same amount of time. This is, of course, ludicrous on its face. There is no such thing as a “gender pay gap.” It is a myth, a fantasy borne out of the twisted minds of warped social justice engineers who, incidentally, aren’t nearly as smart as real engineers. And yet, Democrats think they can somehow legislate this mythical “gender pay gap” out of existence. How exactly would that work, Senator Gillibrand? Do you mandate that a newly hired female earn as much as a male who has been on the job, say, 20 years? Do you mandate that teachers make as much as engineers? Do you equalize the pay between, say, nurses and doctors? Do you force more women to become doctors or vice versa? And what sort of god-awful government bureaucracy do you invent and impose on American businesses to sort all this out?

If any sort of “gender pay gap” existed, the free market would sort it out really quick. For example, there is currently a shortage of qualified workers in many key fields. If the “gender pay gap” were true, companies would be falling over themselves trying to find and hire the women currently working somewhere else for less than they are worth. It’s not rocket science, just basic economics … but still sadly beyond the intellectual grasp of most liberals.

Excessively raising taxes or overtaxing the rich will bring in more tax revenue

This is an old one, but despite being continually debunked it continues to come up as if government budgets were a zero-sum game. Meanwhile, in the real world, overtaxing depresses economic activity, leading to less revenue in the long term. And the idea that the “rich” can pay it all is absurd as well. As John Stossel pointed out in this 2012 Forbes piece, taxing all those who make $1 million or more at 100 percent would result in 600 billion or so, not nearly enough to even begin to chip away at the nation’s massive debt. And going forward, why would anyone who’s getting taxed at 100 percent or anywhere close to that continue to produce? No matter how you slice it, entitlements and spending have to go down to make ends meet. The problem is, politicians on both sides of the aisle don’t have the political stomach for it, so the debt and deficit continue to balloon. 

These five are really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to completely unworkable liberal ideas that keep hanging around because they sound just good enough to get the votes they need to seize power.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: democrats; economy; healthcare; taxes; wages
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Feel free to steal my post and use it.


21 posted on 08/12/2019 6:13:28 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: MV=PY

Is there a federal minimum wage now? - C’mon, you know the answer to that one.

Should there be? - That’s a fascinating academic exercise, but you won’t convince a majority of voters that the answer is no anytime soon.


22 posted on 08/12/2019 6:21:57 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog (Patrick Henry would have been an anti-vaxxer.)
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To: central_va
The Republican Party primary policy appeal is aimed at such a tiny sliver of US society. You could say it is less than 10 million.

Yup. And after 30 years most non-Leftist voters quit buying it. 2016 was a watershed year in that respect.


23 posted on 08/12/2019 6:22:59 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog (Patrick Henry would have been an anti-vaxxer.)
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To: Kaslin

The Dem promises are ridiculous. Even reporters know better than ask how they will pay for this free stuff for fear of making their candidates look even more foolish.


24 posted on 08/12/2019 6:24:20 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: Buckeye McFrog
I pre ordered this book Tucker talk about on fox:


25 posted on 08/12/2019 6:25:05 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Kaslin

Noted the same logic vs. *FREE* h’care wasn’t applied to high taxation\outright theft: (economic) slavery by degrees.

Spending not only has to go *down*, but entitlements need to be ELIMINATED.

IOW: FOLLOW\ENFORCE. THE. CONSTITUTION.


26 posted on 08/12/2019 6:44:28 AM PDT by i_robot73 (One could not count the number of *solutions*, if only govt followed\enforced the Constitution.)
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To: central_va

Sometimes what’s best for Wall Street
really IS what’s best for America.

But not always. And basically Republicans have handed them their entire wish on a platter for thirty-five friggin’ years.


27 posted on 08/12/2019 6:48:33 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog (Patrick Henry would have been an anti-vaxxer.)
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To: central_va

There are many of us who think that it is none of the government’s business about how much someone is willing to work for in order to advance themselves in life. This is a person by person INDIVIDUAL choice which should be left to the person who lives with the results. In many ways, it is the raw foundational building block of freedom itself. Freedom. Free to make one’s own decisions without being imposed upon by busybodies claiming to know better than you and forcing their will upon you and your life decisions. How much money you are willing to accept as salary for performance of a task is certainly your own individual choice. I have no right to be included in the decision and asking my government to give that right to me opens the door to a very slippery slope of one decision after another being stolen from the free will of those whom the decisions really belong. You choose minimum wage laws. I choose freedom.


28 posted on 08/12/2019 7:05:58 AM PDT by Uncle Sham
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To: Buckeye McFrog
"Should there be? - That’s a fascinating academic exercise, but you won’t convince a majority of voters that the answer is no anytime soon."

Perhaps, FRiend. But we should fight to keep a federal minimum wage from being established. If it is, the politicians will (by their nature) continually increase it, driving up unemployment and adding cost to every product.

And that's a bad idea; it would do serious damage to the economy.

Economics 101, supply and demand.

29 posted on 08/12/2019 7:21:23 AM PDT by MV=PY (The Magic Question: Who's paying for it?)
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To: Uncle Sham
Since the "business community" pays off the legislature to keep the labor flood gates open with both legal and illegal immigration I'd say there's a lot wage price fixing going around ON ALL SIDES. Yes, the Chamber of Cheap Labor desire for unlimited immigration and no minimum wage AIN'T GONNA FLY ANYMORE.

Libertarians are going have to accept it.

30 posted on 08/12/2019 8:27:43 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Kaslin; All
"Five Completely Absurd Economic Ideas That Keep Winning Votes For Democrats"

A major problem with the Democrats' big ideas is that the states have never expressly constitutionally given the feds the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for any of the listed ideas.

In other words, misguided Democratic hopeful nominees for POTUS should actually be trying to get elected to state governments to push their ideas since the states uniquely have the 10th Amendment (10A)-protected power to care for the people.

In fact, the congressional record shows that Rep. John Bingham, a constitutional lawmaker, had clarified that the Founding States had given the states, not the feds, the lion’s share of government power to care for the people.

”... the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Federal Constitution, is in the States, and not in the Federal Government [emphases added].” —Rep. John Bingham, Congressional Globe, 1866. (See about middle of 3rd column.)


Justice Brandeis had reflected on Bingham’s words when he likewise emphasized state power to serve the people.

"It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose [emphasis added], serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” — Justice Brandeis, Laboratories of democracy.

Note that constitutional limits on states as laboratories of democracy is that states cannot establish privileged / protected classes or abridge constitutionally enumerated rights, and must maintain a constitutionally guaranteed republican form of government.

H O W E V E R…

The states won’t be able to do their constitutional duty to serve the people until patriots support PDJT in putting a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes indicated by the Gibbons v. Ogden opinion, such taxes arguably stolen state revenues.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States."—Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.


More specifically, patriots need to elect a new patriot Congress in the 2020 elections that will not only promise to support PDJT’s vision for MAGA, now KAG, but will also promise to surrender state powers that the corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification feds have been stealing from the states back to the states.

And to make such changes permanent, patriots also need to support PDJT in repealing the 16th and ill-conceived 17th Amendments.

Remember in November 2020!

MAGA! Now KAG! (Keep America Great!)


31 posted on 08/12/2019 9:03:59 AM PDT by Amendment10
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To: MV=PY; Buckeye McFrog

If, as Mr. McFrog suggests, the argument is now all about how high the minimum wage is to be then Mr. McFrog evidently believes that the minimum wage accomplishes the objective of providing a better living for all. In that case the minimum wage should be, in my humble opinion, not less than ten thousnd dollars per minute. Why fool around? If a little is good then a whole mess of it must be better.


32 posted on 08/12/2019 9:29:01 AM PDT by RipSawyer (I need some green first and then we'll talk a new deal!http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3763)
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To: central_va

If someone else is willing to do a task cheaper than you it’s not the government’s problem to solve. Illegal immigration is one of the few problems that it is the government’s job to solve. Address the problem of illegal immigration in a way that doesn’t insert the government’s nose into how much money I choose to work for. It is none of their business. If it is, when are they going to define what a “maximum” wage is? A federal definition of what is a minimum wage helps states where the cost of living exceeds this wage and hurts states where the cost of living is lower than this wage. The Fourteenth Amendment says we must all be treated EQUALLY so a federal minimum wage is unconstitutional on this basis alone because of the variance of effect it has on the economies of the states individually. A minimum wage of $15.00 per hour has almost no effect on most northeastern states but puts a huge burden on most of the rest of the country business wise. Sorry, this is NOT equal. It will not fly.


33 posted on 08/12/2019 11:37:05 AM PDT by Uncle Sham
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To: Uncle Sham
If someone else is willing to do a task cheaper than you it’s not the government’s problem to solve.

Yes! I think that brilliant statement of yours should be the GOP campaign 2020 slogan and it's main meme:

"If someone else is willing to do a task cheaper than you it’s not the government’s problem to solve."

I am sure the GOP can take all 50 states with a campaign slogan like that.

34 posted on 08/12/2019 11:14:24 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va
"I am sure the GOP can take all 50 states with a campaign slogan like that."

Such a statement has NOTHING to do with illegal immigration. It has EVERYTHING to do with allowing competition in the marketplace being the final arbiter of cost/product pricing rather than some government dictated outcome. All Americans would benefit from being able to buy products cheaper and being able to compete for work that others currently are charging too much for. That's how a free market works. The GOP could certainly say they will remove government interference in the free market and get tons of support.

35 posted on 08/13/2019 7:53:40 PM PDT by Uncle Sham
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