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Bernie Sanders Archive

Tuesday

14

December 2010

0

COMMENTS

When is it Enough for Political Elites?

Written by , Posted in Big Government

Bernie Sanders is cracking up. The sanity of the self-described socialist seems to be unraveling over the fact that a number of both Republicans and Democrats have agreed that raising taxes would be a bad idea.

The socialist took to the Senate floor for hours and screamed “When is enough enough?”

The object of Mr. Sanders’s ire was the deal between the White House and Republicans that will keep the Bush tax cuts in place. “The billionaires of America are on the warpath,” was his explanation. “They want more and more and more.”

In his nearly nine-hour remarks, excerpts of which are now going viral on the Internet, he framed the lack of a tax hike for the rich as a surrender to greed.

Bernie suffers from typical leftist economic ignorance. In his view, one can only be wealthy by taking from another. The rich, by the very fact that they are rich, must be guilty of taking from the poor. The economic pie is fixed, and all that remains to decide is how best to use government to redistribute it.

In reality, the economic pie is not fixed. The wealthy are such, for the most part, because they create more wealth than their peers. They grow the pie, and in the process we are all made better off.

In response to Bernie’s temper tantrum over not being able to further soak those who are already drenched, Americans need to be asking him when does government have enough? When is government big enough to satisfy Bernie Sanders?

The big government socialists are on the warpath. They want more and more power, more and more money, and more and more control over your life.

Friday

10

December 2010

1

COMMENTS

Spending and Deficits

Written by , Posted in Big Government

Suddenly the likes of Bernie Sanders care about the debt. Republicans, he and the angry left claim, are being hypocritical by not raising taxes.  This is nonsense. Keeping tax rates the same is not, as he claims, adding anything to the debt. Sure, Republicans have agreed to Obama’s costly extension of unemployment insurance, but that’s a reasonable price to pay for not allowing the tax hikers to truly wreck the economy. The latter would, in the long run, result in less government revenues anyway.

We need to be honest about our fiscal problem. The debt is just a symptom, and it cannot be treated by increased revenues. Why? Because the real problem is spending. If politicians are given more revenues, they will just spend it. This principle has been demonstrated time and time again. Raising taxes will do nothing to fix the debt. The only way to reduce deficits is to reduce the burden of government spending. It’s not a 35% tax bracket instead of 39.6% standing in the way of fiscal sanity, nor a 15% capital gains tax instead of 20%. It’s the self-described socialist Bernie Sanders and his comrades on the left blocking us from doing what needs to be done.