"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." — P.J. O'Rourke
Beating all expectations, the U.S. economy continued to grow at an exceptional 3.2-percent rate in the first quarter of the year. Unemployment is at an historic low, consumer spending is up, and the stock markets hit new highs. Trump’s success drives limousine liberals nuts. As they spend lavishly for themselves on Rodeo Drive, they yell at their limo drivers that “We must impeach Trump!”
The fundamental thing Trump has done was to unshackle businesses from the economic burdens of the Obama Administration by lowering taxes and reducing regulations. It is a sad day when those who want to produce must get onerous permission to do so from bureaucrats who produce nothing.
Obama and the new Democrats possess economically uninformed socialist views that concentrate power in an overbearing central government. George Bush had a modified bigger government tack that included more wars of choice. Bill Clinton was the last pro-capitalism Democrat. I think Clinton’s economic philosophy went something like: Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. But teach a man to fish, and while he is out fishing all day, you can slip in and have sex with his wife.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ Big Government (a.k.a. the AOC/DeBlasio wing of Democrat Party) is based on the circular pick-pocketing of the productive in the name of "fairness." When it runs out of people and businesses whose pockets it can pick, like northern states who chase the rich out, it’s in trouble. Big government politicians are about as concerned about citizens as ticks are about people.
The U.S. government spends our money to make us increasingly dependent on its programs. Unfunded mandates (which are not Grinder dates where both men forgot their wallet) are not good. Things like the disastrous ObamaCare force states to implement programs without providing funding to run them. With the repeal of the individual mandate, the only buyers of ObamaCare are those who get health insurance free with taxpayer subsidies and those with pre-existing conditions who buy it right before a big hospital bill. Like almost all government programs, ObamaCare is an idiotic disaster.
Generally speaking, in the last 20 years, RINOs have been too cowardly to fight new entitlement bills, and Democrats don’t care what’s in a bill as long as it’s mandatory and they are in charge of it.
Look no further than Boston University econ. major and Democrat economic thought leader “Notorious” AOC. Setting aside the lunacy of how worthless college educations that produce economically illiterate graduates like AOC are now, let’s look at what the bartender-turned-Democrat “thought leader” thinks. She uses precise economic terms when she says she wants to tax those “at the tippy top,” so you know she’s smart.
It seems the model Dems want us to become resembles the dismal economies of North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela. Millennials will eventually learn economic realities, as all generations do. To use another fish economic reference — a minnow is a whale after 15 years of socialism. In Cuba now there are even shortages of beer and condoms; growing up in Maury County, Tennessee we called that “Saturday night.”
Venezuela is only the most recent stark example. In this once rich, oil-producing country, ravaged now by socialist rule, if you throw a bone to a dog there, he has to signal for a fair catch. Socialism has never worked. Hopefully, on the campaign trail old sensible Dems like Joe Biden can talk some economic sense into AOC (maybe if he stands behind her and blows in her ear). But that air might be just a refill for her head.
It is hard for GOP politicians to make the tough economic choices that the country needs. When they do, they are painted as cold-hearted jerks by the Dems and their handlers in the media. It is easier to sell John “Low-IQ” Public on the concept of socialism, free stuff and student loan debt forgiveness.
There is not a problem, both real or imagined, that Democrats don’t think more government and taxes won’t solve. Yet they never do.
If Trump understands one thing, it is business. As we Americans have learned in the first three years of his presidency, from the rains in California that put out wildfires to the Steele Dossier and Trump’s growing economy, the man can make it rain.
Ron Hart is a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.
What's your view? Write a letter to the editor.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Economy reignited; Dems implacable economic foes: Math and Human Behavior