The field of Democratic hopefuls for the presidential nomination seems to grow with each passing day. And the list of things with which they plan to bribe the American voter grows longer each day as well. Open borders. Let illegals vote. Let convicts in prison vote, even terrorists like the Boston Marathon bomber. Forgive $50,000 of college loans for those students who didn’t work their way through a state school by flipping burgers at McDonalds, but opted for an expensive private university and gargantuan debt instead. Guarantee a salary for those unable to work, and even, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s first plan read, those unwilling to work. Free college for all. Free day care. And, of course, Medicare for all.
What these Democratic hopefuls don’t tell you, is that you, yes, you, the wage earner, the middle class taxpayer, will end up paying for all of it. “Oh, no,” you say. “The tax on the wealthy will pay for it!” However, most of the wealthy in America are wealthy because, like Bill Gates, they have earned their money by creating a product that people want. And, with most of them, their wealth is largely tied up in the stock of their companies. A man in such a situation might be worth 60 million dollars, but his actual cash, the funds he can get to without selling off his stock in his company will be considerably less, perhaps 5 million. If his tax rate is 70% he will owe $3,500,000 in taxes plus $200,000 in a proposed wealth tax. Out of 5 million that leaves him $1,300,000 with which to pay the mortgage and other expenses that his wealthy lifestyle has incurred. He will need to start selling stock. As he sells stock, the price of the stock will decline as will his wealth until in a few years his income may well have declined considerably and his net worth certainly will since he will have had to sell his shares in his own company in order to pay his tax debt and live. In other words, the wealthy are not an unending source of revenue.
In the meantime, because he is selling stock in his company, as are all other wealthy Americans, the stock exchange will plummet as others will be frightened into selling off shares. Now, most Americans don’t have a stock portfolio, so they may not think this will really affect them, but they are wrong. As the stock market plunges, two things will happen: first, the economy will go into a nose dive. Businesses whose stock has lost value will have to lay off workers. Those workers will no longer be able to buy the things they used to buy and other businesses will have to lay off workers as well. Unemployment will rise and consumer confidence will fail. Second, every person with a retirement fund will lose precious retirement money or perhaps will see their retirement fund disappear completely. Millions will suffer, including the college student with his loan paid off who now can’t get a job. Remember during the Obama years how they talked about all the young adults living in their parents’ basements and working as Baristas despite their college degrees? It will happen again, if Democrats have their way.
So what happens when the wealthy run out of money and the government still has to pay for Medicare for all, pay off college loans, and give everyone a guaranteed salary? In fact, there are not enough wealthy to pay for all the free goodies each year anyway, so where does the extra money come from? From middle class taxpayers. The people who work will pay the salary of those who don’t want to work. The ones who never went to college or who paid for college with scholarships, jobs, and help from their parents will pay the college bills of those who chose to party at Yale instead of getting a job and attending Indiana State University. And because even we, taxed to the extreme, cannot provide enough money for the freebies, the country will borrow more, in which case the debt will increase even more. Or the government may decide to print more dollars, in which case the dollar will become devalued as in South American countries where the currency became so worthless that people who couldn’t get toilet paper used money instead.
Free things sound good. Everyone wants something for nothing. But my parents always told me that nothing is free. People fall for scams like these every day of the year. Someone calls supposedly from Publishers Clearing House to tell you that someone is on their way to your house with a check for $800,000 that you just won in a special contest that you don’t remember entering. All you need to do is wire them $500 in handling fees from Walmart before the check arrives. Or the IRS calls you on the telephone to tell you that you owe more money on your tax return and gives you an address to send it to. Most people don’t realize that the IRS NEVER calls someone. They write letters. So unless you have been warned about the scams or are very suspicious, remembering that “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably IS too good to be true,” you may fall for these scams just as many are falling for the “free stuff” from the Democratic candidates.
Some of them, like Bernie Sanders, truly believe in Medicare for all, oblivious to the long waits for doctors’ appointments and surgeries in the U.K. and Canada and the refusal to cover needed medicines or treatments. Most of them, however, know very well that the country can’t afford all the things they are promising in order to buy your votes. Andrew Yang, for example, wants to give 253,330,000 legal adult Americans and the added nearly 7,000,000 adult illegals in the country a thousand dollars a month in a guaranteed wage. I could go for that. In our house, that would mean an extra $3,000 a month! Not bad! However, I understand that I would be paying all of that money, perhaps more, in raised taxes. Here’s why. That would take $260,330,000 out of taxpayers’ pockets each month or 3 billion 123 million 960 thousand dollars each year. The total annual budget of the United States is 4.7 trillion. This “free” stipend for each adult in the U.S. would take close to 10% of the country’s budget. This guaranteed wage alone would wipe out a one percenter each year! Then we have free college, free health insurance, free daycare, forgiveness of college loans . . . .
An economist figured the only wage to effectively pay for the free stuff promised by Democratic candidates was to do ALL of the following: 1. Raise payroll tax by 10% (you pay half, your employer pays half. Unfortunately, the employer usually passes that half on to you in raises and benefits that you DON’T get!). 2. Impose a nationwide value added tax (on top of states’ sales taxes) of 20%. This raises the cost of everything you buy (food maybe excluded) by 20% Everyone pays this. There are no exclusions for low wage earners or the unemployed. 3. Raise everyone’s income tax by 10% (after having already removed the Trump tax cuts we got.) This effectively means that your paycheck would be 40% lower than it was a year ago, minus whatever they decide to charge us for the healthcare! If you take home $2000 a month, you will take home $1200 under the Democrats. Can you afford to live on that? You better think about that, a lot. Because you WILL pay for the free stuff for everyone in the country, including illegals. And then you will need to survive on what is left. If you think you can do that and you WANT to do that, then vote Democratic. If like me, you prefer to keep the money you have earned, vote Republican!