Even liberals in state legislatures are attacking capitalism through overt assaults on our free-market system. The Maryland legislature in January overrode their governor’s veto of a bill that will force corporations with 10,000 employees or more to pay 8 percent of their payroll to their employees’ health care costs. Unfortunately, nearly 30 other states are considering similar legislation. State policy makers who legally force corporations to carry out their income redistribution schemes are as gutless as their counterparts in Washington D.C.
State legislatures are not alone in their use of backdoor attempts to inflict the pain of socialism on businesses and the public. Since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf region, causing temporary spikes in gas prices, oil company executives have been called to Congress to justify their companies’ profits. Some misguided members of Congress have even demanded that oil companies return their “excess profits” to the public.
The third and most visible gutless method liberals employ to attack capitalism is the use of rhetoric that attempts to disguise their socialistic ideology. The rhetoric of gutless socialism preys upon the economic illiteracy of many Americans, which fans the fires of economic class warfare.
Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) actually told supporters last year at a San Francisco fundraiser, “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.” That sounds like Karl Marx’s communism to me.
In January, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) issued a press release critical of the president and our growing economy that stated, “The President claims he has created a strong economy, but working Americans are telling a different story. They feel the American dream slipping further from their grasp and they know the reality is that this economy is not delivering for middle-class families.” When you look at the compelling positive metrics of the economy, this is not economic illiteracy. It is denial of economic reality.
Congressional liberals have carved out a position on every issue that defines success for their party as failure of our economy, failure of people to help themselves and even failure in our efforts to fight the war on terrorism.
National security is and must remain our top national priority. But replacing the income tax code, restructuring Social Security, restraining government spending and increasing economic literacy among the public must also be top priorities to end the march toward socialism. As the late Senator Everett Dirksen once said, “When they feel the heat, they will see the light.” Congress needs to feel the heat, generated by millions of their constituents demanding an end toward the march away from our free-market principles.
The debt we owe our founders and our grandchildren is to aggressively defend the success of capitalism and our free-market foundations. If we fail to pay this debt, the “shining beacon on the hill” that lights the path of hope and freedom across the globe will slowly flicker away, extinguished by our lack of will, not by our lack of skill.