There isn’t a dollar in existence that one or more of the Democrats running for president haven’t promised to spend on something. It doesn’t really matter on what, it’s already gone. Of course, your tax money is already spent, as is that of your children and a good chunk of what your grandchildren will earn; that’s what happens when you have a national debt surpassing $22 trillion. So what’s a few tens of trillions more?
In the last debate, most of the candidates on the stage came out in favor of a wealth tax, under the banner of the rich needing to “pay their fair share.” What they never say is what a “fair share” is. How much of what someone earns is the government entitled to? The only answer is “more.”
The thing about a wealth tax is just because someone has a high net worth, it doesn’t mean they are sleeping on piles of cash they can break off a wad of to give Uncle Sam what he’s demanding. Jeff Bezos is worth about $110 billion, but it’s largely tied up in Amazon stock. He’d have to sell a bunch of it to come up with the cash to cover his bill. Then he’d have to repeat it every year to satisfy the Democratic Party’s lust for cash.
However, if you took everything he’s worth you couldn’t fund the government for 2 weeks. Then what would you do? You can’t go back to him for more, he’s broke. You’d have to work your way down the list of billionaires, but there still wouldn’t be enough money to cover the nearly $5 trillion the government is fast approaching as an annual budget. And that’s before Democrats add their $3-plus trillion per year on health care, student loan “forgiveness,” “free” college, and massive increases in existing subsidies.
In other words, the rich aren’t rich enough to keep the promises Democrats are making.
Then again, neither is the country.
Doesn’t make sense? That’s likely because the numbers we’re dealing with here have no meaning to you. No one, not even billionaires, can wrap their minds around a billion dollars, let alone a trillion. As a kid, my best friend’s mother taught me a way to put it into some kind of perspective. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than anything else I’ve learned.
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A million seconds is about 12 days. A billion seconds is about 32 years. If you’re reading this you have lived several million seconds, and possibly more than a billion seconds. But a trillion seconds is roughly 32,000 years, significantly longer than known human history.
In addition to the nearly $5 trillion per year we’re already spending, Democrats are looking to spend almost that much over again in new programs and giveaways. How do you pay for that when you can’t cover what you’re already spending?
You can’t. Even after raising taxes on everyone, there still won’t be enough to cover the tab. But the people who’d vote to spend the money will be long since gone by the time the bill comes due, so they don’t care.
Our government has turned into a game of chicken, in which politicians spend freely hoping they’ll be retired or dead by the time the economy can no longer bear the weight of deficit spending.
Of course, raising taxes will only slow economic growth, making everything worse.
We’re essentially in a death spiral no one wants to acknowledge.
Then along comes the 849 Democrats running for president, every one of them with trillions of dollars in promises in the back pocket, and you see how much worse it could get.
So yes, Democrats are going to raise your taxes. They are going to take from you and your family to give to someone else, someone whose vote they want to buy.
But whether they get their way or not, there is no serious plan to stop the real problem of government spending. Neither party wants to address it because realism doesn’t win votes.
If it sounds hopeless, that’s only because it is. There is no constituency for fiscal sanity, at least not one big enough to win more than a House seat or two. So if Republicans win, it will keep getting worse, if Democrats win, it will keep getting worse faster. Until, that is, people stop looking to the government to provide them with “free” things. And we all know there isn’t much chance of that.
Derek is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses.
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