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Lawyers, Guns
and Money
Picture of chellim1
posted
August 24, 2018
How Much Does Socialism Cost?

A favorable view of socialism is rising among certain demographic groups in the United States. In a recent Gallup poll, 57% of Democrats surveyed said they now have a more favorable or positive view of socialism, compared to 16% their Republican counterparts. Not surprisingly, 51% of people under the age of 30 view socialism favorably, while 45% of the same age group believe that capitalism is still a good idea. It's important to note that those responding favorably to the idea of a socialist economic system don't necessarily advocate, nor do they endorse, the U.S. government nationalizing (that is, seizing ownership of) big corporations and small private businesses. They lean more toward the government providing basic needs, such as free health care, guaranteed employment, and "free" college education.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old avowed socialist and fresh face of Democrats, had trouble answering the question "How do you pay for it?" during a podcast interview on Pod Save America. Ocasio-Cortez defaulted to a vague, canned answer of paying for it in the same manner that Congress pays for wars, tax cuts, and tax extensions. And there's always the infamous canard: tax the rich. In other words, she's clueless as to how Congress funds the $32-trillion "Medicare for All" scheme, with that number being the cost estimated by the George Mason University Mercatus Center. The Urban Institute also crunched the numbers for a Medicare for All proposal, having already confirmed the $32-trillion price tag. In response to presidential candidate Bernie Sanders's free health care for everyone campaign promise in 2016, the Urban Institute's report also estimated that the Sanders revenue-raising plan to fund his version of Medicare for All fell short almost $16 trillion. Should we be surprised? Not at all. Don't forget that both Social Security and Medicare aren't sustainable, as promised. In mathematical terms, the CBO estimated that in order to fund the Sander's plan, payroll taxes would have to be increased 29%, on top of the current 15.3%. These are real numbers, as opposed to ambiguous, vacuous campaign promises of the socialist groupthink crowd.

Ocasio-Cortez and numerous Senate Democrats also believe that everyone who wants a job should have one. And the government should not only guarantee jobs, but "make work" for its citizens – at $15.00 an hour, with benefits! A study commissioned by the Liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that the cost of such a proposed job guarantee program would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 trillion based on 9.7 million enrollees at a guaranteed $56,000 annual salary. The report assumed that enrollees would be currently unemployed; however, the authors of the report failed to take into account that 60 million people in the U.S. currently earn less than $15.00 an hour, thereby creating a potential stampede of people vying for government-sponsored jobs. No word yet regarding what kinds of "make work" jobs the government is supposed to create.

Rounding out the list of socialist giveaway proposals is taxpayer-funded college. As you can imagine, it's a big hit with the under-30 age group. The Tax Policy Center scored Bernie Sanders's free college campaign promise over the next decade at a mere $807 billion – peanuts compared to his free health care scheme. And that's not all. The same group of Democrats in Congress who are pushing for guaranteed jobs also want to raise money to pay off the estimated $1.4 trillion in college loan debt. The only way the government raises money is to raise taxes. In plain speak: debt forgiveness. In one fell swoop, trillions of dollars of existing college loan debt will disappear. You read that right: other people's money will wipe out trillions of dollars of college loans. In order to accomplish this grand gesture of forgiveness, Democrats and especially those of the socialist stripe have floated ideas such as a permanent 28% corporate tax, a carbon tax (amount yet to be determined), a value added tax on all luxury item purchases, and an across-the-board 15% income tax hike.

What exactly is the cost of socialism? Simple. The American taxpayer will be mandated by law to return almost half of his annual salary to the government, in exchange for free stuff. That's the socialist economic system.

https://www.americanthinker.co..._socialism_cost.html



"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
-- Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth."
-rduckwor
 
Posts: 23945 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: April 03, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Personally, I am sick and tired of these out of touch socialist want-to-be's and the half or so of our country that buys into this crap. Hopefully with all of Ocasio-Cortez and other libtard, progressive democrats delusions, people will wake up and dismiss these low IQ fools for the nut jobs they are. I wish that the republican would stand up and speak up about this trend and point out with facts and details why the democrats ideas are ridiculous and a wet dream at best. And shame on the old time democrats like Schumer, Pelosi and the other senile dinosaurs in house and senate.
Hopefully the democrat party will dry up and blow away in the wind.....
 
Posts: 970 | Location: Virginia | Registered: August 03, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Lawyers, Guns
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Picture of chellim1
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quote:
I wish that the republican would stand up and speak up about this trend and point out with facts and details why the democrats ideas are ridiculous and a wet dream at best.

Unfortunately, most Republicans find it easier to be socialist-lite. Many argue that they can more efficiently run the welfare state, not that we should dismantle it.



"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
-- Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth."
-rduckwor
 
Posts: 23945 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: April 03, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of Shaql
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quote:
How Much Does Socialism Cost?


Everything. It costs everything.





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Posts: 6845 | Location: Atlanta | Registered: April 23, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Wait, what?
Picture of gearhounds
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quote:
Originally posted by Shaql:
quote:
How Much Does Socialism Cost?


Everything. It costs everything.


Exactly what I was going to say.
 
Posts: 15501 | Location: Martinsburg WV | Registered: April 02, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Step by step walk the thousand mile road
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Best estimate, since 1917 (when the Tsar was deposed) is around 250,000,000 human lives, if you include WWII, Stalin's purges, the eradication of peasants in Ukraine and elsewhere in the Soviet Union, Mao's Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward, the Holocaust, and the smaller things like Pol Pot's Killing Fields.

As Jordan Pertersen notes its a record few schools teach today. I wonder why?





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Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018
 
Posts: 31382 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: May 17, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
The Constable
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Should the G take over Universities...I wonder if the Professors will still have their sweet deals? Meaning their student teachers, tenure, fat salaries, etc.
 
Posts: 7074 | Location: Craig, MT | Registered: December 17, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Certified All Positions
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There are a lot of lies connected with Socialism.

Perhaps the biggest, is that the burden is equally shared.


Arc.
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delicately calloused
Picture of darthfuster
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quote:
Originally posted by gearhounds:
quote:
Originally posted by Shaql:
quote:
How Much Does Socialism Cost?


Everything. It costs everything.


Exactly what I was going to say.


Thunder stolen.



You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
 
Posts: 29607 | Location: Highland, Ut. | Registered: May 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Wait, what?
Picture of gearhounds
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by darthfuster:
quote:
Originally posted by gearhounds:
quote:
Originally posted by Shaql:
quote:
How Much Does Socialism Cost?


Everything. It costs everything.


Exactly what I was going to say.


Thunder stolen.

Story of my life Big Grin




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Posts: 15501 | Location: Martinsburg WV | Registered: April 02, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of Tubetone
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quote:
Originally posted by Sig2340:
Best estimate, since 1917 (when the Tsar was deposed) is around 250,000,000 human lives, if you include WWII, Stalin's purges, the eradication of peasants in Ukraine and elsewhere in the Soviet Union, Mao's Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward, the Holocaust, and the smaller things like Pol Pot's Killing Fields.

As Jordan Pertersen notes its a record few schools teach today. I wonder why?


What is very hard is the dizzying number of ways socialism is defined.

For an example, one only needs to look at this WIKI. Link

Socialism means so many things to so many people that teaching classical conceptions may do nothing to correct those seeking it.

Anymore, it seems that socialism has also become a term that just means something bad to one group and something wokely counter-culture to another.

Socialism is now thrown around as an undefined epithet as easily as it is thrown around as a rallying cry of the uninformed.

It reminds me of the word "fundamentalist."

Originally, a fundamentalist was a person who believed in a certain set of fundamentals of Christian faith as published in a series of articles.

Nowadays, a "fundamentalist" is a wild eyed, bomb wielding Islamic terrorist. For others, a fundamentalist is any religious person who actually believes in the tenets of his/her religion. Still others say "fundamentalist" to describe someone who is naively week-minded about faith.

I said in another post some time ago that the word "socialism" may be going through a change now.

For so many, it just became a glossed term to the point that it's hard to know what is meant when one uses it on either side.

The author doesn't seem to define or differentiate socialism in his article.

One problem arises early in his effort with this question: What good is a poll about favorability if people are not answering the same question because they each define socialism in a disparate way - especially when the pollster then lumps the responses into a single, monolithic result?

It seems that different conceptions of socialism have different potential costs.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was not able to define what she means by "socialism." That seems to be a bit of a heavy lift for her. Instead, she just wants to tax and spend. No?


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Posts: 3078 | Registered: January 06, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Lawyers, Guns
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Picture of chellim1
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quote:
The author doesn't seem to define or differentiate socialism in his article.

It seems that different conceptions of socialism have different potential costs.


The answer to your definition question always comes down to an obscure debate between ownership or control by the state.

Margaret Thatcher seems to say it doesn't matter whether they nationalise everything, or try to control everything by other means:

"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they're now trying to control everything by other means. They're progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people."
-- Lady Margaret Thatcher, 1976



"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
-- Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth."
-rduckwor
 
Posts: 23945 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: April 03, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of blueye
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Socialism = utopia to the uninformed. Listening to a call in radio show last week and a listener called in saying the government could print more money if they start running out of it if it went socialist. Roll Eyes
 
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Picture of bigdeal
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quote:
Originally posted by Tubetone:
What good is a poll about favorability if people are not answering the same question because they each define socialism in a disparate way - especially when the pollster then lumps the responses into a single, monolithic result?
My bet, the 51% of young people under 30 noted in the article couldn't even begin to define socialism in any meaningful way. They are essentially advocating for something they are entirely ignorant about. Simply astounding to me that we've never had more access to information than we do today, but people seem to be more ignorant today than ever.


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Posts: 33845 | Location: Orlando, FL | Registered: April 30, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of Tubetone
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quote:
Originally posted by blueye:
Socialism = utopia to the uninformed. Roll Eyes


That is what I am seeing in so much of what is going on with the younger-set left.

Quite often, nothing brings certainty as much as ignorance. I agree with BIGDEAL that "people seem to be more ignorant today than ever." But, it seems like a willful ignorance.

One of my best friends just did a 50 year reunion concert with his band from the 60s-70s.

During the run-up, we bantered about old phrases like solid, righteous and so on.

Back then, kids said "establishment" as an epithet for government and fuddy duddies who didn't see how they were blinded by the man.

Nowadays, it looks like "socialism" is a counter-culture craze for the cool kids.

Too bad they don't have better eye sight because they seem to confuse Bernie Sanders for Ben Stein.

Counter culturism is as vapid now as it was then. But, now they want to be the establishment in using government to get goodies.

Many don't know what socialism is because it does not matter to them.


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Posts: 3078 | Registered: January 06, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of Tubetone
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quote:
Originally posted by chellim1:
quote:
The author doesn't seem to define or differentiate socialism in his article.

It seems that different conceptions of socialism have different potential costs.


The answer to your definition question always comes down to an obscure debate between ownership or control by the state.


I am not sure the 51% to which the article refers care one whit about what it means.

It may just be the old and simple result of wanting to be associated with what is deemed popular among one's peers.

The differentiation needs to be understood by those who analyze and try to reach the ignorant.


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Posts: 3078 | Registered: January 06, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
half-genius,
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Socialism?

Look at Cuba.

No further comment is necessary.

tac

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tacfoley,
 
Posts: 11305 | Location: UK, OR, ONT | Registered: July 10, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Ammoholic
Picture of Skins2881
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quote:
Originally posted by tacfoley:
Socialism?

Look at Cube.

No further comment is necessary.

tac


They did it wrong, that's the only problem is no one has even been able to properly enact (enforce) it. The US government though is infallible, so they will definitely get it right.



Jesse

Sic Semper Tyrannis
 
Posts: 20756 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: December 27, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Lawyers, Guns
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Picture of chellim1
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quote:
I am not sure the 51% to which the article refers care one whit about what it means.
It may just be the old and simple result of wanting to be associated with what is deemed popular among one's peers.

That's right. They don't have to know what it means to know it's trendy. Roll Eyes



"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
-- Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth."
-rduckwor
 
Posts: 23945 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: April 03, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Socialists need to be treated like the vermin they are and exterminated.
 
Posts: 828 | Registered: January 20, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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