I've been reading the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. The title of the book is guaranteed to set people off, one way or another and for this reason, Goldberg seems to spend a extraordinary amount of effort defending his premises and explaining that he's not saying that today's liberals are anti-semetic, genocidal maniacs. What he does say, and says very well, is that history's most common tales of fascism, such as Adolf Hilter and Benito Mussolini, were largely influenced by progressive thought--the same progressive thought that rules the Democratic party and liberal politics today.
In a July 2007 debate, Hillary Clinton responded to the question of whether she would refer to herself as a "liberal."
"You know, ['liberal'] is a word that originally meant that you were for freedom, that you were for the freedom to achieve, that you were willing to stand against big power and on behalf of the individual.
"Unfortunately, in the last 30, 40 years, it has been turned up on its head and it's been made to seem as though it is a word that describes big government, totally contrary to what its meaning was in the 19th and early 20th century.
"I prefer the word 'progressive,' which has a real American meaning, going back to the progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century.
"I consider myself a modern progressive, someone who believes strongly in individual rights and freedoms, who believes that we are better as a society when we're working together and when we find ways to help those who may not have all the advantages in life get the tools they need to lead a more productive life for themselves and their family.
"So I consider myself a proud modern American progressive, and I think that's the kind of philosophy and practice that we need to bring back to American politics."
At the time of this debate, I was reading The Forgotten Man by Amnity Schlaes which provides a new look at the political forces at play before and during the 1930s when the United States was enduring The Great Depression. What Schlaes reveals--and what many people don't know--is that Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies were formed with the help of a team of progressive advisors and cabinet members who had varying degrees of infatuation and admiration for Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini and the forms of government they were managing and/or advocating.
Schlaes offers that the policies of the Roosevelt administration were a significant input into why the Great Depression lasted for the entire decade of the 1930s while other industrialized nations around the world suffered an economic hit in 1929 and then recovered relatively quickly.
I mention this because, thanks in part to my friend Glenn Beck, I recently came across a number of platform statements and congressional records belonging to presidential candidate (and current frontrunner) Barack Obama that suggest he is ready to (blindly?) take us right into a repeat of the 1930s.
National work programs
The Roosevelt administration, in the interest of stimulating the economy and helping the large number of unemployed, created a number of government work plans including the Civilian Conservation Corps, a work program for young men, 17 years old or older. The CCC put these men to work in camps on various projects around the country such as clearing out dead wood in forests and building bridges, walkways, and roads, and other construction projects, usually in rural or undeveloped settings.
Last week, Barack Obama announced to Wisconsin auto industry workers that, as president, he would propose over $200 billion in programs to create new government jobs. The bulk of this spending would go to create a workforce of "green-collar workers" that would tackle environmental issues like finding new forms of enviro-friendly fuels. Other jobs would go to infrastructure projects such as highways and bridges.
While I agree that good hard work is good for the mind and soul and would benefit individuals who would otherwise be unemployed and potentially idle, I can't help but be concerned that Sen. Obama hasn't studied his history. Quite frankly, it doesn't seem like many on the left have studied their history because these types of programs are becoming quite a popular topic of discussion among liberals. If we know we're going into a period that may be like the 1930s, why would we do the same things that prolonged the suffering and the stagnation then?
The less-fortunate
Many Americans believe we have an obligation to help those who are less fortunate around the world. Liberals believe this should be a function of the federal government. Conservatives, on the other hand, would prefer this be done by private organizations and charities. One of the reasons conservatives feel this way is because the charitable feeling is completely lost when your money is forcefully taken from you by the federal goverment in the form of taxes and fees, no matter how good the intentions are. Plus, there is the issue of how efficiently those funds will be handled.
Senator Obama, along with fellow senators Chuck Hagel and Maria Cantwell, have sponsored legislation known as the "Global Poverty Act" which passed the Senate Foreign Relations committee this last week. If passed, this legislation would require that the federal government provide a small percentage of the economic GDP as financial aid for countries where people live in poverty. The US would not send this money directly to the people or their governments. Instead, we would give that money to the United Nations to administer the funds.
Again, when will people learn?! Our government created a formal "War On Poverty" after World War II and spent plenty of money on programs to help the poor improve their station in life. Did anyone actually rise out of poverty? Not according to statistics. Because of this and because the government continued to rise the poverty level to include less and less poor households, those who qualified for assistance under these programs grew.
1964, Ronald Reagan gave a speech titled "A Time For Choosing". In it, he addresses the inefficiency of the government's welfare programs.
"We are told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than $3,000 a year. Welfare spending is 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We are spending $45 billion on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you will find that if we divided the $45 billion up equally among those 9 million poor families, we would be able to give each family $4,600 a year, and this added to their present income should eliminate poverty! Direct aid to the poor, however, is running only about $600 per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead."
He also talks about the overall ineffectiveness of cutting checks to those "in-need:"
"If government planning and welfare had the answer and they've had almost 30 years of it, shouldn't we expect government to almost read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? ... But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater, the program grows greater."
Again, haven't we learned anything from our past mistakes? Why can't our political leaders learn what works and employ those techniques instead of playing the same old card again and again?
What works for poverty, unemployment, etc.? Not free handouts.
The LDS Church here in Utah has its own welfare programs which are available to anyone, regardless of church affiliation. These programs are not handouts. Instead. they are structured, compassionate programs that encourage the recipients to "give in" to receive. Meals, clothing, and other assistance are available to those in need and, in turn, the recipients are asked to give of their time and effort to help provide the same services to others. This is a perfect example of why private charitable organizations are much better equipped to deal with these kinds of problems than the bureaucratic nightmare of the federal government.
Obama's legislation states that it is all part of an international agreement to help combat poverty. This means that all participating countries will be taking a portion of their national revenue and giving it to the United Nations for distribution to poor areas. Two alarm bells go off when I ponder this: Global redistribution of wealth, a socialist policy tenet, and international taxation by the United Nations! When will the madness stop?
The United Nations is supposed to help keep the peace in sensitive areas of the world and it can't even do that well. Why would anyone think this organization would be effective and act responsibly in an effort to combat poverty? Oil for food, anyone? Do progressives, liberals, and socialists simply lack the ability to learn?!
Debt
The United States government, and by association, the citizens of the United States, are between $9 and $100 TRILLION dollars in debt. I fail to see the sense of spending more than what is required to maintain bare essential services until this debt is eradicated. Social programs, earmarks, museums, assistance programs... They should all be stopped or shrunk so that some of the government's revenue can be applied toward the outstanding debt.
History tells us Thomas Jefferson had much to say about debt, both personal and national. He stated it was vital that the country not take on debt and if it did, that it should be no more debt than could be paid for in one generation.
"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."
As a country, we have ignored Jefferson's advice since the beginning of the 20th century and now we are witnessing the effects of years of irresponsible borrowing in our economic outlook.
And speaking of irresponsible borrowing, Barack Obama has proposed a $10 billion federal fund to help "innocent victims" caught in the subprime loan mess. Are there really innocent victims? I don't think so. When you borrow money to purchase a house, you have plenty of opportunity to learn what you're getting into, what your obligations are, etc. The lending institutions are certainly not innocent either because they have time-tested methods for determining risk when lending money. What Obama is suggesting is essentially saddling us with more national debt because of a few people's irresponsible behavior.
Fiscal discipline and revenue
Barack Obama's website says a lot about a need for fiscal discipline and responsibility. I'm glad his website says these thing, but if he really believes in these things, how are these billions upon billions of federal programs going to be funded? There will have to be greater revenue to the federal government and/or less spending on programs that are already there. Obama's honest about this, if not direct about it. If you peruse his website, you'll learn he wants to cut spending on various programs and he wants to repeal the Bush tax cuts. Well, only for the rich, not for the poor or middle class taxpayers.
While repealing tax cuts for the rich is a popular thing to do (because there are a lot more people who aren't rich than are), it is, by definition, not fair. I would really like someone to explain to me why it makes sense that we pay a different percentage of our assets in taxes based on the amount of assets we have. To be fair, equal, and all that, shouldn't we each pay the same percentage?
What are the economic repercussions of saddling the "rich" with more taxes? The rich are more likely to spend more than those who are less wealthy, so this would cut into their spending power. The rich are more likely to employ others than those who are less wealthy, so this cuts into their hiring power. Hello?! Tax hikes on the rich is a direct attack on important driving forces of the economy: consumer spending and employment!
