Say no to Democratic Socialism’s enormous price tag

August 28, 2018

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Young Voices Contributor

On August 9, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic socialist candidate for New York's 14th Congressional District, declined a challenge to debate conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. After comparing this challenge to catcalling on Twitter, it is clear that Ocasio-Cortez is scared of a debate against a difficult opponent. She also likely understands that her Democratic socialist platform would be exposed for its ideological flaws and harmful consequences.

Those who see the new progressive movement as inspiring highlight its agenda based on greater economic equality, while others fear that its reforms will dramatically and detrimentally expand the role of government. However, the one thing we know for sure is that Democratic socialism is expensive—and Americans should reject this pricy platform.

Candidates like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders propose expensive policies like a federal jobs guarantee, single-payer health care, and "free" public college. Unsurprisingly, this will require astronomical increases in government spending that will add to the out-of-control federal debt that has already exceeded $21 trillion.

Brian Riedl, a policy researcher at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, estimates that Sanders' and Ocasio-Cortez's proposals would generate $42.5 trillion in additional federal expenditures over the next decade. The long-term fiscal outlook under this agenda is even more frightening––Riedl found that these proposals will cost $218 trillion over 30 years.

In order to broaden the appeal of his work, Riedl used exclusively liberal think tanks and non-partisan sources for his analysis including the Tax Policy Center, the Urban Institute, and the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities. These numbers are coming from the left, so some of them, including the cost for the jobs guarantee, are even considered to be low, modest estimates.

So how does all of this get paid for? Democratic socialists like to run down a list of new taxes they support, supposedly aimed at the wealthy and large corporations. Some proposals include carbon taxes, a higher corporate tax rate, health care premium taxes, and increased payroll taxes. Ocasio-Cortez also proposes a "Buffet tax" that requires high earning individuals to pay a minimum of 15 percent of their income. Riedel's Vox article calculated that, under very generous fiscal and economic assumptions, Democratic socialist proposals would cut $8.5 trillion of spending in areas such as defense and state spending on health care, leaving the federal government on the hook for the remaining $34 trillion.

This would require a near doubling of federal tax revenues. To put that in perspective, the federal government would need to tax all corporate profits, as well as household income and pass-through business income (income from a business that is taxed at the individual owner's level as opposed to the corporate level) above the thresholds of $90,000 ($150,000 for married couples) at a 100 percent rate to make up this revenue gap.

Simply put, taxpayers cannot afford these unsustainable and disadvantageous reforms. Large-scale entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare are already rapidly rolling off a fiscal cliff, with their trust funds on pace to be depleted by 2026 and 2034 respectively. Further expanding federal entitlement programs would clearly be much costlier than more plausible reforms like tax cuts, and no cut in defense spending will be sufficient to make up for Democratic socialism's obscene cost burden.

It's troubling to witness socialist and redistributionist policies gaining popularity in America, especially when history and current events both show the threat they pose to a stable and prosperous democracy.

Though utilizing more government intervention than Democratic socialism, the Soviet Union and Venezuela's centrally planned economic systems both eventually led to humanitarian crises that caused a shortage of fundamental goods and services, mass starvation, severe restriction of basic liberties like freedom of speech and worship, and massive death tolls. It is estimated today that the Soviet Union's communist regime under Joseph Stalin murdered as many as 20 to 60 million people. In Venezuela, hundreds are dying from malnutrition and violence imposed by the government to dismantle protests.

Even more moderate proposals such as Canada's latest failure with universal basic income (UBI)––unconditional, periodic government cash payments––show the problems with government expansion. After only 15 months, Ontario ended its C$150 million UBI program that was supposed to last three years, after they realized that it was expensive and financially unsustainable. Finland's UBI experiment will also end in failure after this year as its government concluded that the program would not be an efficient reform of the welfare system.

It's clear that redistributionist policies will not save our country from fiscal destruction. To save American taxpayers from extreme economic burdens, Democratic socialism's recent insurgency into our political system must be rejected.

Mitchell Siegel is an intern at the Foundation for Government Accountability. He is rising junior studying economics at Duke University.

RADIO

Stu's totally out of context 'Game of Thrones' Review | Episode 2

FUNNY COUP: The night the comedian trounced the president

Seventeen point four million people tuned in for the final season of Games of Thrones' premiere last week. It was a series record for HBO, shattering all previous numbers. It really is a pop culture phenomenon. People that don't even like this kind of genre are tuning in to see if the Night King will win or if Daenerys will do as promised and "break the wheel". Meanwhile, another Game of Thrones is playing out in global politics, and what happened this weekend in Ukraine is yet another sign… this wheel is already broken.

Imagine for a second that the United States economy has just collapsed, a coup occurs, and then China invades California, annexing the entire Western seaboard. Now imagine that, in the absence of a George Washington resurrection, we elect Conan O'Brien to be the president to lead us out of all this mess. During the chaos, O'Brien breaks out Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and goes viral insulting the post-coup government. Eventually, he decides… screw it! Might as well run for president! He has no experience or plan for how to deal with the invading army at the gates, no experience or plan to deal with the crashed economy… nothing. But despite all that, riding the back of viral comedy sketches, the country votes en mass to make a late night comedian the president. In any sane world, this could never happen, but this is exactly what happened this weekend in Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelensky declared victory last night as he stood on a stage in front of his campaign headquarters just after the polls closed. The theme song for his late-night comedy show played in the background. His opponent, the previous Ukrainian president, had already conceded defeat before results even started coming in. There was no need. The comedian straight TROUNCED the former president, winning over 73% of the vote.

For Ukrainians, the stakes could never be higher. The Russians are quite literally at their throats. They've already annexed Crimea, and Russian backed separatists have seized nearly all of Eastern Ukraine. The media rarely talks about it, but there has been an ongoing war in Ukraine ever since 2014. Over thirteen thousand Ukrainians have died. The economy has basically collapsed… it's in shambles. Common sense would seem to dictate that an established leader or expert would be required to see the crippled country through this… but Ukraine chose the late-night comedian.

Zelensky rose to fame criticizing the sitting president through viral comedy sketches. His bits went viral on social media. He never once stated any policy or solutions. Half the time his admirers didn't know who they were watching during his campaign rallies. Was he in character for one of his sketches or was he being serious? But that didn't seem to matter. He was funny, and young people smashed that LIKE and SHARE button like crazy… so now he's president.

So what does this mean? This isn't just some crazy Eastern Europe phenomenon. For the entire world, the wheel is now… broken.

So what does this mean? This isn't just some crazy Eastern Europe phenomenon. For the entire world, the wheel is now… broken. Everyone is sick and tired of the lies, broken promises and a general feeling of being ignored. You see it literally everywhere. Donald Trump was elected because of this. The country was tired of being ignored and lied to over immigration, the economy and jobs. Look what's happening in France. The French elected an empty suit. Now their streets look like a war zone every Saturday and Sunday.

The old way is busted, and people are sick of it. Change on a scale we've never seen before is coming. Every time you hear "oh that person could never become president… all they do is post stupid comments on Instagram", remember how they said similar things about Donald Trump. Every time we mock people like Alexandria Occasional Cortex… remember the comedian from Ukraine. It's a new era, and the old way of doing things is coming to an end. The wheel is broken, and the future is anyone's guess.

Sri Lanka bombing reminds us Christians are under attack

Thorsten Frenzel/Pixabay

Helicopters whir above-head, over the zebras and the owls and the pythons. Police cars roar down the crowded street, full of smoke and chaos. Ambulances scream past the gates of the National Zoo of Sri Lanka.

On the other side of the fence, a hotel full of tourists from all over the world, here to celebrate Easter, but unable to, trapped in the rubble or blind with confusion, a deafening-white ringing in their ears.

Just before 9:00 yesterday morning, explosions shook the air. Churches were packed with brightly dressed people, on Easter Sunday. The bombs ripped apart three churches.

Yesterday, a day of peace. Of hope. Of the resurrection of Man despite our darkest moments. The day celebrating the resurrection of Christ. It became a day of blood and ash and screaming and loss. Nine bombings. 207 people dead. 450 wounded. All chosen specifically for their religious beliefs. Literally targeted at their churches.

Some people did something, all right.

Sri Lanka has been plagued by violence throughout its history, but it's been nearly a decade since the end of its civil war. And yesterday had nothing to do with Sri Lankan politics and everything to do with religious persecution.

Christians were specifically targeted. There's no doubt. Christians. Worshippers of Christ. Believers in Christianity. Christians.

Christians were specifically targeted. There's no doubt. Christians. Worshippers of Christ. Believers in Christianity. Christians. Not "Easter worshippers." "Easter worshippers" seemed to be the descriptor of the day yesterday. How's that for a coordinated response. They were Christians. In their place of worship.

Christians face a new persecution, a growing persecution.

On Easter, Jesus preformed a miracle by rising from the dead. But perhaps we are so close to being lost into nothingness that it will look like a miracle if Christians even begin to stand up — in defense of their own faith.

But we must. We have to.

UPDATE: Here's how the discussion went on radio. Watch the video below.

Sri Lanka bombing reminds us Christians are under attack youtu.be

Democrat candidate power rankings by Stu: April 17th edition

The 2020 Democratic primary power rankings are an attempt to make sense out of the chaos of the largest field of candidates in global history.

Each candidate gets a unique score in at least thirty categories, measuring data like polling, prediction markets, fundraising, fundamentals, media coverage, and more. The result is a candidate score between 0-100. These numbers will change from week to week as the race changes.

The power rankings are less a prediction on who will win the nomination, and more a snapshot of the state of the race at any given time. However, early on, the model gives more weight to fundamentals and potentials, and later will begin to prioritize polling and realities on the ground.

These power rankings include only announced candidates. So, when you say "WAIT!! WHERE'S XXXXX????" Read the earlier sentence again.

If you're like me, when you read power rankings about sports, you've already skipped ahead to the list. So, here we go.

18. Wayne Messam - 13.4 (out of 100)

Troy McClure voice: "You may remember him from such college football teams as the Florida State Seminoles in the mid 1990's.

Look, there's no way someone is going from a small city mayor directly to the White House.

Forget I said that as you read on.

17. Marianne Williamson - 17.1

Williamson is a new age "spiritual advisor" to celebrities like Kim Kardashian. She's firmly in the Bernie Sanders wing of the party (which more and more seems like the only wing of the party.)

If you want to make an argument for Williamson making an impact, it starts with people like the Kardashians spamming their social media following like Marianne is the new Fyre Festival.

Unfortunately, they sort of already did that last time when Marianne ran for congress in 2014, and she still finished fourth.

16. Eric Swalwell - 20.2

Swalwell provides very little that is different than your typical left-wing candidate policy wise. But, he really likes seeing himself on TV, and he's willing to say outlandish things for attention. This raises his profile slightly above the hundreds of other representatives that you've never heard of, and that's what this run is all about.

There's a certain brand of presidential candidate that isn't really running for president. That's Eric Swalwell.

15. John Delaney - 20.3

John Delaney has been a candidate for 2020 since you were a small child. He announced his candidacy in July of 2017, which makes it more depressing that you didn't know he was running.

He was a businessman and then congressman in Maryland for six years. He was running for president for about a third of that time.

To his credit, Delaney is one of the few democrats attempting a run as a moderate. He actually will admit that capitalism has done good things, and opposes the socialist edges of the party, being one of the only candidates who will stand up against Medicare for All. He's a throwback to the old days of the Democratic Party... like 2012.

14. Tim Ryan - 20.7

Ryan doesn't think he's going to be president, but there's probably some very unlikely path to be in the running for VP. He's from Ohio and... probably has other things that are interesting about him. He's another somewhat moderate option, which makes it nearly impossible to win in a party who is falling all over itself to nuzzle up next to Che.

13. Tulsi Gabbard - 25.9

Gabbard is a strange candidate, which sort of makes her interesting. Her current collection of policy preferences is hard to differentiate from the Bernie/Socialist group.

Oddly, she has a history of taking strong positions against the LGBT party line, including supporting groups pitching gay conversion therapy. Her father was an activist in this world for a long time. She says she no longer believes in those things.

She seems to be the head of the Bashir Al Assad fan club (member #2). The other member of the fan club is David Duke, who has actually endorsed Gabbard in the past. On top of all of this, she's about twenty-five times better looking than the typical David Duke endorsee, and she interviews like a dull foreign policy wonk. It's hard to imagine her path to the nomination, but a VP consideration isn't out of the question. There's a lot of baggage to deal with however.

Whatever strain of the flu that allows Alex Jones to be besties with Cynthia McKinney, that's what Tulsi Gabbard has.

12. Andrew Yang - 27.1

Yang gang unite! Andrew Yang is a tech entrepreneur who has made some noise on the inter-webs talking a lot about the future of technology and universal basic income. Give him credit for at least attempting to talk about important issues, and for outlining a lengthy list of policy proposals. He's smart and actually makes some sense occasionally. The prediction markets sure do love him, showing the limitation of prediction markets.

As the only candidate to outline an anti-circumcision position, he leads the field in commentary about the private parts of male babies.

11. Jay Inslee - 30.4

See: Lindsay Graham 2016.

Like Graham in 2016 who was running a one issue campaign around hawkish foreign policy, Inslee is running a one issue campaign around hawkishly fighting the weather.

He does have executive experience as governor of Washington, which is something. He might be fighting for a shot at VP, but realistically he's in the race to try and force the frontrunners left on the climate.

Whether he can stop the evil burning orb in the sky is still unknown.

10. John Hickenlooper - Score: 32

Hickenlooper is a former governor running on his executive experience. He's portraying himself as a moderate, which is probably true in this field, or in the former Soviet Union.

As a purple state governor with some non-socialist tendencies, one could see him pairing well as the VP for someone like Kamala Harris or Cory Booker. However, you have to wonder if the Democrats want to pick yet another hard-to-remember-vanilla-zilch of a VP candidate, following the disaster of Tim Kaine.

Also, it's hard to imagine a president with the last name of Hickenlooper.

9. Julian Castro - 36.2

There was a time when Julian Castro had the glow of an Obama approved up and comer. Think of Castro as a big high school football recruit, that won a full scholarship at an SEC school. But after a few mediocre seasons, he's going late in mock drafts.

On paper, Castro should be in the mix, but it just doesn't seem to be happening. It reminds me of Bobby Jindal's run in 2016, except Castro has nowhere near the actual record of Jindal.

On a positive note, he has a twin brother, so if Julian wins the White House and disappoints, we can probably switch everything over to his brother pretty easily. I'm pretty sure that's in the Constitution.

8. Kirsten Gillibrand - 37.8

Gillibrand started as a moderate, transformed into someone from the far left, and contorted herself to fit in to every big news cycle. She became the most prominent voice for the #MeToo movement when she took the bravely calculated stand to call for Al Franken's resignation.

The problem is, Gillibrand didn't realize that the left had little interest in consistently enforcing these new standards. They didn't actually care about #MeToo when it meant getting rid of a mediocre-yet-beloved comedian who voted the right way.

Now her support of a woman who "told her truth" about an alleged series of assaults with photographic evidence is her Achilles' heel. Apparently #BelieveAllWomen has its limits.

This was supposed to be Kirsten Gillibrand's time. But, it looks like #TimesUp.

7. Amy Klobuchar - 45.5

The case for a Klobuchar candidacy is a decent one. She's a woman from the Midwest, who has consistently out-preformed her electoral expectations. For example, in Beto O'Rourke's highly praised Senate run against Ted Cruz, he outperformed the average Democratic house candidate by 4 points. Klobuchar outperformed the average by 13.

If she runs a great campaign, she has a shot. Even if all she can accomplish is to stay mostly mistake free, she should be in the top tier for a potential VP nod.

I know this all sounds really positive, but I'm only saying it so Klobuchar doesn't throw something at me.

6. Elizabeth Warren - 46.0

Elizabeth Warren is not a good candidate. She's almost as crazy on policy as Bernie, she gaffes like Biden, and she's as likable as Hayden Christensen's performance in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. She shows no ability to deal with the pressure that Donald Trump will bring to the campaign, and when she tries to act naturally, she is as convincing as Hayden Christensen's performance in Star Wars: The Attack of the Clones.

Warren does have a following, a real point of view, and she's one of the only candidates who actually seems to release policy plans. The problem is her policies are basically Marxist-blogger fever dreams, such as a wealth tax and nationalizing a large portion of the prescription drug industry. These ideas are of the quality of Hayden Christensen's performance in the Star Wars: The Attack of the Clones.

The bottom line is only a completely insane party would again run Hillary Clinton: Part 2 against Trump. It would be like casting Hayden Christensen in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

5. Cory Booker - 55.5

There's a moment in the bloopers during closing credits of some Jim Carrey movie, where they prank him by calling him an "overactor." (It doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot better than his crappy paintings.) Cory Booker makes a Jim Carrey performance look like it's full of subtle nuance.

Booker simply tries too hard. The bulging eyes, the screaming, the explosive Spartacussing — it's just tiring. It's also part of Booker's act. He's in a constant battle to portray what he thinks any given audience wants him to be. Unfortunately, you can feel him doing it, and his lack of authenticity will likely be his downfall. He's also far too attention hungry to work as a vice presidential pick, which leaves his options as limited as his charisma.

4. Pete Buttigieg - 62.9

Two things you need to know about Mayor Pete.

First, his name is pronounced thusly: Boot-edge-edge.

Second, he's openly gay. The reason you need to know he's openly gay is because you should not be prejudiced against people who are openly gay. You are obviously an evil person, as evidenced by your visit to this website, and need to understand that being openly gay doesn't mean you aren't capable of governing in an effective matter. This means treating him like he's any other boring white guy.

However, you shouldn't just treat him as if he's any other boring white guy. This is historic!!! You must focus on the fact that he is openly gay, revel in the history his candidacy provides, and say the phrase "openly gay" approximately 457,034 times per day.

To summarize, always forget and focus on while always remembering and ignoring the fact that he's openly gay.

Oh yeah. Also, Buttigieg is a veteran, is a Rhodes Scholar, a calm and effective speaker, has support from some former Obama officials, and has exceeded all expectations so far. He's the mayor of Pawnee, Indiana, so he is uniquely qualified to solve our nation's bus scheduling and pot hole filling needs.

Finally, he is openly gay.

3. Robert Francis O’Rourke - 62.9

While Beto O'Rourke isn't actually Hispanic, he really hopes you think he is. Or at least he hopes you think he's more Hispanic than your average white Irishman.

O'Rourke is one of the exciting new breed of Democratic candidates that are most famous for losing elections, falling short of defeating Ted Cruz in his 2018 Senate race.

Bob Frank O'Rourke's path to the nomination is paved with massive fundraising, the ability to entertain millions of "Now This" YouTube subscribers with nonsensical platitudes about the rights of below average quarterbacks, and being the candidate with the most disturbing use of his hands since Joe Biden.

Flailing, is a word commonly used to describe both his hands and his campaign.

2. Bernie Sanders - 68.3

In 2013, Bernie Sanders proposed Medicare For All and welcomed exactly zero co-sponsors. Now, supporting Medicare For All is basically a litmus test to be allowed into the party.

We've come so far, so fast.

Sanders earns points for being the Democrat who most consistently will actually admit he's a socialist. As the party has moved towards him, he has moved even further left. You're not going to out-socialist a guy who went to the Soviet Union on his honeymoon.

Revisionist historians like to make the case that Bernie was the rightful winner of the nomination in 2016. But, this is nonsense. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the primary by 12 points. Debbie Wasserman Schultz can barely dress herself in the morning, let alone exude the competence to move four million votes to Hillary Clinton.

A Sanders nomination is a risky path for Democrats.

Do you really want to go from losing with Hillary Clinton, to a dude six years older that is best known for losing to Hillary Clinton?

1. Kamala Harris - 69.1

Kamala Harris has a lot going for her. She's a fresh face nationally, largely falls in line with the activist left on policy, and is one of the only Democrats running who isn't even trying to hide taking money from big donors. She has a wealthy base of support in California, has run a smooth campaign early on, and hits enough intersectional lines to please the woke masses.

Harris has a history as a sometimes strict prosecutor, district attorney, and attorney general which seems a little too "law and order" for a Democratic primary audience. But the things your opponents leak against you in the primary are the things you feature in your own commercials in the general.

She is used to high pressure situations and likely won't fold under a Donald Trump style barrage like Hillary Clinton did. She comes off as likable and personable (to some), and if she can get through the primary, she's not going to be a pushover. The media does the Republican party endless favors by focusing on a relative dunce like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, when this face of socialism is a far more astute and realistic threat to the priorities of the right.

Is she too far left to be elected in the United States? In any other time, sure. But, when it comes down to a one-on-one battle in a country largely locked into a structure based on binary choice, anything can happen.

Some might find it odd for the democrats to pick a candidate that benefited in her career from an extramarital workplace affair with a powerful man more than twice her age. Potential hashtag: #MeTooPartTwoSometimesItWorksOutGreat!

To be fair, her affair was with Willie Brown, just a decade or so after he was named one of 1984's 10 sexiest men in America by Playgirl magazine. Who could resist such an attractive job opportunity?

Game of Thrones, as experienced by someone who has never watched Game of Thrones

The following is part of an ongoing experiment by Glenn Beck program heartthrob, Stu Burguiere, to begin watching Game of Thrones in its final season, without any previous context. Other than highlights shown in commercials, Stu has never seen a second of Game of Thrones, and has never read a word about its characters or plot lines.

Before embarking on this project, Stu's summary of the series was:

There is a battle over who controls the throne(s)?
Lots of people watch it
There is a lot of violence and/or nudity involved
There are dragons that fly around

Spoiler alert: you are about to read information about Game of Thrones that would definitely be considered spoilers, if it was possible to decode what Stu was talking about.

Season 8 | Episode 1

Theme animation very long.
Theme is still going.

Some possibly important cast members:

Blondie wearing white (henceforth referred to as Blondie)

Screenshot

Guy with goatee (Goatee guy)

Screenshot

Uglier black haired woman

Screenshot

Guy with beard: Literally, any one of thousands on the show. (Come one Stu, we need specifics!)

Angry elf

Screenshot

Ugly peasant girl might be the same as uglier black haired woman (Yes Stu, yes it was)

Red haired woman (Redhead)

Screenshot

Boyband looking teen (boyband teen)

Screenshot

Queen that looks like child of Mick Jagger and Robin Wright

Screenshot

Sex recipient

Screenshot

Old guy

Screenshot

Curly hair guy

Screenshot

Ugly ship woman

Screenshot

So far, no spoilers and very little info. There may or may not be spoilers, if you can understand any of it that is.

Boyband teen appears to be son of Goatee
Winterfell is a place
Goatee guy was maybe a king of Winterfell, but isn't anymore
"The North" is maybe the same as Winterfell
Angry Elf, Goatee guy, Blondie, and Redhead now on same team? This seems new?
Blondie seems to be like Siegfried and Roy for dragons
Angry Elf married to Redhead?
People seem to be more attractive than I would expect from their difficult circumstances
Goatee guy and Ugly peasant girl like the same sword
"The dead have broken through the wall" —seems important.
"If you want a whore, buy one. If you want a queen, earn one." Heard that one before.
Guy interrupted while having sex with three women. He only seems moderately bothered by this.
Old guy gives sex recipient a crossbow
Lots of people killed by curly hair guy while rescuing ugly ship woman
Ugly ship woman head butts curly hair guy for some reason
Teeth: better than expected
"What is dead may never die…but kill the bastards anyway." They seem to be fighting zombies
Goatee guy and RedHead are brother and sister I think
Goatee guy and Blondie ride dragons
Blondie is not helpful with dragon riding tips
Blondie is a Queen maybe?
DOZED OFF MISSED A FEW MINUTES AT LEAST
Woke up to screaming as woman is burned alive
Some guy and Boyband teen look at each other at the end as if it's important

Watch the clip below and see how things unfolded on radio Tuesday.

Game of Thrones, as experienced by someone who has never watched Game of Thrones youtu.be