Joe Biden (D., Socialist)
Biden has said, ‘I am a capitalist’ and ‘I am not a socialist.’ Both statements are false.
By Daniel Henninger
Sept. 22, 2021 6:12 pm ET
Biden has said, ‘I am a capitalist’ and ‘I am not a socialist.’ Here's why both statements are false.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but someone has to say it: You have to listen to Joe Biden. Ignore what he says at your peril.
It’s easy to make fun of Mr. Biden’s speeches. He walks out, removes his black mask and stares steely-eyed into a teleprompter, reading whatever’s written. The eyes—his and ours—glaze over. But he persists.
Mr. Biden may be political white noise, but do not fall asleep.
Last Thursday, Mr. Biden trundled out to give a speech for his mega-trillion Build Back Better plan. The press says the Biden plan is in trouble with moderate Democrats, which could make or break his presidency, with votes starting next week.
This spending plan may be the whole Biden presidency, but it’s bigger than that. His seemingly run-of-the-mill afternoon speech was a significant statement. It was a public repudiation by Mr. Biden of the U.S. economic system.
Partway through the speech, Mr. Biden felt obliged to assert: “I am a capitalist.” During the campaign he said: “I am not a socialist.” Both statements are false.
Joe Biden is not a capitalist. He is a socialist. Democratic progressives don’t like the s-word, which is why they started calling themselves progressives. Bernie Sanders declared himself a socialist so long ago it’s too late to change. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez admits to being a democratic socialist. Fact-check scolds argue the s-word has no meaning in the American political context because no one is suggesting state control of the means of production. Be that as it may, listen to Mr. Biden talk about the system we do have.
“Real, sustained economic growth,” Mr. Biden said, is “something we haven’t realized in this country for decades.” He elaborated: “Over the past 40 years, the wealthy have gotten wealthier, and too many corporations have lost their sense of responsibility to their workers, their communities, and the country.”
“The past 40 years” means Mr. Biden’s indictment of the U.S. system includes the Democratic presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. But “40 years” is the giveaway. That’s 1981, the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
It is hard to overstate progressives’ obsession with the economic legacy of the Reagan presidency. In their endless struggle, Donald Trump was a blip, notwithstanding that
the Trump tax cuts and deregulation—twin towers of Reaganomics—coincided with the lowest minority unemployment levels in 50 years accompanied by real wage gains for men and women. The political purpose of the Build Back Better plan is to erase Reaganism forever.
Introducing his budget in May, Mr. Biden said, “It is a budget that reflects the fact that trickle-down economics has never worked.”
“Trickle-down economics” has been 40-year code on the left for the Reagan economic policies, which cut marginal tax rates on income and rates on capital gains. The explicit purpose of the Reagan policies, as articulated routinely by the GOP’s Jack Kemp, was to encourage all participants in the economy to “work, save and invest.”
“Work, save and invest” is a three-word definition of capitalism, which is demonstrably alien now to Mr. Biden’s worldview. At no point in that speech did he acknowledge that the private sector contributes anything positive to the life of Americans.
Adopting Sen. Sanders’s favorite phrase, Mr. Biden repeatedly caricatures “millionaires and billionaires” and the growth in their “wealth” during the pandemic, with no mention of the Federal Reserve’s 0% interest rates that pushed assets into stocks held by billionaires and everyone else.
He says we’ve just had “the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” ignoring the government-ordered lockdown, then claims his government fixed the economy.
Rising gas prices are caused by “pandemic profiteers.” He rails against “corporations” a dozen times. In fact,
this Biden speech sounds similar to Xi Jinping’s recent attacks on China’s private sector.
The market-led economic growth of the Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton (he signed a bill cutting the capital-gains rate to 20% from 28% in 1997) and Trump years is irrelevant to Mr. Biden’s ideas about a heretofore unseen economy that “benefits everyone.”
Instead, he is the economy. He will “create” new jobs and even new industries. This refers to his proposed billions in subsidies for manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and charging stations, and retrofitting homes and commercial real estate. By government order, current, carbon-intensive industries will disappear.
At a stroke, the Biden plan “lowers the cost” of daycare, child care, elder care, drugs, healthcare and education. All of this—identified without irony as “the cost of living”—is “paid for” by new taxes.
“State control of the means of production” means different things to different people, but I’d say this qualifies as socialism in America.
Traditional Democrats wanted to “tame” the economy. Bidenism is replacing it.
Since the Democratic Party’s start nearly 200 years ago, socialism has passed through the party but never defined it. By the time the voting in Congress stops on Build Back Better, we’ll know whether from now on its members should be identified as D. or D-Soc.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bid...er-11632338922
When is Commie Trump going to prison ??
