analyticsbox | Jun 02, 2021
“The American republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe people with their own money.”
Alexis De Tocqueville. French Diplomat, 1805-1859.
It‘s like a bad dream coming true, and it should scare you beyond imagination!
The U.S. has the greatest economic engine the world has ever known. Average consumption per capita is by far the highest in the world. And we got here by having individual freedom and small government in a free enterprise/market economic system.
All the ‘free’ stuff now being offered sounds great and has popular support (see quote above) but is it ‘free’ and is it good for our well-being and the advancement of the economy for all to benefit?
NO!
We are headed toward European style socialism - big government, and big taxes, on everyone! And history consistently shows that big government and big taxes hurts economic growth – which is vital to raise income and standards of living for all. (Our lowest 20% of households consumes what the average European household consumes.)
And we think this will be all be paid for by ‘taxing the rich’ so they will pay their ‘fair share’. (What? Currently, the top 25% of earners pay 86.1% of all income tax.) So, let’s look at how the Scandinavians do it (refer to PowerPoint 9). In Sweden, the ‘wealth tax’ was tried and failed. There is no estate tax. But everyone pays a very heavy tax on income (at $70,000 of income or more, 57% tax) and on consumption (via a 25% VAT tax); and their fuel taxes are approximately the total we pay at the pump today. But Corporate Tax is only 22%.
Yes, all the promises of ‘free stuff’ sounds great, until you examine how this works in the real world and how all this stuff is really paid for. Big taxes and government inevitably will lead to lower growth, and lower standards of living. Look at real world - then vote your conscience, so we can all sleep better at night!