Recently, in The Wall Street Journal, Neera Tanden, CEO of the Center for American Progress, a major foghorn in our nation's capital for America's left, explained "Why Democrats Won the Shutdown."
The most accurate declaration in the article is "fights tell the country a lot about what -- and who -- the fighters care about."
And, indeed, there should be no question what the Democratic Party is about.
That is -- to miss no opportunity to accumulate political power by fostering, as widely and as deeply as possible, a culture of government dependence in America. And to pay the bill for this by bankrupting our country.
"Affordability" is the political buzzword du jour now. And, indeed, no one wants higher prices.
But the way to lower prices is greater efficiency in businesses delivering the products and services we care about. The government's role in this is to remove, to the greatest extent possible, unnecessary regulations and taxes.
However, for those who love political power, the way to lower prices -- to "affordability" -- is subsidies. Shield those whom you want to depend on you from the true costs of what they are consuming.
And, indeed, this is the way of Obamacare. Shield the true cost of health care by sending the subsidy funds to the insurance companies to keep premiums to the consumer artificially low.
Per the Paragon Health Institute, "in 2023, federal subsidies through the ACA Medicaid expansion and the exchanges, which almost all flowed to insurers, totaled $218 billion."
Not surprisingly, as Paragon reports, since 2010, when Obamacare was enacted, a weighted average of stocks of health insurance companies is up 1,032 % (through the end of 2023) compared to 251% in the overall market, measured by the S&P 500.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if the federal government went to your local grocer and said they would pay for all his stock if he gave it all away free to all his customers?
How can things get more affordable than this?
The next question is: How can we pay for this plan Democrats have for making things more affordable?
Unfortunately, here we have even more subterfuge to shield Americans from reality.
Or, in the words of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher," the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money. "
There are two ways the federal government can get its hands on more money. Tax us. Or, not tax us now and borrow the money on global credit markets, basically putting us all on the hook without us knowing about it. That is, commit to higher taxes in the future.
Our federal government has been running a fiscal deficit every year since 2001. Expenditures are greater than income. The only way to get more tax revenue without raising taxes is adequate growth in the economy so that, with the same tax structure, people have higher incomes and pay more taxes. The other way is to raise taxes.
We're not growing fast enough to generate enough new tax revenue without raising taxes. And this stunted growth is just another symptom of the same problem: more government larding down our country and slowing things down. And raising taxes is not popular. Raising taxes means that taxpayers become aware that they are paying for political ruses such as Obamacare subsidies.
And of course, Democrats have no interest in cutting spending.
The result is that in 2001, the last year we had a fiscal surplus, federal debt as percent of GDP was 30%. Now, per the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, it's 95%.
Projections from the Congressional Budget Office show our debt burden will continue to grow to unimaginable levels.
Step one to solving the problem is being honest and realistic that we have a problem.
And this is the last thing that Democrats want.
Star Parker is founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Her recent book, "What Is the CURE for America?" is available now. To find out more about Star Parker and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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