Bernie Sanders, in an Opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today, calls President Trump a socialist because of “corporate socialism.” His examples are either outright falsehoods or twist the facts to support his absurd accusations.
His most glaring falsehood is regarding the $700 billion bailout given to the banks. The vast majority of the “bailout” has been repaid to the government, as Obama stated years ago. As a matter of fact, the government has enjoyed a profit of about $161 billion after repayments, interest and dividends it has received. How many social welfare recipients have gotten their lives together and repaid the government for what they received?
The fiscal crisis was not created by the “greed and illegal behavior”, but by the greed of Democrats to buy votes. It was Bill Clinton who demanded that Freddie and Fannie buy they subprime mortgages made by lenders. It was Hillary Clinton as a New York Senator who threatened banks with reprisals if they did not start making loans to minority, which unfortunately meant those who were not qualified to purchase a home. The lenders were caught between answering to the threats from the government and protecting the shareholders.
Can you imagine how many more people might have lost their jobs and homes if there had been a total world-wide financial collapse greater than what we experienced? How many of the people whose homes that were “lost” actually had any investment in those homes? The zero-down, stated income “liar loans” mortgages provided to people with 520 FICO scores were the real problem. Furthermore, the illegal activity occurred in the trenches of the real estate sales and mortgage initiation level rather than the banks. I had to work with a number of clients who owned a home based on fraudulent loans being processed. I had a client who owned 5 homes that he didn’t even know that he owned because of a crooked real estate agent/mortgage broker.
Since he started running for president in 2016, Sanders has been harping on the fact that families in black communities lost half of their net worth during the financial crisis. However, if you look at the actual numbers, their average net worth dropped from $19,200 in 2007 to $11,000 in 2013 ($7,200), a drop of 43%. Yet on average, the overall American family’s net worth dropped from $87,992 in 2003 to $56,335 in 2013. The percentage amount seems glaring for black families, but when you are starting with little to begin with, the drop is not that dramatic, other than for Sanders’ political purposes.
Mr. Sanders also complains about “fossil fuel” subsidies, ignoring the facts that there are no viable alternatives to fossil fuels currently, China subsidizes fossil fuels at a rate 3 times greater than the United States does, and globally governments subsidize fossil fuels at a rate 10 times greater than the United States. He also ignores the affect to jobs and the economy that failing to “subsidize” fossil fuels would have on this country. America could not compete with the rest of the world.
Which brings us to the corporate tax rate which Mr. Sanders abhors, but would have been implemented anyway if Hillary Clinton had become president, because it was universally recognized by Republicans and Democrats alike that our corporate tax rate was not competitive with the rest of the world, resulting in more investment in foreign countries and less investment, and therefore fewer jobs, in America. Mr. Sanders continues to beat his socialist drum in spite of the facts related to the resurgence of the economy. Today, the average net worth of black families is now over $17,600. Their unemployment rate is at an all time low and their median wages are up.
The Bernie Sanders’ Socialist Democrat system will further erode the opportunities for black Americans. They have been promised by Democrats for 50 years that “the government will take care of you.” Yet they are forced to stay in substandard public schools run by the Democrats’ favorite donors, the teachers’ unions. Democrats ignore the success of charter schools and voucher programs that the poor black communities want. Instead of getting public schools to emulate the success methods of charter schools, the Democrats do everything in their power to put them out of business.
Contrary to Mr. Sanders’ analysis, more Americans are noticing the contradiction between the promises of liberals and the completely unaffordability of the 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights a reality with initiatives like Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, a Green New Deal, student-debt cancellation and legislation to expand Social Security and the results that have actually been accomplished by socialists in the past. Bernie Sanders unrealistic plan of socialism is what will lead to the destruction of opportunity for everyone, and create a ruling class and an everyone else class who will share in the dispare.
