If there’s any logical theme to the Democratic Party, it would seem to be this: If something doesn’t work, double down on it. Repeat as needed. And that theme is written all over the latest draft of the 2016 Democratic Party Platform.
The platform doesn’t have any particular hold over would-be President Hillary Clinton, but it does give you an indication of where the Democrats are headed in 2016 and beyond. Driven in part by the success of Bernie Sanders, the platform lurches nauseatingly to the left, accelerating a process already in hyperspeed.
Economically speaking, this platform would only make America’s current problems worse than they are today. It’s not only wrong in its policy prescriptions; it’s wrong in its identification of what ails the country. According to the Democrats, income inequality is the great evil that must be overcome. And their medicine is the same as ever: Top-down wealth redistribution.
Democrats, as usual, are pointing one crooked finger at a single American Boogeyman: The Rich. The “1 percent.” You poor folks. You can barely meet ends meet, and you’ve got these fat-cat CEOs flying around on private jets, stuffing their faces with luxurious caviar and laughing about your workaday lives! Let’s tax the bejesus out of them! Won’t that be fun?
“At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, we believe the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations must pay their fair share in taxes,” says the platform draft.
This is a line we’ve heard over and over again from Democrats. But while it may inspire cheers at this rally or that one, it doesn’t make any coherent sense. It propagates the big liberal conspiracy theory, which is that our economy is stuck because all of these rich supervillains who are using every trick in the book to avoid their patriotic and legal obligations.
Sure, those villains exist. No, they are not responsible for our stagnation.
American corporations already pay one of the highest tax rates in the Western world. We’ve witnessed an explosion in corporate inversion during the Obama years, and the Democrats will only invite more of it by turning these corporations into America’s scapegoat.
On immigration, trade, education, the minimum wage, and healthcare, Democrats are pursuing policies that will make it nearly impossible for the economy to grow. Quick-fix, feel-good solutions that are no different from the ideas and regulations that have shackled the American economy for years.
Donald Trump and the Republicans need to make it really clear over the next four months what these proposals would do to the economy.
We simply can’t withstand much more of this.
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