If I haven’t given you sufficient reason not to vote for Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians, I don’t know who could. On the other hand, if you were to actually take my advice (a pretty uncommon strategy, I’ll admit) and refuse to vote for any of those party’s candidates, you’d be left with little choice but to vote for some moonbats from, say, the Green Party or some such gathering of political odd-balls.
If you vote at all, the smart money says, you’ll probably vote for either a Republican or a Democrat.
You would lose that bet on me.
I’ve voted for the Libertarian Party candidate for president in five out of the last seven presidential elections. I also vote heavily for Libertarian candidates in local races. People are constantly scolding me about this; when I vote Libertarian, they say, my vote is “wasted.”
Somehow, however, I have a tough time accepting the premise that a principled vote is a wasted vote. And goodness knows, the two mainstream parties haven’t exactly offered return on investment.
The free-spending behavior of the Republican Party during the first six years of the George W. Bush presidency validated my votes thoroughly.1
During most election seasons, one group of researchers or another will generate a voter questionnaire highlighting planks from the Republican, Democrat, and Libertarian election platforms. Using excerpts from the party platforms, these pamphlets propose to present three alternative ways to address specific issues—without identifying which plank comes from which party. The people taking the survey merely have to choose the positions that most clearly mirror their own.
Interestingly enough, the majority of those taking this blind test tend to favor positions taken from the Libertarian platform over those from the Democrats or Republicans.
Does that tell you something?
What it tells me, I already knew. My years of conversations with talk radio callers have left me with the unshakeable feeling that most of the people in this country—at least, most of those people who take the time to call talk radio shows—have views that are basically libertarian. The Cato Institute, a respected Washington think tank, is a little more conservative (in both senses), but even they put the number at around 21 percent.
But there’s one problem: Libertarians have yet to show the ability to attract these people to their candidates or party when election time rolls around. Result? My vote enjoys the status of being part of the lost 3 percent.
To those of you who are with me in that slender slice of electoral pie, I salute you. For the rest of you, who will likely vote either Democrat or Republican in the coming election, let me share with you a list of some of the little surprises the Democrat Party2 might have in store for you if they retain control of Congress and seize the White House again.
Every time a general election rolls around, the Democrats pull out the same tried-and-true playbook. This plan calls for Democrats to spend their time (and election war chests) trying to frighten the wrinkles right off our senior citizens with a carefully honed litany of scare tactics.
The Republicans want you all to die, they suggest. The GOP will see to it that you never get another Social Security check as long as you live.
And another: The Republicans want you all to be sick! They’re going to destroy Medicare! Oh, and they want your children to starve to death, too.
Of course, there’s nothing in the Republican platform aimed at destroying Social Security and Medicare. So how do the Democrats explain that? They just tell the voters that the Republicans’ plans are “secret,” not to be revealed until the election is over.
Well, since the Democrats are so eager to talk about “secret” plans, I thought I’d spend a few fascinating pages discussing the secret plans of the Democrats.
Just what legislative agenda does the Democrat Party plan to pursue if and when they gain control of the government?
Your friendly author has been watching these socialists for years, and taking notes. I present you now with just some of the goodies the Social Democrat Party has in store for the people of America.
If you think I’m just making this stuff up, then go run to the polls in the next election and give the Social Democrat Party even more power.
Nobody loves a good “I told you so” more than me.
All right—clear your mind, grab your ankles, and kiss your buns goodbye. Here is the Democrat Party’s Secret Plan for America.
MAKE THE (EVIL) RICH COVER THE TAB
Priority one: Remove a majority of voters from responsibility for paying any federal income taxes. The Democrats have been working on this plan for decades—with no small amount of help from the Republicans. The idea is simple. Using “refundable” tax credits and deductions and ideas like the fraudulent Earned Income Tax Credit to free the bottom 50 percent of income earners from their federal tax burden, they’re well on their way to shifting the entire burden for the payment of federal income taxes onto a minority of U.S. taxpayers.
Let’s think about this for a moment. It’s election time. You’re a Democrat running for office. You know that the majority of the voters in your district pay no federal income taxes at all. And you know that very close to a majority of these voters get various tax credits and welfare payments that more than pay back any Social Security or Medicare taxes they may pay. Most are getting a free ride. Many are coming out ahead!
You’re the candidate. What do you tell these people? It’s obvious, isn’t it?
If those Republicans win, they’re going to make you pay income taxes, Social Security taxes, and Medicare taxes!
Money talks. That’s a sure winner.
So how are the Democrats doing with their grand plan to shift the entire federal tax burden onto a minority of voters? Not bad at all—thanks for asking.
Right now the top 50 percent of taxpayers pay almost 96 percent of the taxes. The top income earners—the evil top 1 percent—earn about 16.5 percent of the income and pay almost 33.7 percent of the income taxes. This is what Democrats call “not paying your fair share.”
The Democrats are close to their goal. When the majority of voters have no federal income tax liability, it’ll be almost impossible to pass any meaningful tax cuts—and further tax increases will be a piece of cake, especially if the taxes only affect those classified as “rich.”
This is how the Democrats plan to create a defeat-proof socialist Congress.
SHIFT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE TAXES TO THE “RICH”
It’s crucial to understand the depth of the Democrats’ dedication to the idea of totally eliminating all elements of the federal tax burden from their core voters.
Lifting the income tax burden from the majority of voters isn’t really all that difficult. The argument that the rich need to pay “their fair share” plays well with the dumb masses, as does the consistent Democrat whining about “tax cuts for the rich.”
Social Security and Medicare taxes, however, present a tougher challenge. To solve the problem, hard-core Democrat Robert Reich, Clinton’s secretary of labor, floated an idea on Fox News Channel’s Hannity & Colmes a while back. His idea? “Lift the tax burden off the poor” by eliminating payroll taxes on the first $15,000 of income.
This plan, my friends, is absolutely brilliant—a surefire cinch to broaden the loyalty of the Democrat voter base, and keep spreading it until Social Security finally collapses under its own weight.
Here’s how it’s done: The Democrats pass a law that says nobody has to pay any payroll taxes on the first $15,000 of their income. So wage earners making $30,000 a year will have their Social Security payroll tax bills cut in half! Bingo—a huge segment of our low earners are now on the very brink of getting a completely free ride.
What a windfall! If that won’t make you a lifelong, dedicated Democrat voter, I don’t know what will.
But hold on a minute here! Wouldn’t Reich’s idea cost the government a bunch of money? After all, these people are still going to get their full Social Security and Medicare benefits when the time comes. So just who is paying their Social Security taxes?
You’re not serious. You don’t know?
You, you sap! The difference will be made up by that minority of productive Americans who are still paying the taxes. All they have to do is raise the earnings limit on the evil, hideous, stanky rich to cover the cost!
Now, at first blush, you might think they would just take that $15,000 off the bottom and add it to the top. That would bring the Social Security earnings cap up to the neighborhood of $110,000. But hold on here. There are many, many more people who earn that first $15,000 than there are people who earn $110,000. The truth, then, is that they’d actually have to raise the earnings limit by much more than $15,000 to cover the lost tax revenue. Try $20,000 or $25,000. So the lower-income ranks will get a free ride for a good portion of their future Social Security benefits…a free ride paid for by the wicked rich.
Wait. We’re not through here. Now I want you to think about what the Democrats would do with each new federal election after they manage to create this $15,000 exemption. Can’t you just hear Joe Democrat’s campaign ad right now?
Cast your vote for me, Joe Democrat, and I’ll work to raise your exemption on Social Security payroll taxes to your first $18,000 in wages!
Well, what myrmidon isn’t going to go for that? Vote for Joe and get another tax cut! What a deal!
For many voters who earn less than the Social Security earnings limit, this will be the defining issue of the election. They won’t give one second’s thought to the high achievers in the upper income levels whose taxes will be increased; nor will they care that the tax increases on those evil rich bastards will exceed the tax cut they’re getting from Joe Democrat. Joe and his fellow Democrats have already wiped out any federal income tax liability they might have had with a laundry list of exceptions, deductions, and tax credits…now they see the Democrats working hard to get rid of their payroll taxes!
Keep voting for Joe Democrat and that free ride is on its way!
It’s a classic case of taking away from the upper income earners to give to the lower income earners—and since there are more lower income earners than higher, it’s an automatic vote-getter!
Charlie Rangel, the new head of the House Ways and Means Committee, knows the opportunities that await here, and as the Democrats look toward 2008, he’s prepared to move.
Think that’s too harsh a scenario? Ignore me at your peril. I’ve got plenty of I told you sos ready and waiting.
END THE HOME MORTGAGE INTEREST DEDUCTION
Democrats have been gunning for the home mortgage interest deduction for decades.
You’re probably working under the impression that virtually everyone who has a mortgage on their home deducts the mortgage interest on their income taxes.
Not so.
The fact is that around 37 percent of people who owe money on their homes don’t even bother to itemize deductions on their income tax returns, and thus lose out on the deduction all together. That 37 percent, by the way, are in the lower and middle income brackets; they’re the same people the Democrats want to relieve of any responsibility for paying taxes in the first place.
So attacking the home mortgage interest deduction doesn’t really constitute an attack on the Democrat voter base.
Democrats aren’t at all fond of this particular tax break. They like to refer to it as a tax “subsidy.” Now, the more intelligent among us clearly understand that allowing people to keep more of their income can hardly be called a “subsidy.” People likely to vote Democrat, on the other hand, are happy to accept that characterization.
Unless you have a fairly sizeable mortgage you aren’t aware of it, but this home mortgage interest deduction is already being whittled away. Right now, a taxpayer can deduct the interest on only the first million dollars of principal.
The Democrats want to reduce that…steadily…until the deduction is pretty much gone.
As soon as the Democrats have completed their seizure of the federal government, then, you can bet they’ll make their move to start hacking away at the mortgage interest deduction. They know there’ll be little adverse political fallout. It’s not their voter base that’s going to take it in the chin. After all, the mortgage interest deduction is valuable only to people who actually pay income taxes and who itemize their deductions. The Democrats have already succeeded in removing most of their core constituency from the income tax rolls.
So, you see, they have tax revenue to gain, and nothing to lose!
Besides, they get the added bonus of telling their core constituency that they’ve made the evil rich pay even more of their ill-gotten booty in taxes! People who vote Democrat just love hearing stuff like that.
So you can get ready to kiss that mortgage interest deduction—and a lot more of your money—goodbye. Just don’t whine about it when it happens. After all, the Democrats will tell you, there can only be two reasons you have a home of your own in the first place: Either you got lucky and somebody gave you the money, or you exploited some of the poor, poor pitiful victims of our evil capitalist system to get it.
SOCIALIZED MEDICINE
Our Democrat friends already tried this with Hillary Care.
It failed.
But when it comes to growing the size and intrusiveness of government, Democrats aren’t discouraged by setbacks. Give them the chance, and they’ll try again…and again…and again…until they finally get you to swallow the poison pill.
There are two basic reasons the Democrats are working so hard for complete government control of this huge segment of our economy. One, of course, is power. Health care comprises no less than 15 percent of our national economy. If the government can seize control of a booby prize this large, we’ll have taken a giant step toward a socialist economy.
The second reason is control—the type of control that leads to loyal voters. Think about it: If you control a person’s access to health care, you effectively control that person. Tug on the leash and they’ll follow you wherever you go…and that includes right into the voting booth.
For years, the Democrats have had to put their plans for socialized medicine on hold. Those insipid Republicans in the Congress and the White House made things tough. Until they got control, the Democrats had to be satisfied just sitting up there in the Beltway blocking any efforts to introduce competition into the medical marketplace.
Why? Because Democrats live in abject fear of free market competition. Private sector solutions to any health care crisis must be fought at all costs.
Here’s how the Democrats play their hand:
Early in George W. Bush’s first term, he introduced an economic stimulus plan that had a little too much of that free-market elixir to please big-government Democrats.
There was much weeping and hand-wringing in the media about the plight of workers who’d been laid off their jobs. How were they going to afford health insurance?
The Bush idea was to allow these laid-off workers to go into the marketplace to purchase individual health insurance policies. The plan was to allow these people a tax credit to cover their health insurance premiums.
The Democrats would have none of it. Allowing American workers to go into the private marketplace to find health insurance was simply out of the question. Why, what if these people found they could shop for a plan that suited their families, get reimbursed through a tax credit, and never have to worry about that insurance going away when they change jobs? What’s worse, what if they found a better health policy than was available through their employer?
Well, the Democrats saw the problem with all that: A person who’s taken control of his own health care is a person who has begun to wean himself from dependence on the Washington political class.
So that was the end of that.
The Democrats knew they had to propose an alternative. Their idea was to make federal funds available to employers who extended the health insurance benefits of laid-off workers.
You do see the magic in this plan, don’t you? The Democrat plan would have left employers in charge of an individual’s health insurance policy—thus preserving the timeworn leftist tenet that every American citizen should entrust his health care to someone other than himself (such as his employer or the government).
Alas, this argument is purely academic at this point. With the Democrats back in control, the age of socialized medicine—complete with three-month waits for elective surgery, inefficient clinics and hospitals, and impersonal service—will be upon us.
There’s one way you can avoid the health care chaos the left has planned for us:
Stay healthy.
THE MAGIC OF IMPUTED INCOME
Imputed? What does “imputed” mean? Let’s ask the dictionary:
Im-put-ed [im-pyoo-tid]—adjective
estimated to have a certain cash value, although no money has been received or credited.3
That seems innocuous enough, doesn’t it?
Actually, it doesn’t.
Tie the word “imputed” to the word “income,” and the picture starts to become rather unnerving.
Let’s see: The government taxes your income. Okay.
And “imputed” refers to a cash value where no cash has been received.
So you do the math: “Imputed income” can only mean “adding cash value to your taxable income…without actually putting any cash into your pocket”!
Here’s something you need to know: The left wants to milk America’s high achievers for as much money as they possibly can. And there are really only three ways the Democrats can get more income taxes out of any of us: They can raise the tax rates, eliminate more deductions, or somehow change the definition of income.
Raise taxes? That’s a given. Eliminate deductions? They’re already doing it. Still, this isn’t enough to slay the Democrats’ thirst for your money.
The Democrats may not understand principles like “liberty” or “fairness,” but even the ones who went to government schools can do a little simple math. They know they can get more money out of you if the “taxable income” line on your 1040 can somehow be increased. After all, 40 percent of $120,000 is more than 40 percent of $90,000. But how in the world do you boost taxable income for someone who hasn’t actually increased his taxable income?
Simple! You impute more income to that taxpayer! Up goes the taxable income, and up goes the “tax due.”
This is an idea the Democrats have been kicking around since the early days of the Clinton administration, back before the voter revolution of 1994. The Clintonistas wanted to impute extra income to people who own their own homes. There were two motives behind their plan. First, they wanted to push more people into the higher income brackets, where Clinton’s tax increases could reach them. Second, they wanted to increase the amount of taxes actually collected from these people.
Here’s how their version of the imputed income scheme would have worked:
Let’s say you’ve owned your home for about twenty years. During that time, your home has been appreciating in value…big time. But your original purchase price—and thus the terms of your loan—were set two decades ago, so your monthly payments on that home are much, much lower than they would be if you bought the house today.
Let’s say those payments are about $550 a month. There isn’t much of a home mortgage tax deduction left at this point, since you almost have the home paid off, and the bulk of your payments go to principal instead of interest.
The very fact that you’re living in such a nice home, and paying so little for it, attracts the interest of Democrats. They know there are a lot of people in your neighborhood who paid more for their homes than you did, and their mortgage payments are a lot higher. Not only that, but the people who rent in your neighborhood are paying much more than you do every month. It’s obvious that your longtime homeownership, and your foresight, have rewarded you.
Well, where there’s an economic benefit, there’s a Democrat waiting to tax it!
As one of America’s “rich” homeowners, you’re about to get a little visit from the imputed income fairy. The Democrats want to squeeze a little more money from you, to spend on those poor renters and people who aren’t as “fortunate” as you are (in exchange for their votes, of course). So under the imputed income plan, they would figure out how much your home would rent for every month. To do this they would use every new piece of census data that supports their views, plus any information that they can develop on current sale and rental prices up and down your street.
Let’s say the government—the IRS, if you will—determines that your home would rent for $3,250 a month. That would add up to $39,000 a year. But the IRS discovers that you’re only paying $550 a month—the equivalent of $6,600 a year if you were paying rent. Well, in their way of thinking, that’s one advantage you’re enjoying by virtue of your long-term homeownership. The economic benefit of your home ownership, in their view, is the difference between the $39,000 you should be paying to live there and the $6,600 you’re actually paying.
You see? By their ingenious logic, you’re “getting away with” $32,400 every year in untaxed economic benefits!
How would the Democrats right this wild injustice? Simple. They’d take that $32,400 and add it to your taxable income on your next tax return. That would give you the privilege of paying income taxes on the economic benefit you derive from your long-term homeownership. The IRS has “leveled the playing field” in your neighborhood, so to speak. Just as your neighbors have to pay taxes on the full $39,000 they’re paying to rent that house down the street, you’d have to do the same. It’s only fair, right?
After all, you’re rich, remember? You’ve got a little extra money, you should take a little extra punishment—all in the interest of government programs for the “less fortunate.”
As noted, this imputed income notion first gained some traction in the Clinton years. But it went underground only because the Republicans got the upper hand in Congress. The Democrats have kept on introducing imputed income bills on the Hill. Several years ago, for example, they introduced a similar imputed income bill—this one pertaining to unpaid child support, not home mortgages. Under this law, deadbeat dads who owed back child support would have been required to add the amount of their arrears to their taxable income and pay taxes on it. Remember, this is income that’s already been taxed once. The bill would have been a simple double dip, forcing the deadbeats to pay tax on their income a second time—a strategy designed to punish the dads, but which would only punish their suffering children, by swiping money from the deadbeats’ pockets and making it less likely than ever that they’d send a few pennies to the kids.
Today, child support. Tomorrow, renter support—money you could be keeping if you only rented your home instead of owning it.
A SNATCH-AND-RUN ON YOUR PENSION FUNDS
Do you have any idea how much money is sitting in private pension and 401K plans belonging to American taxpayers?
Not millions, not billions—trillions. Trillions of dollars sitting out there in various investment accounts, pension funds, and 401K plans, earning interest and growing in value…and the government can’t touch it!
Imagine how frustrating this must be for your average tax-spend-elect politician. All that money out there, hard at work in the private capital marketplace, completely out of their reach! Just think of the votes that could be bought with this money! Think of the millions of Americans who could be made more dependent on government through the programs that could be established and funded with this cash!
The Democrats and their economic advisors have also got a plan to raid those pension plans. They’ve been sitting on it since the Clinton years, and I just know they’re itching to bring it back.
Their justification is simple (simple-minded, you might say). Pension plans are for the rich, right? Only those evil rich people have those fat pension plans to fall back on when they retire. It’s just not fair that they should be able to set aside all that extra dough while “working” families have to scrape just to get by.
So all they have to do is start yammering about “leveling the playing field” and “helping out the less fortunate” and the way is cleared for their grand plan.
The key was to make everyone report to the government exactly how much they have in their pension or 401K plan—and take some of it away from them.
In its original, Clinton-era form, the plan called for a one-time 15 percent tax on the outstanding balance of all private pension and 401K retirement plans. This money would have been paid into the federal government’s general fund, and used to fund various social vote-buying programs for low-and middle-income earners.
You can see why this plan would have been a real winner for Democrats. It would have taken money chiefly from those who earn enough to pay income taxes and contribute to pension plans in the first place. Remember, these aren’t exactly the core of the Democrats’ voting bloc.
If you just lean back, close your eyes, and pretend you’re listening to Meet the Press, you can almost hear Nancy Pelosi pushing this idea right now:
These people with the pension plans are the fortunate. They’ve been able to set aside money for their retirement while the working class has had to live from paycheck to paycheck, always earning just enough money to survive, never enough money to save. It’s time that America play fair with the working class. The rich, with their fat pension plans, have benefited from the labors of the poor. Now it’s time for them to contribute their fair share so that the working class can nurture their dreams of retirement along with the rich.
Damn! I almost convinced myself for a minute there! Guess my natural compassion genie got out of the bottle for a moment.
It’s easy to be compassionate with someone else’s money, isn’t it?
So when the Democrats return to claim their birthright—complete control of our federal government—get ready to kiss a good portion of your retirement funds a fond farewell.
But hey…think of all the good your money will do in someone else’s pocket!
LET’S TAX YOUR PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS, TOO!
Surely you don’t think the Democrats are going to pat themselves on the back and slither off after they’ve pulled this raid on your pension plans, do you? Come on—that would be way too easy. All they had to do was cook up a little of their class warfare casserole and the table was set!
So how about dessert?
After the Democrats revive their plan to tax the outstanding balance of all pension and 401K plans, they’re bound to follow up with a similar tax on all future contributions to these plans.
Once again, the argument will be simple:
“Look. It’s not as if we’re asking the rich to pay the full income tax rate on the money they contribute to their pension plans. We’re just asking them to contribute their fair share to the retirement dreams of the working class.”
Different tax, same theory: the so-called “rich” shouldn’t be allowed to invest their money tax-free when “poor” people don’t have that opportunity.
Sounds ludicrous? Sure. But it’s bound to resonate with their voters.
ECONOMICALLY TARGETED INVESTMENTS—CONTROLLING YOUR PENSION FUND
By this point, the Democrats will be feeling their oats. Having nailed the filthy rich4 by confiscating part of their pension funds (15 percent? More? Who knows what they’ll get away with?), now they’ll have to pay another 15 percent on their future contributions to those funds. Surely there must be something the left is missing!
As a matter of fact, there is. There’s another step in their seizure of your personal freedoms: The politicians will start telling you where you can and can’t invest your pension funds!
No joke, my friends. This idea has been around for a while, under the name of Economically Targeted Investments (ETIs). Simply put, it’s a tool that allows Democrats to take the money that’s left in your pension plan after their tax raid and use that money to buy even more votes!
Here’s how ETIs work:
The government grants various tax breaks to these retirement plans. As you know, these tax breaks are usually granted to force individuals or corporations to conduct business in a way that’s favorable to government, or to prevent them from acting in a way that gives politicians ulcers. The Democrats’ (not-so)-secret plan is to change the rules on the tax deductibility of donations to pension and 401K accounts.
Instead of just investing these funds in the stocks, bonds, and other investment vehicles of their choosing, fund managers and individuals will be required to invest these funds in specific investments, following guidelines dictated by politicians.
How could they possibly enforce this? Easy: Stray from those guidelines, and they’ll take your tax breaks away!
This, folks, is a sickeningly brilliant scheme. It allows politicians to fund some of their favorite spending schemes—without using a dollar of government funds.
Here’s how:
The politicians would simply create regulations requiring fund managers and individuals to invest their pension or 401K funds in businesses doing things the politicians like—building low-income housing, for instance, or investing in alternative energy research. Another favorite might be corporations that take extra steps to hire workers off welfare rolls.
The politicians would regulate this new investment protocol by giving these corporations a politically inspired grade on their dedication to diversity, the environment, charitable contributions, and employee benefits. Rest assured that companies that don’t provide their employees with full health coverage would see their investments dwindle almost immediately.
And there are so many other ways to play! Let’s not forget so-called “affirmative action” programs for systematized racial discrimination in the workplace. That would serve nicely the Democrats’ traditional fealty to one key voting bloc—minority voters. Another such bloc—our old friends the unions—would have its wheels greased the same way: You can bet your next born that the pressure would be on to forbid pension fund investments in nonunionized corporations.
You get the picture here: The Democrats’ secret plan would be one big discount store for their long-treasured special interests.
The genius of all this is that Democrats would be able to claim credit for increasing funding for some of their favorite programs—without actually increasing the traditional tax rates. All they have to do instead is pass these soft controls on our pension money. Make no mistake—the end result would inevitably be lower returns on pension fund investments, and lower pension benefits to retirees.
But that won’t bother the Democrats. The less money you have to retire on, the more dependent on government you will be.
AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT OF UNIONS…
Anyone with the mental power to grow a fingernail has got to know that the Democrats will be moving fast to throw some bones to their union friends now that they’re on their way to complete control of the reins of power in Washington. Steering ETIs to union companies is just a first step. The next will be making it easier for workers to unionize!
As things stand now, union organizers have a pesky little hurdle to overcome in the process of unionizing a workplace—a vicious little thing called the secret ballot. Goonions don’t like secret ballots, at least not when workers are voting on whether or not to unionize. It’s easy enough to apply pressure at the right points to get workers to sign a petition calling for an election; after all, it’s easy to tell who has signed up and who has not. Actual elections are something else. A worker can bow to pressure (or something worse) and sign a petition, but when the ballots are cast he’s free to express his true feelings.
There must be a way around this problem. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
Wait! I’ve got it! We’ll just eliminate the secret ballot.
And that, my friends, is precisely what the goonion bosses have in mind as soon as the Democrats are fully installed. After years of union “volunteers” helping in election campaigns for Democrats, of union contributions to Democrat campaign war chests, payback time is right around the corner!
Here’s how they’ll do it: Democrats will amend the labor relations act to allow for unionization of a particular workforce solely through the petition process, with no actual vote. Once the majority of eligible employees sign the petition to unionize, it’s done. This means that every worker who doesn’t want to see his workplace unionized will have to face the music by refusing to sign the petition—or will have to go along to get along.
What a fine choice. The Democrat choice. Mob rule.
And who wants to go against the mob?
FORCE EMPLOYERS TO PAY FOR “FAMILY LEAVE”
Right now the Family Leave Act requires employers to give employees about twelve weeks of unpaid “family leave” to tend to certain family events and emergencies—having a baby, recovering from an illness, coping with a death in the family or a persistent hangnail or any number of other situations.
The insensitive truth about businesses, however, is that they hire people to produce, not reproduce. Employers have jobs they need to fill. Having the right people in those jobs is essential to the overall health of the employer’s business and to the job security of everyone else working there.
The decision to grant an employee an extended leave, whether paid or unpaid, should be left up to the employer, not to some political hack trying to scam votes. If an employee is worth the sacrifice, the company should give him or her the time off. If not, their pregnancy or other family emergency should be a golden opportunity to say goodbye. If your employer finds you valuable and believes you’d be difficult to replace, then he may well agree to an extended leave when the situation warrants.
Bottom line: It should be up to you to make yourself valuable enough that your employer wants to accommodate and keep you.
Of course, this is a challenge many don’t want to face. Those who don’t bring extraordinary skills or a superb work ethic to the job should hardly expect their employers to go to the trouble of hiring a temporary worker to replace them until they return. It would make far more business sense to get rid of you and hire someone else. Who knows? Your replacement might be a better, more motivated worker!5
The only reason this whole “family leave” scam has gotten anywhere is that the leave is unpaid. It only prevents employers from replacing employees while they’re gone. For the Democrats, though—and for the marginal workers who make up so much of their base—this situation is hardly satisfactory. They want the employers to keep paying employees who take these little extended vacations.
As the Dems crawl back to power, you can bet they’ve got this near the top of their agenda.
The Democrats’ “secret” plan will start off slowly—with legislation that requires the employer to cover, say, a third of the employee’s salary. This would give future Democrat candidates the opportunity to campaign on promises to increase that percentage—a lousy idea made worse, but a sure vote-getter nonetheless.
Paying people for not working—Democrats love this stuff.
REQUIRE EMPLOYERS TO PAY FOR SICK DAYS
This proposal is already on the table in the 110th Democrat-controlled Congress, courtesy of the illustrious and “honorable” Ted Kennedy.6 The idea here is to force employers with more than fifteen full-time employees to give each of them six paid sick days every year.
Studies have shown that most American workers take sick days even when they’re not really ill. You’d be amazed at how many people phone in sick on the first day of hunting season, for example. Getting paid to fish—now, that’s a concept only a Democrat could love.
What we have here is the government forcing a business to give up its claim to any rights under the basic relationship between employer and employee. The employment relationship is one in which the employee trades his intellectual and physical capital to the employer for money. If the employee gives his intellectual and physical capital to the employer and is not paid for it, then he’s been cheated. Likewise, if the employer gives money to the employee and receives nothing valuable in return, the employer is being cheated.
Perfect! the Democrats say. They’ve always been a “something for nothing” crowd.
SEIZING THE PROPERTY OF THOSE WHO FLEE DEMOCRATIC TAX TYRANNY
As Democrats work diligently to increase our taxes, to exercise more state control over our economy, and to increase the pace of income and wealth redistribution, many high-achieving Americans are making escape plans. Working to build your own wealth is one thing. Working to build the wealth of those who have never managed to wean themselves from government is quite another.
The greater the confiscation of wealth becomes, the more people start looking for other places to invest their money and base their businesses—and if that means going out of the country, more and more of them are saying, So be it.
In 2006, the best estimates were that there were about $11 trillion in dollar-denominated deposits in overseas investment and banking accounts, where those dollars could work and earn while being protected from our confiscatory tax structure. Just why do you think you run into so many banks when you step off that cruise ship onto Grand Cayman Island? It’s not because the Cayman Islanders have a fondness for banks. The dollars in these banks are refugees—from a punishing tax system that rewards indolence.
Not only are our American dollars fleeing overseas, but American businesses are moving offshore as well. Democrats like to call these businesses “Corporate Benedict Arnolds.”
Why, though, do these corporations flee America?
I’ll keep the explanation brief and as simple as I can. For verification and clarification, feel free to consult your friendly, though probably dull, local corporate accountant.
American-based businesses, of course, are required to pay corporate income taxes to the U.S. government on profits earned by its operations both at home and abroad.
Most European countries, on the other hand, require their native corporations to pay taxes only on profits earned in that country. A European-based business would generally not pay taxes at home on profits earned from its American operation.
This means that when a business relocates its base of operations from the United States to Europe or some other foreign venue, it’s very likely to see an overall reduction in its tax burden. This is generally good for the employees and stockholders—but it doesn’t tend to do much for politicians, who believe that all profits belong to them anyway.
Once more, the Democrats have a very straightforward plan to redress this imbalance: They would impose confiscatory taxes on those who seek to relocate their business headquarters to another country, or who seek to move large amounts of capital out of the United States to work in foreign (less taxed) capital markets.
There is a tax reform plan that would address these issues quite nicely. It’s called the Fair Tax, and the adoption of this plan would make America the world’s number-one tax haven.7
If you’re interested in knowing more about it, I’ve got a book to sell you.8
GOVERNMENT-PAID CHILD CARE FOR THE MAJORITY OF VOTERS
The very last thing a good liberal Democrat would ever want to do is suggest that anyone shouldn’t have a baby they can’t afford to raise.
God forbid that people should be able to afford their own children.
Democrats know that children are the most important things in the lives of millions of Americans. Our love for our children affords the left with boundless opportunities to expand the reach and cost of government. After all, anyone who tries to oppose Democrat efforts to redistribute wealth and grow government on behalf of “the children,” as they say, is open to charges of hating kids, of wanting to duct-tape them to the toilet until they’re old enough to head out on their own.
An alarming number of children in America today are raised in single-parent households. And when you actually do stumble across a two-parent household, more often than not you’ll find both of them working.
The Democrats know you both have to work. They know child care is expensive. And they know they can get away with almost any expansion of the welfare state—as long as people believe that they’re doing it for “the children.”
So once the Democrats retake control, stand by for an explosion of programs designed to relieve parents of the burden of having to care for their own children. There will be new day care tax credits, new and expensive grants. Slowly but surely, our nation will succumb to the idea that child care is the responsibility of the government, not of the parents.
You can almost hear the Democrat campaign ads now: “Elect those Republicans again, and you’ll end up having to pay for your own child’s day care!”
Think I’m exaggerating? Think again. No matter what sorts of international and domestic crises might face our nation, all you need to do is tell parents that they might not be getting much more help in raising their child, and that will be the one thing on their minds the next time they vote.
While we’re at it, here’s something else to worry about: How soon will it be before pressure mounts to put all of these day care centers under government control? The sooner the politicians can get their hands on them, the quicker the indoctrination begins.
For more on that, I’ll refer you back to my earlier chapter on the scourge of government schools.
GOVERNMENT-IMPOSED LIMITS ON EXECUTIVE INCOME
This one is really going to have to wait until Democrats have got a firm grip on the federal machine.
As soon as they do, the Social Democrat Party will move to institute limits on executive compensation. The idea is to impose confiscatory corporate income taxes on companies who pay their top executives more than a certain multiple of the compensation paid to the lowest-paid employees. After all, the free market simply can’t be trusted to set wages at those delicate extremes of the wage scale. That’s clearly a job for politicians.
Limits on executive compensation will, as you can imagine, be a huge hit with the unions and the so-called “working class.”
And what of the highly paid executives? Well, they’ll simply take their skills overseas to a business marketplace with more economic liberty, or they’ll retire!
Let the local union steward figure out how to save the company from economic ruin.
REPEALING THE SECOND AMENDMENT
Haven’t you ever thought it a little odd that leftists and Democrats are generally opposed to the concept of the private ownership of firearms, while conservatives and libertarians favor the idea?
Well, there’s a reason.
Those who value and celebrate the worth of the individual, and of individual freedom, generally believe that individuals should be allowed to own and bear arms. Those who put the power of government over and above the power of the individual would just as soon see individuals unarmed.
Democrats are no friends to the Second Amendment. Remember, when guns are outlawed, only that government will have guns. If you’re comfortable with that thought…well, let’s just say you might want to think a little harder.
Armed individuals are, of course, a threat to state control. Coincidence?
Or just another instance of the “secret” plan at work?