Socialism is not the answer to solve our problems

To The Daily Sun,

I have been focusing my recent letters on getting to the real “truth”. The reason is simple. We as a country are so divided along political lines something has got to give. The 2020 presidential election is coming up and there is no doubt that we are coming to a metaphorical “fork in the road” where we either continue in our current direction of growth and prosperity or veer left and surrender our freedoms and the benefits of our individual labor to the political ideology of socialism.

How did we get here? We were “taught”! The left has been gradually teaching us that hard work is not the path to personal independence but rather the government will provide everything for everyone regardless of their individual contributions.

It’s a very alluring concept. Work if you want but if you “need” to take a break for a year or two or three, etc., then don’t worry because the government has your back.

Look at what the current field of Democrats is running on. I’ll start at the top from a cost perspective. Medicare for all, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (now that is an oxymoron) would cost the federal government between $28 and $32 trillion over 10 years: https://tinyurl.com/y2oj3vv7. So how much is that? Here is a link to the IRS file: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p55b.pdf. If you go to page 14 and add up the total taxes collected over the last 10 years, it come to $29 trillion. So where will all the new trillions come from? The American worker, of course, and Bernie is the only one that is honest enough to admit it.

Next comes free college. The current college debt owed to the federal government is $1.5 Trillion: https://tinyurl.com/vutsnej. Divide that evenly between the 150,000,000 American taxpayers and it comes to $10,000 per taxpayer. Are you going to write them a check? And that is just the beginning. Each year, the taxpayers will pick up the tab for millions of students that may or may not complete college. The current graduation rate is 60%, according to the National Center for Education Statistics: https://tinyurl.com/nthzo7x.

And what would happen if college is free? The logical answer is more young adults would go because they could and delay their entry into the workforce for another 2 to 4 years. Here is a letter I wrote 1-1/2 years ago: https://tinyurl.com/wql59uj. The key point was that the Work Force Participation Rate (WFPR) for ages 16-24 decreased from 65.5% to 55.2% between 1996 and 2016. At the same time the WFPR for those 55 and older increased from 30.3% to 40%.

I’ll close with a statement I’ve made in the past. If you are a conservative “Work=$$$$$” and if you are a socialist “Free stuff = votes”. The youth of today are being “taught” the government will take care of all their needs so work is optional. We as a country are now reaping what we have sown.

Bruce Jenket

Moultonborough