Dan Mitchell: ‘The Dangerous Seduction of Free Stuff’

Source:QuoteFancy- When Socialists come back down to Planet Earth, then maybe they’ll listen to Professor Milton Friedman.

Source:The New Democrat

“By offering all sorts of freebies to various constituencies, Bernie Sanders has positioned himself as the true-believing socialist in the Democratic race (even though he’s actually a member of the “top-1 percent”).

But he has plenty of competition. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren are strong competitors in the free-lunch Olympics, and most of the rest of the candidates are saying “me, too” as well.

Assuming these candidates get a warm reception, this is a worrisome development.”

Read more of Dan Mitchell's piece

Source:Simply Explained: 'Milton Friedman Replies to a socialist about the cost of free stuff'- Dear Socialists: please listen to Professor Friedman

This was part of Professor Milton Friedman’s 1979-80 PBS documentary Free To Choose.

I disagree with Dan Mitchell one one thing here: he’s right that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren ( the dynamic duo of American Socialists ) are promising all sorts of new government services, with at least Bernie now admitting that these new programs wouldn’t be free that middle class taxes would of course go up to pay for them, but he’s wrong about Senator Kamala Harris.

The reason why Senator Harris’s poll numbers were down around 5% for most of this race in the Democratic Party so far  before last Thursday night’s debate, is because Democrats didn’t know where she was on most of these economic policy issues and they still don’t know. Medicare For All, is just one example of that where one day she’s for eliminating private health insurance and the next day she isn’t. The only real proposal that she’s really offered so far other than marijuana legalization and further reform of the criminal justice system, is a huge middle class tax cut, perhaps the biggest in American history. Which no Socialist that is sane, sober, and intelligent would ever support, because they see all tax cuts as sacrilege. At least the 1 or 2 Socialists that are religious at all. ( Ha, ha )

But as far as so-called government free stuff, I have to yield to Professor Milton Friedman on this: “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” And I would add especially it’s a government service. Anyone who pays taxes in America already knows this, even if they are a Socialist, because they see their pay checks every week and pay taxes every spring. Socialists, just tend to be in a much better mood on tax day than everyone else, but they know that they’re paying for their government services as well as the person who struggles just to pay their current taxes, as well as their bills and if anything is looking for some relief from Uncle Sam, so they can pay their bills and even put some of their hard earned money away.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, can say all she wants that it will just be the rich that will pay for every plan that she has for everything, but even if somehow as President she was able to get all of her new programs through the next Congress, as well as her new wealth taxes and they somehow all stand up to constitutional scrutiny, there’s still the matter of the IRS actually being able to collect all of that new revenue. Morons, don’t become rich even if they inherit trust funds, because even if a moron is rich one day because his or father gave them a trust fund, that money will be gone the next day, because they don’t know how to manage their money.

The rich are rich because they know how to earn a lot of money, manage their wealth, and also know the tax code so well that they know how to avoid paying taxes legally. ( Just ask Donald Trump ) And because of this even if President Warren’s wealth taxes hold up, the IRS will never see that money, because the rich will get that money out of the county faster than food is eaten at an all you can eat meat lovers buffet at a fat farm. Which means those taxes will either get passed down to the middle class, either through new taxes, or higher interest rates on the national debt.