VIEWPOINT / CRYING SOCIALISM IN A SOCIAL DEMOCRACY?

By W. Timothy Weaver, Ph.D.

When forty out of every 100 dollars of GDP is spending by the federal, state and local governments, crying “socialism” is a giggle moment for economists, political scientists and sociologists. Well, guess what? The Republicans show no shame as they haul out this age-old chestnut for the 2022 campaign.

From pre-K to postdoc, the government heavily subsidizes all forms of education, public, parochial and private. Medicare is the biggest state-owned medical insurance program in the world. Virtually every form of security is funded by the state from cops on the beat to the USDOD. The Defense Department is the one of the largest subcontractors on the planet, spending billions every day, every year, every decade. NASA’s budget this year alone is $23.3 billion.

Medical research is heavily subsidized by government funding. NIH this year has a budget of $51.96 billion. Social security (yes, “social”) is the world’s largest retirement fund, dwarfing private funds such as Fidelity. The USPS is by far the world’s biggest deliverer of packages and letters (200 billion a year) making UPS, Fedex and Amazon look like midgets. Together they deliver 9 billion letters and packages.

Transportation is a huge government run enterprise. From airport construction to maintaining the interstate highway system, from huge subsidies to big oil and other fossil fuels to electric cars, the transportation system in the US would come to a screeching halt if state funding dried up. To grasp the size of this state subsidy, $83 billion in 2019, or about $650 for every U.S. household!

To live in the United States and think about running for high elected office and use “anti-socialism” as your key argument is less than nonsense. It is stupid. How do you scare the average American who is supported by government handouts from the time of awaking to going to sleep that socialism is a bad thing? Lie. It worked the last time. It’ll work again. Trump announced on Fox News recently that the Republicans have a big card to play in 2022: SOCIALISM!

You gotta give these guys credit for trying. They believe in PT Barnum and the American way–a sucker is born every minute!