(This was originally posted 9/10/18.)

(Author’s note: Today is Halloween. I can’t think of a scarier idea than socialism in America. This post recalls the tragic consequences of socialism in Venezuela today.)

 

For most people with any gray hairs it is a given that socialism is evil. The lessons of the failed governments of Cuba and the Soviet Union are still fresh in our memories.

But for many young people socialism has become the “latest thing.” Recent polls suggest as many as 43% of Americans favor socialism over capitalism – and most of these are young people. Unfortunately, they are being led down this destructive path by an elder statesman, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and his young acolyte, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democratic Congressional candidate from New York.

The evils of socialism are being demonstrated in dramatic fashion not far from our southern border in Venezuela. Venezuela is a tragic example how socialism has brought economic disaster and resultant famine and hyperinflation upon a nation with the world’s richest oil reserves!

This dramatic real-world tragedy is playing out in Venezuela while American socialists talk of utopian dreams with their heads firmly planted in the sand. The real story is told by Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, in a article published in The Wall Street Journal.

Pipes gives us the background needed to understand just how bad socialism can be. Venezuela discovered vast oil reserves in 1914 that brought the country vast revenues and produced a relatively free economy. By 1950 Venezuela enjoyed the fourth highest per capita income in the world, behind only the U.S., Switzerland, and New Zealand. As late as 1980, it boasted the world’s fastest growing economy in the 20^th century.

However, beginning in 1958, government interference in the economy, including price and exchange controls, higher taxes, and restrictions on property rights, led to decades of stagnation. Per capita real income declined0.13% from 1960-1997, despite their strong oil production.

A Tragic Decline

Pipes tells us the reality of Venezuela today:

“Today the country with the world’s largest oil reserves suffers from a severely contracting economy, runaway inflation, despotism, mass emigration, criminality, disease, hunger and starvation, with circumstances deteriorating daily. Venezuela’s economy contracted by 16% in 2016, 14% last year and a predicted 15% in 2018. Inflation was at 112% in 2015 and 2,800% at the end of last year. Economist Steve Hanke finds an annualized rate of around 65,000% for 2018, making Venezuela’s one of the most severe hyperinflations ever. Food shortages led to an average weight loss among Venezuelans of 18 pounds in 2016 and 24 pounds in 2017.”

 

What caused this crisis?

Socialism. Hugo Chavez convinced Venezuelans to try it in 1999, then stole, dominated, polarized and jailed anyone who disagreed. With about a $1 trillion in oil sales during his 14 years as president, he had the means to launch massive social spending programs to secure votes to strengthen his control. Then he replaced oil professionals with his agents, stooges, and sycophants further consolidating control.

As former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said, “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

Hugo Chavez didn’t reach that situation because he died in 2013, about a year before oil prices tumbled, when he sought cancer treatment in Cuba and was “assassinated by Cuban malpractice” according to Fox News reports. However, his successor, Nicolas Maduro, has proven even more brutal and incompetent. The result of Maduro’s handling of the economy is the disaster chronicled above.

The lesson of the evils of socialism could not be clearer for the world today. It is the job of our national media, and all clear-thinking Americans, to educate people to the tragedy playing out not far from our southern beaches. It’s time our young people stopped listening to the sirens of socialism and got in touch with reality.

 

 

(Author’s note: Since I first posted this on 9/21/20, much additional information has made this election choice even clearer. Today I will add that information in italics to the original post so you can compare.)

 

Most Americans in this next election will be voting either for President Trump – or against President Trump. Very few will actually be voting for Joe Biden. Even the Democratic party seems to believe this since they made their convention all about what’s wrong with President Trump, rather than talking about what’s right about Joe Biden.

This is understandable. President Trump is certainly a polarizing figure and the media has embraced that fact by waging a four-year war against his presidency. This has been good for their business, but not for the country. But when all is said and done what really matters is how your life will be impacted when they announce the winner of the election. In other words, which party’s policies will be to your greatest benefit?

Let’s break down the policies of each candidate and see how they will impact you.

 

Your Healthcare

Joe Biden says he wants to “strengthen ObamaCare”, but he is beholden to Senator Bernie Sanders and the socialists in his party who are pushing for Medicare for All, a government takeover of healthcare. He wants you to believe he doesn’t stand with them, but he has proposed a “Public Option” addition to ObamaCare, which will lead to socialized medicine in just a few short years. (see Public Option Kills Private Insurance) Even his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, has endorsed Medicare for All and admitted this will mean the elimination of all private health insurance.

President Trump has greatly improved ObamaCare by eliminating the perverse Individual Mandate, lowered premium costs and deductibles by creating Short Term Limited Duration policies, and approved enhancement of Association Health Plans and renewable plans. Despite the lies Biden is telling in his ads, Trump will preserve your private health insurance and coverage for your pre-existing conditions.

The cost of the Biden Public Option has now been calculated to increase the federal debt by $800 Billion over ten years. Taxes for the typical middle-income family would rise by an inflation-adjusted $3,900 to pay for the public option and keep debt below 150% of GDP in 2050. (see Biden’s Public Option Paid by the Middle Class)

 

Your Covid-19 Risk

Joe Biden would have you believe that if he were president, the Covid pandemic would have turned out differently. He even has the nerve to blame all Americans deaths due to the virus on President Trump. What would Biden have done differently if he were in charge?

The answer is nothing. Don’t take my word for it. After Biden recently released his plan for treatment of the viral pandemic, The Wall Street Journal editorial board said, “The Democratic nominee is also promising a better virus strategy, which would be wonderful if he had one. But the virus plan he’s pushing is little different on the substance than what the Trump Administration is already doing.” (see Biden’s Covid Plan is Trump’s Plan)

The Trump administration has fast-tracked development of a Covid-19 vaccine and there are nine different companies worldwide currently in Phase 3 trials of their respective vaccine candidates. Release of a successful vaccine may take place as early as October, according to a spokesperson for Pfizer/BioNTech pharmaceuticals. This would be a record-breaking achievement and the Trump administration can take credit for greasing the wheels of this progress through the regulatory process. (see Vaccine Progress Due to Planning) Do you really believe Joe Biden could have done any better?

As the Covid pandemic spreads throughout the world, Europe has just called for reinstitution of widespread lockdowns. Joe Biden has said he will do the same here in the U.S., while President Trump is calling for more re-opening of our economy.

While scientists have vacillated on their recommendations, a clear consensus is emerging from the experience of the last eight months that lockdowns cannot prevent the spread of the virus and only contribute to even greater misery through increased deaths from other illnesses including untreated cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and mental illnesses. Rates of domestic abuses, drug addiction, suicides, and poverty are skyrocketing as a direct result of these lockdowns. A better plan is vigilant protection of the most vulnerable while avoiding lockdowns for the rest of the population. (see Epidemiologists Reject Political Correctness)

 

Your Taxes

Joe Biden has openly declared he will raise taxes by an estimated four trillion dollars. He claims this will only impact “millionaires and billionaires”; specifically, he pledges no new taxes on Americans making $400,000 or less per year. He’ll need that much and much, much more to pay for his Green New Deal, free college tuition and free healthcare for illegal immigrants.

But University of Chicago economist Casey B. Mulligan reminds us that Obama/Biden made a similar pledge to not raise taxes on anyone making “$250,000 or less”, but went on to raise taxes in multiple other ways through the Affordable Care Act and numerous new government regulations. He says most of these taxes impacted people earning less than $50,000 annually. Mulligan has calculated the burden of reviving the regulations eliminated by Trump, which Biden plans to bring back, and estimates the poor will suffer the most. He states the costs to the bottom group of earners amounts to 15.3% of their total income, a burden equal to all the taxes they currently pay. In other words, the tax burden of even the poor will double under a Biden administration.

President Trump greatly reduced taxes in the Tax Reform Act of 2017 for all taxpayers and he has pledged further tax reductions in a second administration. His removal of numerous regulations has stimulated the economy and lowered your tax burden even further. Which president will keep your taxes lower?

We now know the approximate real cost of the Biden tax plan. A study by the Hoover Institute says the Biden plan would reduce full-time employment per person by about 3%, lower the capital stock per person by some 15%, and reduce real GDP per capita by more than 8%. This would mean 4.9 million fewer working Americans, $2.6 Trillion less in GDP, and $6,500 less in median household income. (see Biden’s Tax Plan Revealed)

 

Your Safety

Joe Biden and the Democratic left has allowed police to be vilified in the media and allowed violence to ravage cities across our nation. Crime and murders are up all across the nation. Their sympathies for Black Lives Matter and Antifa have fostered a time of unprecedented anarchy and promoted the unchecked violence against police, leading to defunding of police departments and the murder of 43 police officers so far this year. How safe do you feel under a Biden presidency?

President Trump has supported police throughout this time of violence and condemned the acts of cowardly violence against police and innocent business owners in our cities. As a result, nearly every police union in the country has endorsed Trump for president – a significant departure from the past. It’s clear that the police believe Trump will provide more support for them than Biden. Who are you going to call when you need help if the police are no longer available? (There’s a reason why gun sales are at an all-time high across the nation!)

Your Children’s Education

Joe Biden says he supports more funding of public schools. But he sent his own children to Catholic schools. He says he care about children and their education, but he supports the teachers’ unions and brags “You don’t just have a partner in the White House, you’ll have an NEA member in the White House.” He has declared “No privately funded charter school – or private charter school would receive a penny of federal money.”  (see Biden Chooses Teachers’ Unions Over Students)

President Trump supports School Choice which makes it possible for parents to choose the best school for their children, regardless of their economic level. This has opened doors especially for minority children and enabled them a piece of the American dream. The Wall Street Journal has called this “The Year of School Choice” and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called school choice, “the civil rights issue of our times.” Which candidate will give your children the best chance for a good education and economic future?

Your Religious Freedom

Joe Biden likes to tell you what a good Catholic he is. He and his children attended Catholic schools and he pledges his unwavering support for the Catholic diocese. Except he doesn’t seem to let his religious beliefs influence his politics. He supports abortion on demand right up to the day of birth – even though the Catholic church strongly condemns abortion. The Obama/Biden administration doggedly forced nuns to provide contraceptives and abortifacients to their employees as mandated by the Affordable Care Act and refused to grant them waivers when they objected to this infringement on their religious freedom.

President Trump has been the most Pro-Life president in our history. He has appointed pro-life Supreme Court and lower court justices and worked tirelessly to defend the unborn. He is the only president to speak out at the United Nations against abortion. He has spoken out against those state governors who have limited your right to worship during the viral pandemic. Which president do you believe will better defend your religious freedom?

President Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Judge Barrett, a devout Catholic and conservative originalist judge, was confirmed this week by the Senate and took the oath of office in the White House. She will be an excellent protector of life, liberty, and religious freedom on the Supreme Court for years to come. Is there any chance that Joe Biden would have nominated such a fine Christian conservative if he had the choice? In fact, Biden refuses to deny he will support Democratic ambitions to “pack the court” to overthrow this new conservative majority and undermine our freedoms in the future.

 

Your Economy

The Obama/Biden administration was responsible for the slowest economic recovery after a recession since World War II, 75 years ago. Although the recession of 2008 ended in June, 2009, their economy never once reached an annual GDP increase greater than 2% in the next seven years. They raised taxes and greatly increased regulations, which stifled the usual economic rebound after recessions. Biden has already promised more taxes and more regulations. How do you think the economy will respond?

President Trump produced the greatest economic recovery in the history of our country in the first three years of his first term. We experienced over 3% GDP growth, record highs in the stock market, and record unemployment numbers, especially for blacks and Hispanics. The only thing that could stop this economic juggernaut was the Covid-19 pandemic. Who do you believe will be best prepared to return our country to the economic success we had just before the pandemic; the man responsible for the last economic boom or the man who was a part of the worst economic recovery after recession in the last 75 years?

Your World Peace

As I write these words, the world has witnessed the first breakthrough in Arab-Israeli relations in the last fifty years. The Arab nations of United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have signed peace accords, known as the Abraham Accords, with the nation Israel. Former Secretary of State John Kerry under the Obama/Biden administration stated emphatically this could never happen if diplomacy did not directly involve the Palestinians.

Yet President Trump did make it happen and it is a reality today. More Arab nations are expected to join these nations in signing peace accords in the near future. According to four-star General Jack Keene, this only happened because Trump rejected the JCPOA agreement with Iran, which paid Iran billions and paved the way forward for them to produce a nuclear weapon. Furthermore, Trump eliminated Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian general most responsible for terrorism in the Middle East, winning U.S. support from the Sunni-Arabs. These two major achievements paved the way for these historic peace accords between Israel and the Arab nations.

Biden strongly backed the failed Middle East policies of the Obama/Biden administration and their support of Iran. Trump has revolutionized Arab-Israeli relations by rejecting Iran and supporting Israel and the Sunni-Arab nations. His new approach to foreign relations made this historic peace deal possible. Which one is better equipped to produce lasting peace in the Middle East?

President Trump has just brokered another peace accord, this time between Israel and Sudan. This makes three peace accords in the last two months and more Sunni-Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, are expected to join these peace accords soon. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for these achievements. We know Biden could never have achieved the same since he was a part of the failed Obama/Biden policies of the past.

 

A Simple Choice

It’s easy to dislike President Trump. He is egotistical, bellicose, prone to self-congratulatory statements and self-promoting exaggeration. Joe Biden seems like a nice guy – the guy next door. But this election is about much more than personalities. It’s about policies and their impact on our lives and our country; not which man you like better.

Which policies will produce a better America for us and our children? You make the choice – but it’s really very simple. Just vote for what makes sense for you and your family – and leave the personalities of the candidates out of the decision. What you say matters – but what you do matters more.

Lastly, the character of Joe Biden is now under serious challenge. Recent information about the Hunter Biden business relations with Ukraine, Russia, and China implicate Joe Biden. A Hunter Biden laptop computer full of emails reveals theses shady business practices. Furthermore, Tony Bobulinski, the CEO of the Biden enterprise Sinohawk Holdings, has come forward with testimony of personal meetings with Joe Biden to discuss these “pay for play” business dealings and supplied plenty of evidence to back up his claims. Yet Biden still claims “I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses. Period.”

If all this sounds new to you, you’re probably not reading The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal or watching Fox News. The rest of the mainstream media, including Twitter and Facebook, have tried to block this story since it was first reported by The New York Post. Democratic politicians, like Rep. Adam Schiff, have tried to dismiss this as “Russian disinformation” even though DNI Director John Ratcliffe has publicly declared there is no evidence of Russian involvement in this story. The sycophantic media has promoted this “Schiff disinformation.”

At this late date there are probably few Americans undecided in this election. For those of you who remain so, these updates should convince you this election decision just got simpler.

(This was originally posted 7/13/20.)

(Author’s note: As we enter the last few weeks of the presidential campaign, there are several campaign issues which have been previously addressed in this blog. These include Medicare for All, single-payer healthcare, socialism, school choice and others. In the next few weeks I will be re-posting many of my previous posts on these issues as a review for voters. For this limited time I will be posting five days a week instead of the usual twice a week. These earlier posts will be intermingled with new posts on current topics.)

 

Everyone believes drug prices are too high. Republicans and Democrats have argued for years over this issue. Democrats favor price controls, which usually lead to drug shortages, while Republicans favor market incentives, more authorization of generic manufacturers and Medicare Part D to help seniors pay for their drugs.

President Trump has just released his latest plan for lowering drug prices. Naturally, there is plenty of debate, even among conservatives, whether this plan will be helpful or harmful. Let’s take a moment to consider two points of view. But first, let’s describe the Trump plan.

The Trump Plan

Trump’s executive order bans drug-maker rebates in Medicare Part D. Drug makers negotiate rebates with pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBMs) in return for placement on formularies. Insurers use these rebates to lower premiums. However, the rebates also cause drug makers to increase their list prices, especially for products with fierce market competition like insulin. This is one reason many Americans have experienced sticker shock at the pharmacy counter in recent years.

The Trump plan also proposes benchmarking Medicare’s reimbursement rates for physician-administered drugs to an International Pricing Index (IPI); the average price paid by a group of industrialized countries. The order instructs the Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar, to come up with a plan to test whether such a rule would reduce costs and improve outcomes. The order will be effective August 24^th, unless the drug industry comes up with a “better plan” that Congress can enact.

The Trump plan also calls for specific lowering of insulin and epinephrine prices at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). These centers are federally subsidized primary care clinics that serve lower-income or rural populations. Over 28 million Americans visit these clinics annually. FQHCs commonly participate in a prescription drug purchasing program known as 340B, under which providers can purchase drugs at deeply discounted rates.

Unfortunately, many providers, especially hospitals, take advantage of the 340B program to purchase drugs at low prices and then jack up the prices to patients, pocketing the difference. The Trump order ends this practice by ensuring that the prices charged to low-income uninsured patients align “with the cost at which the FQHC acquired the medication.”

Opposition to the Plan

The Wall Street Journal editorial board opposes the Trump plan. In a recent editorial they say his prescription for change is akin to what Democrats are offering: more government control. They oppose this plan because government actuaries last summer projected it would increase premiums and out-of-pocket costs for most participants. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast the change would increase federal spending by $177 billion between 2020 and 2029.

They oppose allowing drugs to be imported from foreign countries because generics are already far cheaper in the U.S. than in Canada, and importing more expensive biologic products presents in their words, “non-trivial safety risks.” They say many novel therapies in the U.S. aren’t available in Canada because of government price controls. The same is true of most countries.

They expressed concern about the availability of new treatments if prices are reduced by government intervention. They quote the Galen Institute which reports 96% of new cancer therapies are available in the U.S. compared to 73% in Germany, 66% in France and 54% in Japan. Government price controls in the U.S. they say will reduce drug-maker spending on research and development, especially in fields like Alzeheimer’s, where experimental therapies have met with little success.

They also express fear of giving up the lead in innovation to China, which has been pouring billions into gene therapies and oncology drugs. They fear that the U.S. could become dependent on China for cancer drugs just as we are now for some antibiotics.

Lastly, they are concerned that this plan will reduce competition which is crucial to lowering prices and increasing the availability of drugs. They cite competition as the main factor responsible for consumer out-of-pocket spending staying roughly flat since 2002 even as insurance spending has tripled. They say prescription drug prices actually fell overall by 1% in 2018, the first decline since 1973.