Democrats Want Your Money to Fund Failed Socialist Policies

From the Soviet Union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure.

– President Donald J. Trump

Under socialist economic policies, Americans can expect their incomes to fall and their economic freedom to vanish

Radical Congressional Democrats are pushing the socialist policies of “Medicare for All,” high tax rates, and “free” public services while ignoring the huge cost of these policies. Families earning the average annual wage of $60,588 would be taxed up to $5,000 more per year, after cash transfers, if the United States adopted the tax and transfer policies of Nordic countries that Congressional Democrats often tout. Socialism’s higher taxes (including on businesses) and controls on factors of production lead to a loss of economic freedom that has devastating consequences for production. Replacing United States policies with highly socialist ones, like in Venezuela, would reduce real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by at least 40 percent in the long run.

The Democrats’ socialist ”Medicare for All” plan would devastate the American healthcare market and lead to higher taxes

The Democrats’ disastrous ”Medicare for All” plan distributes healthcare for “free,” by creating a government monopoly on healthcare markets and setting all prices paid to suppliers. Under this policy, doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies would have no choice but to accept whatever the government decides to pay for their services. Consumers, likewise, would have no choice but to use government-directed options.

The high taxes needed to fund “Medicare for All” would lead to a decline in household incomes of $17,000 annually after taxes and health care expenditures, a 19 percent decline. Without higher taxes, funding the Democrats’ plan would require cuts to half of the Federal budget as it stands today wrecking Medicaid, Social Security, and traditional Medicare. Evidence of the effectiveness of single-payer systems suggests that a “Medicare for All” plan would reduce the longevity and health of Americans, despite greater insurance coverage.

Socialist policies have a long legacy of failure across the world

The legacy of countries that have implemented large-scale socialist policies is one of failed policies, misery, and death. Even in less extreme cases, socialist policies have reduced standards of living.

Socialist countries like Maoist China, Cuba, and the Soviet Union seized control of agriculture wrecking their food production and causing tens of millions of deaths by starvation. Venezuela’s socialist experiment has been a complete failure. Today, Venezuelans are beset by out-of-control inflation, lack of basic resources, and rampant crime, starvation, and death.

Research suggests that even Nordic countries, who are often pointed to as examples of successful socialist experiments, have been hurt by their use of socialist policies. The living standards of Nordic countries are at least 15 percent lower than in the United States, despite the abundance of “free” government services. If the United States had adopted Nordic-like policies in the 1970s, then our real GDP would be almost 20 percent lower today.