Harold A. Black

Columnist

Who would have thought that the announced candidates for president could make Donald Trump seem normal?

Consider the following positions that these candidates have endorsed:

Free college

Forgive $1.6 trillion in college debt

Green new deal

Decriminalize illegal border crossing

Reparations

Medicare for all regardless of citizenship status (elimination of private insurance)

Abolish the Electoral College

Increase the size of the Supreme Court

Bash the rich (increase marginal tax to 70%, add wealth tax, financial transactions tax on Wall Street)

National legalization of marijuana for medicinal and recreational purposes

Universal child care

Guaranteed jobs

Break up big tech companies

Break up big banks

Universal basic income

Expand welfare safety net

Federal funded abortions

$15 minimum wage

Abolish ICE

These programs will fail

Please raise your hand if you think any of these has a reasonable chance of passage. It does not matter to the left that, if implemented, these programs will fail. Most serve no purpose other than increase the role of government and expand its costs without commensurate benefits to the public.

It is as though the left has read my criticisms of their attempts to destroy the economy and decided to adopt them as their platform.

What is missing from the political debate on both sides is discussion of the national debt. The left has pooh-poohed findings that its wish list would cost more than half the country’s $21 trillion gross domestic product — suggesting that we can pay for it.

The darling of the left from New York has suggested that it can be paid for out of the Pentagon’s budget (it's only $600 billion). She also said the majority of Americans do not earn a living wage and the only reason the unemployment rate is low is because people are working two jobs.

On the right, one White House insider is quoted as saying that President Trump does not talk about the debt because “no one cares.” Well, I care. I never thought I would miss Paul Ryan, but he seemed to have been the only one in Washington who argued for fiscal soundness.

Currently, the national debt is $22 trillion and growing at a rate greater than the growth in GDP. Importantly, none of the textbook predictions of having a debt greater than GDP have come to pass. Indeed, Japan is the national debt poster child with a debt to GDP ratio of 236% compared with the U.S. ratio of 108%. Japan has low growth but has demonstrated that as long as it can sell its government bonds, it can maintain a high debt burden without financial collapse. Japan sells its debt to itself.

The U.S. sells its Treasury mainly to its citizens and to foreigners. As long as it can do so, it can expand the debt.

In the U.S., the growth in the debt is fueled by entitlements (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid). Some projections show that in 30 years, those programs will equal or exceed the revenues collected by the government. Then, or before, the programs will have to be changed and/or taxes raised dramatically.

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Will Americans tolerate the hike in taxes needed to fuel all these entitlements?

Around 50% of Americans do not pay federal income taxes while the burden falls on the middle and upper incomes. It will be interesting to see if Americans will tolerate the increase in taxes necessary to continue to feed the maw of entitlements.

Perhaps the politicians will accept logical changes in entitlements such as raising the age for full Social Security benefits and to fix Medicare rather than expanding it to give government total control over health care. But I won’t hold my breath.

Ominously, as de Tocqueville said, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”

I’m afraid that day has arrived.