Jobs, Socialists and Steven Colbert

When making a point it is important to stick to the issue or your argument will fail to hit its mark. For example, last night I saw that Steven Colbert interviewed the American socialist party member Brian Moore. The purpose was to dispel any ideas that Obama “was a socialist.” Colbert feels that because Obama does not call himself a socialist then Obama cannot be a socialist. However, lets remember that the debate is not about Obama being a socialist it’s about Obama having socialist traits and making socialist assumptions.

To the socialist party candidate Moore, Obama is not a socialist because he does not go far enough in his economic plans to please Moore. Obama assumes that the resistance of the middle class to being taxed for the purpose of spreading around economic happiness will not affect the economy. The idea being that faith will guide our economy into the black and growth will fallow. Faith, however, has not seemed to convince banks to start lending money again and volunteer to help out the poor, innocent people who could not read a mortgage contract and so are currently disadvantaged. Americans upset at the state of the economy want it to rebound but taking the motivation out of investment and growth is counter productive. Incentive is the lubricant capitalism uses to keep its dynamics working and free of friction.

Banks have no motivation to spend and lend in an environment where the motivation to grow will be hindered by a lack of incentive. This means that people in general will likely have less money to pay their bills back because less money is circulating in the economy. For example the opportunity cost of paying the Obama tax hike is spending your money on creating a new coffee shop. A new coffee shop creates jobs for more than one waitress but the Obama economic plan simply gives a waitress (for example) $500 at the end of the year but only if she has a job.

The trait Obama shares with socialist is that government will inspire growth through the redistribution of wealth. According to the Obama economic plan the waitress will take her $500 and spend it in our economy, which will then inspire growth and then create jobs. If banks don’t lend, however, the doors to the coffee shop will have to close, the waitress will lose her job and need to save as much of her $500 as possible to survive an environment with few jobs.

Obama needs to answer why his economic plan inspires growth and has incentive for investors.

The higher tax brackets will only sustain the tax hikes for so long before they begin to protest. When this resource of wealth is taped out then the Obama economic plan will end with it. Obama is currently wanting to tax those making over a certain amount, lets put it at $250 thousand per year for the sake of argument. When this group does not prove to bring in enough tax revenue to sustain the Obama plan the bar will fall to $200 thousand per year and continue to be lowered each year to make up the difference. The point is that a socialist trait is to rely on government and not the private sector for growth.

If the economy has not shifted into the black within a year, Obama will lower the bar in order to get more revenue and unless the banks are nationalized they will continue to sit on their money. Obama does not need to be certified by the socialist party to have socialist traits. The circular reasoning that Steven Colbert used, although funny, does not address the issue but deflects it instead.

Good luck President Obama
Rafael Buelna