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How ironic is it that the U.S. is embracing socialism at the very moment Europe and many other parts of the world are running away from it?
Somebody needs to ask Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi about this.
In the past five years, 33 countries, including 20 in socialist Europe, always held up as the example for a new American economic model by Democrats, have cut their personal income taxes, according to a study by KPMG, the giant accounting firm.
In the past four years, 60 countries have cut their corporate income tax rates.
Why have they done it?
Simple.
They want to compete more effectively for capital and human resources.
Basically, the world has been turned upside-down – with territories even under Communist control recognizing that low taxes is what drives burgeoning economies.
For instance, in Hong Kong, now under the control of Chinese Communism, the top tax rate has been reduced to 16 percent. Formerly Communist Bulgaria has a new flat tax rate of 10 percent. Formerly Communist Romania reduced its top tax rate from 40 percent to a flat tax of 16 percent.
Meanwhile, the United States, the champion of low taxes and economic freedom, has gone the other direction. It is as if we haven't noticed what the rest of the world has.
Notice you don't hear America's Democrats talking about Europe any more. They can't. Europe has abandoned the failed economics of the Democrats. In fact, many European leaders are astonished at the direction of the U.S. Its leaders are openly chastising America for its foolhardy policies of bailouts and government intervention and encouragement of debt.
It would be laughable except for what it portends for America. It spells an inability to compete in the new global marketplace we keep hearing about.
Amazingly, America now has the second-highest corporate tax rate in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. Only Japan tops the U.S.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not just blaming Obama and the Democrats. Obama just took power. This blind trend in the U.S. should be blamed equally on George W. Bush and the Democratic Congress that oversaw it.
But, it is Obama and the Democrats who have complete power in Washington now.
And just look at what they are proposing!
It can only fairly be characterized as old-fashioned, outdated and widely abandoned European socialism.
I laugh when people ask me why I am so certain this policy is going to fail.
The answer? Because socialism fails 100 percent of the time.
It is the definition of failure and economic misery.
Socialism has never succeeded – anywhere, anytime.
What more do you need to know?
A decade ago, when you asked that question, American Democrats pointed to Europe as an example of success. While Europe is still far too socialist for my liking, you can't argue with the fact that Europeans are going the other direction. They are doing it for good reason. They recognize is doesn't work.
We will soon recognize that in this country, too.
And that's what I keep referring to as the silver lining under the dark cloud of the last election.
Obama and the Democrats were elected because many Americans never experienced the misery they are about to experience. I have. I lived through the Jimmy Carter years. It was those years that made possible – maybe even inevitable – the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. It couldn't have happened without Jimmy Carter, who was unwittingly a kind of John the Baptist figure for Reagan.
Today, Carter is crying out in the political wilderness.
Soon enough, Obama, Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of the neo-socialists will join him.
