Why the Socialists Will Win

by Craig Cantoni

It is inevitable that the United States will become a European-style social-welfare state.  Those who believe otherwise are in denial. They are ignoring the truth about the growth of government under both Democrats and Republicans, about human nature, and about the pervasive leftist propaganda from the mainstream media, public schools and higher education.  

Let's begin with the growth of government.  Federal spending stands at 19% of gross domestic product, an all-time high outside of World War II.  The situation is not any better at the state and local levels, where spending has exceeded inflation over the last decade.  Nationwide, state and local spending now totals 10% of GDP.  That means that all levels of government consume 29% of GDP, and that does not count the huge hidden cost of regulations.  

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that unless the mandatory spending programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are reformed, those three entitlements alone will consume an additional seven percentage points of GDP by 2030.  Added to today's 29%, that would increase government spending to a confiscatory 36% of GDP.  Alarmingly, instead of being reformed, the entitlements are being expanded.  

The 36% is based on the assumption that discretionary, or non-mandatory, spending will remain flat as a percentage of GDP.  That is a fallacious assumption.   

Federal discretionary spending has risen at an annual average rate of about 7% since 1998.  Discretionary spending is projected to increase 9.7% in fiscal 2002 and 6% in 2003 -- this under a Republican administration and a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

The increased spending is for more than national defense.  It includes such gems as a 13% increase in the Department of Education's budget, a 9% increase in the discretionary budget of Health and Human Services, and $174 billion in farm subsidies over the next 10 years -- subsidies that increase the price of food and are bestowed on wealthy farmers and agricultural conglomerates.

President Bush's 2003 budget for discretionary spending is $789 billion, or $124 billion more than what President Clinton had proposed for 2003 in his final budget two years ago.

Thousands of hidden subsidies and transfer payments are not reflected in the budget.  For example, Bush's 30% tariff on imported steel is a subsidy to U.S. steel producers and their unions, who will be rewarded for years of bad decisions and cushy pay and benefits.  The tariff will increase the cost of products made with steel and result in layoffs in downstream industries.

I used to believe that the only difference between Democrats and Republicans was that Democrats would achieve a socialist state in America quicker than Republicans.  That distinction is being erased.       

It is being erased because of human nature.  After 30 years of using various personality assessments with thousands of people to determine what makes them tick, I have concluded that the populace is evenly divided into thirds.  One-third wants to control other people, one-third does not mind being controlled as long as their basic financial and security needs are met, and one-third does not want to either control others or be controlled by others.  Shorthand labels for the three groups are "controllers," "dependents" and "individualists."  

In the political realm, the controllers want to use government coercion to impose their utopian views on the rest of society.  They were the fascists of yesteryear and are the liberals and populist Republicans of today.  But instead of using the brute force of fascists, today's controllers stay in power by seducing the dependents with entitlements paid for by other people.  Their siren song has been so successful that the majority of Americans now get more back in entitlements and government services than they pay in taxes.

The individualists tend to be conservative Republicans and Libertarians.  The dependents, on the other hand, are "moderate" Democrats and Republicans who are easily swayed by the controllers.  

The dependents overwhelmingly support the three largest forms of socialism and redistribution:  public education, Social Security and Medicare.  As is typical of socialism, all three forms are experiencing runaway cost increases, which the controllers try to stem, to no avail, with an endless cycle of oppressive regulations and centralized control.    

Because the controllers have captured the hearts and minds of the dependents with these and other socialist programs, the individualists are outnumbered two to one and have no chance of stopping the never-ending expansion of entitlement programs.  Nor can they stop the government coercion that makes such programs possible.     

The nation's Founders were fearful of government coercion.  Individualists themselves, they knew that without constitutional restraints anchored in liberty, all governments, including our government, would eventually become coercive.  They designed a constitutional republic in which self-reliance and liberty would flourish, and in which citizens could reap and keep the fruits of their labor.

Because first principles have been discarded, most Americans now reap the fruits of other people's labor.  It is beyond the scope of this article to cite all of the reasons for this sorry state, but suffice it to say that the leading causes are the 16th Amendment, the New Deal and the Great Society.

Whatever the causes, the top 25% of wage earners now pay 83.5% of all federal personal income taxes.  An elite group of greedy fat cats?  Hardly.  Annual earnings of $52,965 are all it takes to get into the top quartile.      

The individualists are not only outnumbered politically, but are also vastly outnumbered in the media, in public schools and in higher education.

Surveys show that about 75% of reporters, editors and editorialists in the mainstream media are liberal Democrats, or controllers.  That explains why The Arizona Republic, which bills itself as a conservative newspaper, endorses spending proposals over spending cuts by a ten to one margin.  It also explains why news stories have a pro-spending bias and virtually never provide readers with the cost-benefit tradeoffs of a new spending program or government regulation.

For example, the average newspaper reader or television viewer does not know that the new federal arsenic standard for the nation's water supply will cost about $30 million per extended life.  If readers knew numbers like that, they might be less swayed by the controllers.  But since the controllers control the media, they are not about to publish cost-benefit statistics that would keep them from imposing their utopian ideas on others.  They know what is best for people.  And in their minds, what is best is what gives them control over people and keeps them in power.

The percentage of liberal Democrats who are teachers in higher education is even greater than it is in the media.  With a captive audience of impressionable students, they have the perfect platform for transforming individualistic young men and women into dependents or controllers like themselves.   

The ideology of K-12 public school teachers is not known, but it is a safe bet that unionized government employees are either controllers or dependents, not individualists.

Last update: 3/12/2002; 7:56:36 PM.