Just what we needed–another New Deal:
John Edwards says if he’s elected president, he’ll institute a New Deal-like suite of programs to fight poverty and stem growing wealth disparity. To do it, he said, he’ll ask many Americans to make sacrifices, like paying higher taxes.
Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina, says the federal government should underwrite universal pre-kindergarten, create matching savings accounts for low-income people, mandate a minimum wage of $9.50 and provide a million new Section 8 housing vouchers for the poor. He also pledged to start a government-funded public higher education program called “College for Everyone.”
“It is central to what I want to do as president to do something about economic inequality. I do not believe it is okay for the United States of America to have 37 million people living in poverty,” he said in a meeting with Monitor reporters and editors this week. “And I think we need, desperately need, a president who will say that to America and call on Americans to show their character.”
At every stop, Edwards said, he tells voters he’ll ask them to sacrifice. Asked to describe what he means, he described his plan for increases in capital gains taxes, saying taxes on “wealth income” should be in line with those on work income.
“I think if we want to fund the things that I think are important to share in prosperity, then people who have done well in this country, including me, have more of a responsibility to give back,” he said. Later, he added: “There are no free meals.”
That’s rich. Milton Friedman, of course, was the most famous person to say that “there is no such thing as a free lunch” and he said it to point out the flaws and deficiencies of the welfare state. Now, evidently, those comments are being made for the purpose of reviving the popularity of the welfare state. I doubt that John Edwards even recognizes the irony.
In any event, Edwards would have to raise taxes exorbitantly in order to fund his “chicken in every pot” scheme and in doing so, he would bring back the stagnation of the 1970s when high tax rates killed business activity in the cradle. His arguments concerning income inequality are misinformed and incomplete and his advocacy of the minimum wage is utterly misguided. And of course, the overarching general problem with Edwards’s economic plan is that it relies on government to serve as the chief and principal agent of good in society. It is interesting that there are so many examples of government failure relative to the successes of the private sector–witness the response to Katrina, the ineffectiveness of the Post Office, the looming fiscal crisis concerning Social Security and Medicare, etc.–and yet, so many examples of politicians willing and eager to ignore that failure and give government even more tasks and assignments to bumble and botch.