Bernie Sanders Would Hurt America If Elected

I will be breaking down the Con’s arguments in order and debunking them. There is not much room for rambling here because of the character limit, so I apologize if the flow of my arguments is somewhat abrupt. To begin, corporate taxes in Nordic countries are actually substantially lower than rates in the USA. (http://tinyurl.com...) This is interesting because under Eisenhower when taxes were around 90%, the only people who were actually paying these marginal rates were those making over $3,425,766 when adjusted for inflation. Since these were marginal rates, they only paid it on any earnings above that threshold. http://tinyurl.com... (http://tinyurl.com...) The recent supposed rise in income inequality has not caused any decline in upward mobility. Incomes and standards of living have increased, and mobility is as strong as ever. How much the top earns has no effect on the bottom’s ability to move up. Income inequality calculations are flawed, as households of different numbers are compared and do not factor in non-cash government transfer payments or taxes. A closer look at inequality reveals that it is not as prominent as suggested. Another factor left out is age; of course those in their fifties and sixties will earn more than college students and retirees. Consumption is a better measure of a household’s well-being than income. (http://tinyurl.com...) A study by the American Enterprise Institute suggests that true income inequality actually hasn’t gotten worse since the 1990s. (http://tinyurl.com...) Emanuel Saez, the same economist whose studies on income earners are notoriously cited by leftists, also conducted another study on wealth inequality revealing that the top earners’ share of wealth at the beginning of the 21st century is lower than it was in the early 1900s; this study however is neglected by the left. (http://tinyurl.com...) A study by the Brookings Institute tested what would happen to the gap between the poor and wealthy if the income tax on the highest earners was raised from the current 39.6% to 50%. The results showed that it would have little to no effect on inequality, and that the U.S. along with Israel, would have the worst inequality in the developed world. (http://tinyurl.com...)The Mises Institute researched the the GDP per capita (PPP) relative to economic growth and I quote, “the graphs show, on average, the freest countries are not only richer, but also grow faster in the long run.” “As can be seen, on average, the freest economies have a better distribution of income according to this indicator. The argument that freer and more productive economies suffer greater income inequality is a myth built on the mistake of watching a few countries and not the entire sample.” (http://tinyurl.com...) The Con’s argument about GDP is irrelevant, because GDP, which is a measure of one year’s production, is an inherently incorrect measure of real economic growth. Government spending and all sorts of unnecessary transactions are accounted, however this is not the only miscalculation. Imports are netted against exports, “A fixture of GDP is the mercantilist mentality of treating exports positively and imports negatively. Why are exports additive to GDP while imports are deductive? If the goal of GDP is to measure the goods and services provided to people within a geographic region, imports — not exports — are the benefit. Exports are but payment for imports.” The GDP distorts the performance of an economy while failing to estimate a society’s standard of living. (http://tinyurl.com...) (http://tinyurl.com...) The U.S. already has one of the most progressive tax codes among OECD countries, thus if they were going to work, we should expect that they would have done so already. There are also considerable negative economic consequences to a highly progressive tax code. Statistically, excessive marginal tax rates discourage work. The inevitable result of a progressive tax is reduced real economic growth. Progressive taxation is actually the most harmful to the poorer classes - the same people whom it is aimed to benefit. (http://tinyurl.com...) Empirically, higher taxes on the rich will do little to none on lowering inequality. The (Keynesian) Washington Center for Equitable Growth even points out what a top tax rate would do to 50% on the Gini Coefficient. Apparently, increasing the top rate to 50 percent would only reduce the Gini from 0.574 to 0.571.Some arguments against increasing progressivity are as follows: more revenue volatility rather than closing federal deficits, (which means larger future deficits), higher tax rates in the 1990s contributed to the 2001 recession and returning to them will damage our already weakened economy, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts generated economic growth, and raising the top two income tax rates will negatively impact almost three-fourths of all economic activity created by small businesses. (http://tinyurl.com...) The Con makes several arguments accusing capitalism of disproportionate wealth ownership, however, true capitalism has not been a constant in America for a long time; much of this demonization can be largely attributed to crony-capitalism (distinct difference) and the rise of corporatism, the control of a state or organization by large interest groups. (http://tinyurl.com...) Again, capitalism is blamed for inequality by the Con, although the only way to close the income inequality gap is through non-linear ideas and strategies driven through capitalism, as proven by a Harvard study conducted in 2015. (http://tinyurl.com...) Sanders has endorsed single-payer healthcare systems. He basically wants to adopt the Canadian and European model for health-care. Here are ten quick facts about the American health-care system: 1. Americans have a better survival rate for common cancers than Europeans do. 2. The same holds true in Americans versus Canadians. 3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than people in other developed countries. 4. Americans have better access to cancer screening than Canadians do. 5. Lower-income Americans have better health compared to Canadians. 6. Americans spend less time waiting for a doctor than patients in the UK or Canada. 7. The people in single-payer states are more likely to say that their health-care system is not satisfactory and need to reform. 8. Americans are more satisfied with their care than Canadians are. 9. Americans have better access to new medical technology than patients in Canada or the UK. 10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of health-care innovations. American health-care has nothing to do with the free market. We do not have a fully free market with health-care. As of today, U31; of all U.S. health-care spending goes to waste. $765 billion dollars, all through the corporatist nature of our health-care system and a single-payer system, would actually only assist the collapse.The only reason Ford had to buy rubber from the Congo in order to supply his automobile assembly lines, was because the British had a monopoly on it in the 1920s. The simple fact is that this is not the fault of capitalism, rather the lack of it; under true free market capitalism, monopolies cannot form or be sustainable. The American economy performed better during the Reagan years than during the pre- and post-Reagan years. The Cato Institute argues against the negative and untrue claims attributed to the economic policies executed under the Reagan administration. “Real economic growth averaged 3.2 percent during the Reagan years versus 2.8 percent during the Ford-Carter years and 2.1 percent during the Bush-Clinton years. Real median family income grew by $4,000 during the Reagan period after experiencing no growth in the pre-Reagan years; it experienced a loss of almost $1,500 in the post-Reagan years. Interest rates, inflation, and unemployment fell faster under Reagan than they did immediately before or after his presidency.” A full analysis of the economic impacts of his policies revealed even more. (http://tinyurl.com...) (http://tinyurl.com...)LBJ’s “War on Poverty” can be called a “failure” for two reasons: one, the incomes and living standards of less affluent Americans were rising rapidly well before the War on Poverty began, and two, the original goal of it was not to prop up living standards artificially through an ever-expanding welfare state - which is exactly what it has done. Johnson’s proclaimed goal was not one of handouts, but of self-sufficiency. The Heritage Foundation conducted a full study on this and concluded that official poverty declined and self-sufficiency improved for the same general reason that these improvements occurred before 1965: a steady rise of wages and education levels. (http://tinyurl.com...) Theft is when someone takes something that doesn’t belong to them. You own yourself. Because you own your body, your labor, and what you acquire by trade, taxation is theft. Governments are institutions used by the super rich to concentrate wealth and power. Since they are not earning money by offering goods or services for us to choose from freely, theft is their primary mechanism. Taxation is just a word that makes us more likely to go along with massive, widespread, organized theft. It is not right for one person to steal. It is not right for two people to steal. It is still not right for 51% of a voting population to vote for a representative who will hire a tax collector to steal for them. A great government lie is that theft can be moral when performed by enough people and called taxation. Even if some money stolen is used for legitimate purposes, it doesn’t change the simple fact that taxation is theft. I challenge the Con to answer the five questions on the link without invalidating the very notion of government itself. (http://tinyurl.com...)