E-Newsletter No. 89 May 2021
There is a quote that is oftentimes attributed to Norman Mattoon Thomas, who ran for president six times (1928 to 1948) as the candidate for the Socialist Party of America – – “The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”
Some of us have not been blind to what has been going on in our country since the 1930s. The first implementation of a socialist programs by our federal government occurred during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. One of FDR’s “New Deal” programs was the creation of Social Security. Unfortunately, this socialist program was founded on an egregious lie – – a pamphlet published by the government assured the public that “the 2 percent tax on wages up to $3,000 would be the most you will ever pay.” As we all know, there is no actual cash in the Social Security “Trust”, only intragovernmental IOUs, because all of the money that has been paid into the “trust” has been paid out, plus some more. And the present value debt of the promises that have been made by the federal government for the Social Security program are truly mind numbing – – they dwarf the amount of the federal government’s current “on book” debt. (And Medicare is even worse).
We have added a new Conversation Piece to our website, which we ran across a couple of years ago, prior to the 2020 elections. It is entitled ”How do you create a socialist country? (But why would you ever want to?)”
http://www.f2ppr.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/How-to-create-a-socialist-country.pdf
Contrary to what Norman Thomas said nearly a century ago, many of our country’s citizens now appear to be willing to continue to implement socialism, even though history has shown that socialism has failed in every country where it has been attempted. A couple more quotes come to mind –
Alexander Fraser Tytler – “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”
Benjamin Franklin – “Those who surrender Freedom for Security will not have (nor do they deserve) either one.”
US Debt Clock – – The total “on-book” debt of the federal government as of April 1st – $28.24 trillion / $84,800 per citizen / Excludes the “off book” debt relating to promises made by the federal government for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other socialist programs.