I need combat pay. Or maybe some kind of bonus for pain and suffering. First, I had to watch Donald Trump’s incoherent speech on the economy and try to decipher his mish-mash economic plan.
And then, without the benefit of a lengthy vacation or counseling for post-foolishness stress disorder, I had to endure Hillary Clinton’s speech about the economy.
Though I will admit it was very coherent and there wasn’t much to decipher. As I pointed out in this interview, she wants more wasteful spending, more punitive taxes, and more stifling regulation.
There are two points from this interview that deserve some additional emphasis.
- Copying Obama and referring to subsidies and handouts as being an “investment” doesn’t make bigger government a wise use of other people’s money.
- Keynesian spending is a scam. It’s the fiscal version of a perpetual motion machine that ostensibly spits out dollar bills when you put quarters in a slot.
I closed the interview by pointing out that it makes no sense to make America more like Greece or Venezuela.
Yet Hillary is too clever to say that’s her agenda. To clear up this confusion, here are a few phrases from her recent speech in Michigan. I’ve helpfully translated them into English.
- “…support advanced manufacturing” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “a lot of urgent and important work to do” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “go out and make that happen” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “enormous capacity for clean energy production” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “if we do it together” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “things that your government could do” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “I will have your back every single day” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “make our economy work for everyone” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “restore fairness to our economy” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “go to bat for working families” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “pass the biggest investment” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “modernizing our roads, our bridges” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “help cities like Detroit and Flint” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “repair schools and failing water systems” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “we should be ambitious” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “connect every household in America to broadband” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “build a cleaner, more resilient power grid” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “creating an infrastructure bank” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “we’re going to invest $10 billion” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “bring business, government, and communities together” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “fight to make college tuition-free” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “liberate millions of people who already have student debt” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “support high-quality union training programs” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “We will do more” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “Investments at home” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “we need to make it fairer” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “we will fight for a more progressive…tax code” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “pay a new exit tax” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “Wall Street, corporations, and the super-rich, should finally pay their fair share” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “I support the so-called ‘Buffett Rule,” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “add a new tax on multi-millionaires” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “close the carried interest loophole” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “Just think about what we could do with those $4 billion dollars” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “I want to invest” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “affordable childcare available to all Americans” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “Paid family leave” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “Raising the federal minimum wage” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “expanding Social Security” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “strengthening unions” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “improve the Affordable Care Act” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “a public option health insurance plan” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
- “build a new future with clean energy” = Notwithstanding all the previous failures of government, both in America and elsewhere in the world, I’m going to make American more like Greece and Venezuela by using coercion to impose more spending, taxes, and regulation.
The only good news is that Hillary is an incremental statist. Unlike crazy Bernie Sanders, she doesn’t want to become Greece at 90 miles-per-hour. She’s content to travel in the wrong direction at a steady 55 miles-per-hour.
And since Greece is such a basket case, even two terms of Hillary Clinton probably would only result in America having French-type levels of economic freedom. Or lack thereof, to be more accurate.
In other words, it will take a lot of bad policy over a couple of decades to completely hollow out America’s economy. The already-baked-into-the-cake expansion of entitlements will take us part of the way to that unfortunate destination.
And, to mix my metaphors, Hillary will be content to add a few more straws to the camel’s back.
