ICON Lecture will take on ‘progressive agenda roadmap’

CHAPEL HILL — A lecture on government spending, which highlights the high cost of progressive programs, will be taking place next month as part of the ICON Lecture series.

Adam Michel, a senior policy analyst on tax and debt with the Heritage Foundation, will be giving a talk titled “The progressive roadmap to soak the middle class.”

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative D.C. think tank that advocates for limited government, free-market economics and expanded individual opportunity.

The lecture comes along just as socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has gained steam towards becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee

“The progressive agenda, as it is articulated by any of the prominent Democrats and some on the left — taken in whole or in segments — is an incredible departure from fiscal sanity,” Michel told NSJ.

“It is arithmetically impossible to fund the progressive agenda with taxes on the rich alone,” said Michel.

Sanders’ recent publication of a fact sheet on how he plans to fund his agenda items is largely a list of steep tax increases. Michel saw this coming and warns that taxes on the rich will not be nearly enough to pay for Sanders’ wish list.

“If you were to confiscate every dollar earned by every taxpayer with incomes over $200,000 a year, you would only pay for about half of what is being promised by the progressive, left agenda,” said Michel.

Michel warns that if corrective actions aren’t taken, government expenditures will require much larger tax increases on middle-class Americans and even higher taxes on a much larger number of taxpayers.

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The Incompetence Party

The Democrats’ biggest problem isn’t Bernie Sanders. It’s that many voters doubt the party’s ability to govern anymore.

Now that Bernie Sanders—once an obscure socialist senator from Vermont—is officially the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, it is time to confront what that means.

It does not mean the U.S. is flirting with socialism. That’s not going to happen. The meaning of Bernie’s ascent is that the Democratic Party, older even than he is, has simply run out of gas.

The Democrats resemble Europe’s aging political parties—Britain’s Labour, France’s Socialists, Germany’s Social Democrats and Christian Democrats. All have simply deflated with voters.

Signs of public fatigue with the Democrats could be seen in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Besides incompetence, the big story out of Iowa was low turnout. In New Hampshire the story was voter indecision. Once past Bernie’s 25% cement-block base, many voters were flipping a coin in the voting booth to pick from the other candidates.

What does it mean that Elizabeth Warren, by now a household name, got dropped to fourth place? Joe Biden’s humiliating fifth is a personal disaster, but what does that say about the party itself?

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Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan, Oh My

She may not win the nomination, but her ideas show where the American left wants to go

Warren Has a (Fantasy) Plan

Her financing and savings ideas for Medicare for All bear no relation to reality.

HEALTH CARECOMMENTARY

‘Medicare for All’ Actually Isn’t Medicare at All

Kevin Pham  / Kevin Pham, a medical doctor, is a contributor to The Daily Signal and a former graduate fellow in health policy at The Heritage Foundation.   October 28, 2019  

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was recently on comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show to discuss, among other items on his agenda, his vision for health care in America.

In one interesting statement, Sanders described the rollout of his plan: “I want to expand Medicare to include dental care, hearing aids, and eyeglasses, and then what I want to do is lower the eligibility age the first year from 65 down to 55, then to 45, then to 35, then we cover everybody.”

There is a sleight of hand here.

What Sanders seems to be describing is the gradual expansion of the existing Medicare program, which currently covers Americans 65 and over, to include everyone eventually. In reality, Sanders’ signature bill, “Medicare for All,” is anything but Medicare.

The demand for socialism is on the rise from young Americans today. But is socialism even morally sound? Find out more now >>

Medicare comes in several forms, including Parts A and B, which pay for inpatient and outpatient visits along a fee schedule with premiums and deductibles, and Part C, also known as Medicare Advantage.

This is the system that covers 60 million Americans and enjoys high satisfaction ratings.

Medicare for All would scrap all of this.

One of the most misleading aspects of Medicare for All is that it is not Medicare at all.

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For those of you who live in North Carolina, scroll down to read the second article on how our Democrat Governor is planning to veto a bill that does not include Medicaid expansion.   Nancy

Democrats Haven’t Turned Back From 1968

The politics of identity and attack have supplanted the old liberal tradition, which favored national unity.

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Ted Van Dyk   Mr. Van Dyk was active in Democratic national policy and politics for 40 years. He is author of “Heroes, Hacks and Fools” (University of Washington Press, 2007).

Oct. 19, 2018

PHOTO: CHAD CROWE

America is polarized in many ways, but one of the most significant is between generations in the Democratic Party. Coming out of the Great Depression and World War II, we present-day seniors saw liberalism as the promise of racial and social justice and broadly shared prosperity. We also saw it as a defender of civil liberties against abuses such as those that took place in the 1950s McCarthy era. Abroad, we supported a strong United Nations and other multilateral institutions to reduce conflict but had no illusions about the expansionist ambitions of totalitarian states.

In other words, the dwindling number of Greatest Generation and Depression-born Democrats came of age with a liberal tradition that is increasingly marginalized in today’s party. That was evident in Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation fight and in the party’s use of race, sex, ethnicity and other identity markers in politics more broadly.

The best example of the old Democratic Party’s aspirations was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provided that no citizen should receive favorable or unfavorable treatment based on irrelevant factors such as race, sex, national origin and religion. Our domestic agenda was further realized in President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society: the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, the War on Poverty, federal aid to education and other measures designed to create greater opportunity for all, underwritten by a safety net for those who needed it.

You could feel the first big change in 1968 as a new generation in the West rebelled against established institutions and leaders. In the U.S., protest formed around opposition to the mistaken Vietnam War. I experienced this rebellion first as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s assistant in the Johnson White House, then as a vice president of Columbia University during the disorders there, and later as an active member of the antiwar movement and George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign.

 

There was idealism in the protests but also cynicism and a touch of totalitarianism. “We Demand!” often preceded the protesters’ list of objectives. You could have a discussion with them over coffee or in small groups, but when an audience was present, a professor, speaker or political candidate expressing a contrary opinion would often be shouted down, sometimes with obscene chants. “Never trust anyone over 30,” the slogan went (or, as I often thought silently, no one under 25). Those in established positions were usually judged reactionary no matter the substance of their views.

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Single-Payer Health Care Isn’t Worth Waiting For

An orthopedic surgeon challenges Canada’s ban on most privately funded procedures.