Bernie Sanders may be way older than I am, but that aside, we grew up under strikingly similar circumstances: no frills working class families in small rent-controlled Brooklyn apartments. And yet, the guy’s a raging socialist while I’m so fiscally conservative it’s a miracle that the Silicon Valley elite still put up with me living here.
That’s why I own a gun. Fear of progressive lynch mobs. Sometimes I imagine them coming to get me with their medical marijuana cards, sustainable clothing, tats, and Birkenstocks stuffed into dozens of Suburu Outbacks singing Bernie’s theme song, Simon & Garfunkel’s America.
Speaking of things that terrify me, I was having a glass of Pinot and grilling some salmon after a typical 10-hour workday (my wife takes lots of night classes, probably to get out having to cook for me … which is ironic because they’re culinary classes) and caught Bernie’s speech after he won the New Hampshire primary.
All his crazy entitlement programs and new taxes to pay for them would crush our anemic economy and just about double the national debt from $19 to $37 trillion. When the dust settles, half of us will be working stiffs for the federal government and the other half will be on welfare and food stamps. Then we go bankrupt.
The question is, how can anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of economics and finance not see that as a death spiral? The answer is you can’t. Either that or you’ve gone off your meds. Last time I checked, this was still the real world, not utopia.
I guess that explains the entitlement mentality: how so many Americans don’t have a pot to piss in, are in debt up to their eyeballs, and still have to have the latest clothes, cars, and consumer gadgets. They’re fine sacrificing free speech for political correctness but just try taking away their iPhones, crossovers, and hundred dollar hoodies.
As Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” The same is true of entitlements. And Bernie Sanders.
While we’re on the subject: Why Hillary and Bernie are Wrong About Wall Street
Image credit Gage Skidmore via Flickr