Joe Biden (D., Socialist)
By Daniel Henninger, 9/22/21, Wall St. Journal

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but someone has to
say it: You have to listen to Joe Biden. Ignore what he
says at your peril.

It’s easy to make fun of Biden’s speeches. He walks out,
removes his black mask & stares steely-eyed into a
teleprompter, reading whatever’s written. The eyes—his &
ours—glaze over. But he persists.

Biden may be political white noise, but do not fall asleep.

Last Thursday, Biden trundled out to give a speech for his
mega-trillion Build Back Better plan. The press says the
Biden plan is in trouble with moderate Democrats, which
could make or break his presidency, with votes starting
next week.

This spending plan may be the whole Biden presidency, but
it’s bigger than that. His seemingly run-of-the-mill
afternoon speech was a significant statement. It was a
public repudiation by Biden of the U.S. economic system.

Partway thru the speech, Biden felt obliged to assert:
“I'm a capitalist.” During the campaign he said: “I'm not
a socialist.” Both statements are false. Joe Biden isn't a
capitalist. He's a socialist. Democratic progressives don’t
like the s-word, which is why they started calling themselves

progressives. Bernie Sanders declared himself a socialist
so long ago it’s too late to change. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
admits to being a democratic socialist. Fact-check scolds
argue the s-word has no meaning in the American political
context because no one is suggesting state control of the
means of production. Be that as it may, listen to Biden
talk about the system we do have.

“Real, sustained economic growth,” Biden said, is “something
we haven’t realized in this country for decades.” He
elaborated: “Over the past 40 years, the wealthy have
gotten wealthier, & too many corporations have lost their
sense of responsibility to their workers, their communities,
& the country.”

“The past 40 years” means Biden’s indictment of the U.S.
system includes the Democratic presidencies of Clinton &
Obama. But “40 years” is the giveaway. That’s 1981, the
beginning of Reagan’s presidency.

It's hard to overstate progressives’ obsession with the
economic legacy of the Reagan presidency. In their endless
struggle, Trump was a blip, notwithstanding that the Trump
tax cuts & deregulation—twin towers of Reaganomics—coincided
with the lowest minority unemployment levels in 50 years
accompanied by real wage gains for men & women. The political
purpose of the Build Back Better plan is to erase Reaganism
forever.

Introducing his budget in May, Biden said, “It's a budget
that reflects the fact that trickle-down economics has
never worked.”

“Trickle-down economics” has been 40-year code on the left
for the Reagan economic policies, which cut marginal tax
rates on income & rates on capital gains. The explicit
purpose of the Reagan policies, as articulated routinely by
the GOP’s Jack Kemp, was to encourage all participants in
the economy to “work, save & invest.”

“Work, save & invest” is a 3-word definition of capitalism,
which is demonstrably alien now to Biden’s worldview. At no
point in that speech did he acknowledge that the private
sector contributes anything positive to the life of Americans.

Adopting Sen. Sanders’s favorite phrase, Biden repeatedly
caricatures “millionaires & billionaires” & the growth in
their “wealth” during the pandemic, with no mention of the
Federal Reserve’s 0% interest rates that pushed assets into
stocks held by billionaires & everyone else.

He says we’ve just had “the worst economic crisis since the
Great Depression,” ignoring the govt-ordered lockdown, then
claims his govt fixed the economy.

Rising gas prices are caused by “pandemic profiteers.” He
rails against “corporations” a dozen times. In fact, this
Biden speech sounds similar to Xi Jinping’s recent attacks
on China’s private sector.

The market-led economic growth of the Kennedy, Reagan,
Clinton (he signed a bill cutting the capital-gains rate to
20% from 28% in 1997) & Trump years is irrelevant to Biden’s
ideas about a heretofore unseen economy that
“benefits everyone.”

Instead, he's the economy. He'll “create” new jobs & even
new industries. This refers to his proposed billions in
subsidies for manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines,
electric vehicles & charging stations, & retrofitting homes
& commercial real estate. By govt order, current, carbon-
intensive industries will disappear.

At a stroke, the Biden plan “lowers the cost” of daycare,
child care, elder care, drugs, healthcare & education. All
of this—identified without irony as “the cost of living”—is
“paid for” by new taxes.

“State control of the means of production” means different
things to different people, but I’d say this qualifies as
socialism in America. Traditional Democrats wanted to
“tame” the economy. Bidenism is replacing it.

Since the Democratic Party’s start nearly 200 years ago,
socialism has passed thru the party but never defined it.
By the time the voting in Congress stops on Build Back
Better, we’ll know whether from now on its members should
be identified as D. or D-Soc.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-socialist-reconiciliation-government-expansion-build-back-better-11632338922

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