{"id":12882,"date":"2016-02-12T12:59:09","date_gmt":"2016-02-12T12:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12882"},"modified":"2016-02-12T13:02:56","modified_gmt":"2016-02-12T13:02:56","slug":"democratic-socialist-sounding-more-um-socialist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12882","title":{"rendered":"‘Democratic socialist’ sounding more, um, socialist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"berniesanders-61515-1434466786\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0 more I hear from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the more convinced I become that it’s time to end the qualifier when describing his economic philosophy.<\/p>\n

The presidential candidate calls himself a “democratic socialist.”<\/p>\n

I believe I understand the message he’s trying to convey, which is that his brand of socialism isn’t dependent entirely<\/em> on the government taking care of every American’s needs.<\/p>\n

Sanders has been using the democratic socialist label — again, in my view — to take some of the sting out of the s-word that conservatives are fond of using to describe policies such as, oh, the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n

Then on Thursday night, near the end of the Democratic presidential candidate debate with Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sanders launched into a lengthy riff about the two political leaders he most admired.<\/p>\n

He ended with Winston Churchill, but only after he described Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s tenure as president.<\/p>\n

He told us how FDR took office in 1933 while 25 percent of Americans were out of work. We were in the throes of the Great Depression.<\/p>\n

How did FDR get us moving again? By energizing government to create jobs. The WPA and CCC were government-financed employment programs. The money to pay for them didn’t just materialize. Americans paid for them with taxes.<\/p>\n

Social Security became law in 1935.<\/p>\n

Gradually, the nation began to work its way out of the Great Depression.<\/p>\n

Then came Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Everything changed after that.<\/p>\n

But as I listened Thursday night to Sen. Sanders go on and on about FDR’s leadership, I was struck by the belief that he was talking about socialism. Not just a form of it, but the unvarnished version of it.<\/p>\n

I happen to share Sanders’ view that 80-plus years ago, President Roosevelt faced a terrible, miserable set of circumstances when he took his seat behind the big desk in the Oval Office. He felt he had to do something dramatic to get the country going.<\/p>\n

Sanders also said something else at the end of the debate that I found a bit curious. He seems to believe the nation is ready for another “revolution,” that the income inequality gap of today sets up a need to create some kind of massive government infusion of money to bolster working families who are suffering while the “top 1 percent of Americans” are doing fabulously.<\/p>\n

He wants free college education. Sanders vows to bring universal health care to every American. He intends to push for a dramatic increase in the federal minimum wage.<\/p>\n

How does he intend to pay for it? He wants to\u00a0raise taxes on all Americans.<\/p>\n

How, then, is he going to do that with Republicans retaining control of the House of Representatives, where all tax legislation must originate?<\/p>\n

He sounds like a socialist.<\/p>\n

Not a democratic<\/em> socialist.<\/p>\n

He sounds like the real thing.<\/p>\n

I believe I heard someone who is overreaching as he pulls the lever on the economic alarm bell.<\/p>\n

FDR faced a\u00a0grave economic crisis the likes of which will not confront<\/em> the next president.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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The\u00a0 more I hear from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the more convinced I become that it’s time to end the qualifier when describing his economic philosophy. The presidential candidate calls himself a “democratic socialist.” I believe I understand the message he’s trying to convey, which is that his brand of socialism isn’t dependent entirely on … Continue reading ‘Democratic socialist’ sounding more, um, socialist<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,14],"tags":[164,597,1695,1992,2139,5512,5279,5958],"class_list":["post-12882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-affordable-care-act","tag-bernie-sanders","tag-fdr","tag-great-depression","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-socialism","tag-winston-churchill","tag-wwii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12882"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12885,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12882\/revisions\/12885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}