Since the election of President Trump, there has been a shrill chorus of “resistance” coming from the Democratic Party. So much so, that any plans for the future or alternative policies are being drowned out by the cacophony of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
Steny Hoyer has been on tour representing the Democratic Party. His message is the “Make It In America” plan. Here it is in a nut-shell: taxpayer-funded skills training for young job seekers; government-controlled health insurance; big taxpayer-funded infrastructure spending; and rolling back the Trump tax cuts. Have you heard of it? Me either.
Don’t see anything new? Me either. Don’t see anything dynamic? Me either. And I don’t see those policies having much appeal to voters with 4.1 GDP growth and the Trump tax cuts in place. America is experiencing incredible growth, rising wages, and record low unemployment among ALL demographic categories. How would the Democrats’ “Make It In America” plan add to that? It wouldn’t. It would slow it down. Tax and spend does not produce much growth!
In fact, this more-of-the-same non-plan has been completely overshadowed by the free college, Medicare-for-all, and free money plan pushed by the ever-growing socialist wing of the Democratic Party—the same mindset that is destroying Venezuela right now.
But, that’s what is attracting all of the Democrats’ ever-shrinking limelight. Bernie Sanders, Cynthia Nixon, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have stolen the show and pushed the old guard – Hoyer, Pelosi, Kaine, Schumer – off center stage. That old guard was terrible, so you can imagine that this new nutburger-left would bring on a horror show in the U.S. if it gained real power.
The point is both plans are non-starters. Neither will produce anything like 4% growth. But, plans by Democratic House candidates to “revisit” the tax law if elected into a majority underscore the difficult question Democrats are trying to answer: How do you talk about the economy when the economy is up and nearly off the charts?
How can a Democrat go on the stump and criticize Republicans when the entire district is at full employment? Why would a working mom, who was barely getting by working three jobs and can now get by on two, vote for a Democrat whose policies will damage her economic existence?
So, now there are two wings of the Democratic Party. The old-fashioned socialists represented by Bernie Sanders, Cynthia Nixon, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and old-fashioned tax-and-spenders like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Tim Kaine, and Maxine Waters. What’s a Democratic voter to do? #Walkaway perhaps?
Donald Trump was elected on a platform promising to repair critical social programs such as health care and provide tax cuts for everyone, top to bottom. The rich were going to pay their fair share. Trump was going to bring jobs to the poor, and cause an economic renaissance that would affect every sector.
If the President can get this tariff skirmish under control in the next month or so and Republicans keep control of the House and Senate, I proffer that there will not be another Democrat in the White House for a generation and that we will truly be in an American Spring, a renewal that will last.
