Think You Know How to Vote in 2020?

You might have a favorite in mind already for 2020. You believe that this next president will hit it out of the park with social change, making the rich pay more, free healthcare for all, free college for all, national policies embracing climate change and reparations for slavery.

That might be your utopia. On the other hand, it may lead to a marked decrease in your quality of life. And, that may be the case for every American.

In recent remarks before Congress, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, pointed to the folly of some of the progressive ideas of newer members of Congress. From the Washington Examiner on Feb. 26, 2019:

“Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday that the idea that government deficits don’t matter, an idea endorsed most prominently by outspoken Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is “just wrong.”

“The idea that deficits don’t matter for countries that can borrow in their own currency I think is just wrong,” Powell said in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. “U.S. debt is fairly high as a level of [economic output] and more important than that, it’s growing faster than [economic output],” said Powell. “We’re going to have to either spend less or raise more revenue.”

The Fed chairman’s remarks reflect the realities of a federal government running an enormous deficit. This is not something that may impact you directly today, but if the federal government ramps up its spending to meet the promises of many in the Democratic Party, who are running for the top office, it will impact you. That impact will not be to increase your standard of living or your quality of life, but it will decrease it substantially.

The Examiner went on to say that “Powell also pushed back against the suggestion that the Fed could pay for the “Green New Deal.”” This effort to control the lives of every American alive would not only impact the quality of life for people everywhere, but grow the country’s deficit to a degree that is unsustainable and destructive.

This winter, it was colder than it was 100 years ago in places like Arizona. A century ago, it averaged 15 degrees warmer each day. Man-made global warming postulates that the earth’s atmosphere is incrementally warming every year. How was it warmer 100 years ago? Do we make policy, that will cost the U.S. at least $1 trillion dollars based on flawed science? The only thing that is moving incrementally is the amount of debt that future American taxpayers will be burdened with. Is this the direction a president should take the country?

Chairman Powell also said that “the amount of debt the U.S. owes, and the speed with which it’s growing, poses a major long-term challenge to the economy,” according to the Examiner story.

Free things have a cost. Not a far-away existential cost or a “who-cares-it-doesn’t-affect-me” cost, but a very real cost that hurts every person in ways that they can’t imagine today.

There are still those who believe that America can “progress” into a socialist society and it will work out great like in Sweden or other Scandinavian countries. The problem with this theory is that the cumulative taxes in those places, including sales taxes, personal taxes and the price of commodities like gas, are astronomical. Every month you work mostly for the government all of your working years. Is it worth it? And worse, the U.S. could end up like Venezuela with astronomical inflation, no food in the grocery stores and the government shooting citizens.

Be careful what you wish for or who you vote for. When it sounds too good to be true, it is. If you are immersed in news from CNN or MSNBC, the New York Times or Public television, you are not getting a factual, objective presentation of the facts that you should know.