The Absurd Report

Senators Obama and Clinton May Win Votes In Their Rhetorical Race to the Bottom, But At What Cost?

While Senators Obama and Clinton continue to scratch, claw and bloody each other like Soviet and Hungarian waterpolo players at the 1956 Olympics, they are racing to the bottom in their dangerously anti-free market rhetoric. By shamelessly attacking everything from tax cuts to free trade agreements to entrepreneurial prosperity itself, Obama and Clinton may succeed in obtaining Democratic primary votes.

But at what cost to American well-being and economic literacy?

First, Senator Obama. When asked during a debate with Senator Clinton whether he intended to impose “tax increases on millions of Americans,” Senator Obama enthusiastically affirmed, saying, “I’m not bashful about it.” The fact that he doesn’t even feel the need to conceal his intent to raise taxes, as wiser liberal candidates have done in the past, should itself alarm American voters about what may lie in store. Although he claims to target only “the rich” for tax increases, higher penalties on capital gains and dividends will hit everyday Americans very hard, including retirees who depend upon such income to survive.

Senator Clinton’s rhetoric has been no less shameless, and there is very little sunlight between Senator Obama’s substantive agenda and her own. First, she echoed Senator Obama’s enthusiasm for raising taxes by saying that she “absolutely, absolutely” favored tax increases.

These economic principles advanced by Senators Obama and Clinton have been tested extensively in Western Europe, which explains why America has prospered just as those nations’ economies have stagnated.

This is a simple lesson, but Obama and Clinton discard it in favor of wooing primary votes via their crude anti-growth rhetoric. In an era of increased global competition, America cannot afford to reward such bombast.

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Tags: Economy

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