Is Hillary a Socialist ?

She calls herself progressive. She, clearly favors government solutions to private industry and favors government mandates to personal responsibility. Some of her more high profile socialist...er, progressive..ideas:

1. Give every child born $5000. They can use this for college. How to fund? Raise Taxes. A savvy politician, she said that she would fund by raising cigarette taxes. Once it is clear that this will not be enough, she will rely on allowing the Bush tax cuts to lapse and then eventually, an upper and middle class tax hike. Bottom line, taking money from one income class and giving it, free and clear, to another class is an time-tested socialist idea.

Socialist Rating (1-10): 9 (Redistribution of Wealth, Creating addiction to an additional government check that will become another political 'third rail' for generations to come)

2. Give every citizen $1000 for their 401K. Would she keep this in the Social Security Trust Fund? The Trust fund that has had a negative balance for forty years - as the social security taxes have been used for general funds expenditures. Or does she plan on keeping this $1000 (and interest growth) into a private account (hmm, didn't President Bush want to allow people to do this with their own social security tax money?). How to fund? See above.

Socialist Rating (1-10): 8 (Redistribution of Wealth, Creating addiction to an additional government check that will become another political 'third rail' for generations to come)


3. Government Health Care. Create a government health care bureaucracy, mandate insurance and provider requirements. While there may be millions of Americans uninsured, the American health care system is the best in the world. The thought of government doing to health care what it did to Medicare (expenses are three times projections from twenty years ago) is frightening. There are no plans to control cost or 'John Edwards' styled phony lawsuits that will drive doctors out of the business. Her plans to control - limit access, drive down doctors pay (fewer people will enter medicine) and drive down pharma revenue (translate reduce their ROI on investments). All of these will have the reverse affect of her intention and damage health care quality and accessibility and will make it dramatically more expensive.

Socialist Rating (1-10): 10 (Nationalizing a private enterprise and 1/5 of the U.S. Economy, Adding a government bureaucracy between patients and providers)


4. Garnish profits from the oil companies. In one of her more dramatic grandstanding performances - and probably an accidental glimpse into her true beliefs - Hillary proposed taking the oil company profits and using them to fund research on alternative energy sources. No politician, including Bernie Sanders, has ever so transparently stated the they would steal profits from a private company. These companies paid taxes at the proper US Tax schedule, used their profits for their own research and exploration and, perhaps, will pass some of the profits to the people, retirement funds, mutual funds that own the company. What right would the government have to take additional monies beyond the current rate of taxes?

Socialist Rating (1-10): 10 (Speaks for itself. And why will she stop at Oil Companies)


5. Control Media Content. Despite the complete dominance of American liberalism in every media and the largest institutions in the United States, Hillary is leading the charge for 'fairness' in AM Talk radio. If Hillary and her team has their way, private radio stations, funded today through advertisers and listeners, will be forced to include content mandated by the federal government. Although the hypocrisy of this situation is shocking, given the vast control the left wing has on the media, the biggest concern here is with the first amendment. Where is the ACLU? When someone immerses a crucifix in urine, they are the first guys on the scene. When the government wants to control content of private radio stations, dead silence.

Socialist Rating (1-10): 10 (Trampling on the Bill of the Rights)


It is not a question of whether Hillary is a socialist. Francois Mitterand would find no problem with any of these policies. In fact, he may be concerned about the impacts these socialist policies might have on the economy, the government deficit, the current account balance and the strength of the currency.

It is no secret that the only major economy that is growing and adding jobs year after year is the U.S. economy. The socialist experiments in France, Sweden and Germany have been disasters in terms of job growth, GDP and quality of life. Hillary will surely put the U.S. on par with these disasters in a fraction of the time.

It is not a question of whether she is a socialist. By any measure, she is. The question is...does anyone care?


Submitted by D.B. Jackson