Ever since I heard Hillary Clinton speak about her economic policies last week, a particular passage has haunted me. It keeps rattling around inside my head, and I can’t seem to let it go. I think the reason it so troubles me is that it so succinctly sums up the way progressives like Clinton see the world, and because the implications of that worldview are so profoundly chilling to me. Before we go any further, you should probably read the passage yourself.
Then there’s the Estate Tax, which Trump wants to eliminate altogether. If you believe that he’s as wealthy as he says, that alone would save the Trump family $4 billion. It would do nothing for 99.8 percent of Americans. So they’d get a $4 billion tax cut, and 99.8 percent of Americans get nothing.
Just think about what we could do with those $4 billion dollars. We could pay for more than 47,000 veterans to get a 4-year college degree. We could provide a year’s worth of health care to nearly 3 million kids. Or we could fund about a year’s worth of federal assistance to state and local law enforcement. I think there are a lot of better ways to spend the money.
Now, there are a lot of things wrong with this statement, but I want to focus on the two most grievous. The first is the conceit of knowledge, and the second is the implied morality, or rather lack thereof in Hillary’s comments.
Go ahead and read that last line again. Hillary Clinton can think of a lot of better ways to spend Donald Trump’s money than the Trump family could. How can she possibly know that, when she doesn’t have any idea what they will spend it on?
Suppose that the $4 billion does end up of the hands of Ivanka Trump. What is she going to do with it? Unless we know for certain, which we can’t, how can anyone claim to be wiser spender of that money than she? Ivanka has shown plenty of aptitude for business, and there’s no telling what she might invest in if she had the extra capital. She might invest in innovative startups that not only provide jobs to Americans, but also provide new services that raise the standard of living for the whole country. She might fund research that leads to society-altering discoveries, such as a cure for deadly diseases or a cheap source of renewable energy. She might give the money to charity, helping the poor, about whom Hillary claims to care so much, to afford food, clothing, and health care.
The same could be said for any of Trump’s other children. There is virtually no limit to the amount of good that could be done from that amount of money in private hands. But suppose Hillary is right. Suppose that the Trump family will squander the money on consumption of luxury items, like private jets, jewelry, and a bigger mansion. What then? Well, all that this means is that construction workers, jewelers, and airplane mechanics will see their business increase, and their incomes rise. And why shouldn’t they? Do we really begrudge these people their noble trades, that we would rob them of willing customers? With the additional business, they will be able to expand output, hire more workers, invest more in other businesses, give more to charity, and provide income for others. Is that such a bad thing?
Hillary’s proposal, on the other hand, is to entrust the money to government bureaucrats, where it will be subject to the waste, fraud, and abuse that is the hallmark of all government spending. She talks about helping veterans, but just look at how the Veterans Administration has been run with taxpayer dollars. The quality of service is abysmal, because without a profit motive and the ability of customers to take their business elsewhere, the incentives to a competent job are simply not there. Whereas private spending rewards people who are providing highly valued goods and services to society at a competitive price, public spending rewards those most skilled at negotiating for government contracts, an ability which itself contributes nothing to society whatever.
Far more troubling, however, than the elitist suggestion that she knows how to spend our money better than we do, is Hillary’s apparent view that she has the right to do so. Look at that quote from her speech again. There is no acknowledgment that Trump earned his money by people voluntarily giving it to him. There is no concession to his right to spend, save, or give away his money as he pleases. No, in Hillary’s mind, Trump’s money is her money to do with as she pleases. And if Trump’s money is hers, the same must be true for all of our incomes.
This is the heart of the progressive policy. They don’t view taxes as taking some of your money from you, they view taxes as allowing you to keep some of “society’s” money. It doesn’t matter that you did the work, that you negotiated the contracts, that you persuaded people to voluntarily trade with you. In Hillary Clinton’s America, you have no right to your income, and you should be grateful for whatever scraps she generously allows you to keep.
When you get home after a long day at work, I want you to think about the labor you put in and the money you’ve earned. If you feel like the government did most of the work with you serving in only an incidental role, then Hillary’s probably your gal. But if you’re proud of your own accomplishments, if you did the work, if you built that, and if you should be entitled to the fruits of your labor, then it’s time to reject this progressive idea that individuals don’t matter, and that we only exist to serve the will of the state and its overlords.
This article originally appeared on Conservative Review.
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