Bernie Sanders versus Margaret Thatcher

Yesterday, my wife asked my daughter and me who she should vote for in the primary. I suggested Ben Carson, because he is smart and has some good ideas. Then my 18 year old daughter suggested Bernie Sanders.

Before throwing accusations of my failings as a parent, I should add that my daughter is:

1. Honest,
2. Doesn't smoke or do drugs.
3. Has never had sex (because she told me. See #1).
4. Attends school regularly and gets good grades. 

Admittedly, I epically failed on the political front. 4 out of 5 ain't bad.

The worst part about her support for Bernie Sanders was her facts were all wrong (not unlike his facts being wrong, but that's another matter). Here is the breakdown of what she said:

1. "He is only going to raise taxes on the rich." Lovely, except his plan says he will implement a 2.2% income tax across the board (that means everyone) to pay for his "Medicare for everyone plan" (aka universal healthcare). Here is what his website says:

Sen. Sanders has introduced a plan to expand health care coverage to every American. Paid for by a 6.2 percent income-based health care premium paid by employers, a 2.2 percent income-based premium paid by households, progressive income tax rates, taxing capital gains and dividends the same as income from work, limiting tax deductions for the rich, adjusting the estate tax, and savings from health tax expenditures.

2. "He is going to give us free healthcare." See number 1 above.

3. "He is going to give us free college." From his website:

Paid for by imposing a tax on Wall Street speculators that would generate about $300 billion in revenue.

This is the harder part because neither my daughter nor Sanders understands anything about economics.

First, when you tax an activity, you get less of it. Which means a lot of that Wall Street activity that would have been paying that tax will slow down, relative to the amount of the tax. For example, if you were to put a punitive-style cigarette level tax on Wall Street activity, you could bring trading activity to a screeching halt. You might even crash the stock markets. My guess is Bernie dips his toe in this, and when he sees the negative reaction, he will (hopefully) stop.

Regardless, this will create all kinds of pain in other areas, from retirement funds to pensions to individual investors who will end up paying for this. But since my daughter isn't a stockholder yet, she is clueless as to the cost of this for her.

Second, there is another downriver aspect of this: With Wall Street activity curtailed, there will be more out-of-work brokers competing with my daughter for jobs.

Even my old progressive buddy Rodak has a better (albeit cynical) idea why this will never work:

The reason is that without the promise of free college on the other side of military service, it would be impossible for the military to keep enlistment levels high enough to man the perpetual war and line the pockets of the oligarchs. 

It would mean reinstating the draft--this time with girls being taken--and that would mean living the 'sixties all over again, and then some.

To my daughter, I would refer her to this quote from Margaret Thatcher:

"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money."