Obama's Budget: Path to SOCIALISM (EPI)
April Fool’s “Snapshot” from the Economic Policy Institute, in case you missed it.
Obama’s Budget Would Push U.S. into Socialism
Snapshot for April 1, 2009 | by Ethan Pollack and Kathryn Edwards
President Obama’s 10-year budget proposes to increase government spending by 2.4% over the baseline spending trajectory. This increase, which represents 0.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), has numerous goals: address the current economic crisis, create jobs, and transform the economy for the 21st century through improvements in energy, health care, and education. Sadly, this upsurge in spending pushes the United States past the socialist threshold.
Developed by Friedrich Hayek, the Socialist Threshold—or “Tipping Point” as it is commonly called—states that an economy abandons capitalism and becomes socialist when spending exceeds exactly 23% of the economy.1 Any government spending beyond that threshold indicates a bleak future filled with universal health care, energy independence, and, in the worst-case scenarios, high-speed commuter rail.
Although Obama’s budget would return spending to its pre-spiral-into-socialism level of 22% by 2012 and keep it well within the Reagan-era average (22.3%) for the remainder of the budget window, the effect of having spending exceed the Socialist Threshold, even if for only three years, is enough to permanently purge capitalism and commitment to “free” markets from the U.S. economy.
Note:
1. The Hayek Tipping Point was brought into some question in 1983 when, under President Ronald Reagan, spending reached 23.5% of GDP. Most economists agreed, however, that Reagan’s dedication to free market rhetoric and avuncular humor inoculated the U.S. from backsliding irrevocably into socialism.
3 Responses to “Obama's Budget: Path to SOCIALISM (EPI)”
Wm. Wilberforce says:
April 7, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Obama is Marxist through and through. Check out http://www.squarewon.org/2009/04/07/whats-the-fuss-socialism-part-i/
Dollars and Sense says:
April 8, 2009 at 1:53 pm
WW: I don’t even know where to begin to respond to the claim that O. is a Marxist (or the document about Marx and socialism you link to, which is quite off the mark). So I won’t bother.Readers who are interested in live debates about socialism should check out the forum initiated by Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Barbara Ehrenreich at the Nation, including this interesting piece: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090413/landy .–CS
Anonymous says:
October 10, 2009 at 5:54 am
Listening to the idiocies that Americans say and write about socialism, Obama, capitalism, etc. I thought that your post was actually serious. Really someone came up with a threshold of government spending beyond which a country is socialist? If every country whose government spends more than 23% of GDP is socialist, then we Europeans are all socialist, and very very happy to be that.
Then I read the consequences of socialism, and I realised it was a parody of American’s lack of understanding of … everything (ok, not all Americans, only the religious right).
Thanks for the laugh!
John