Top White House Economist Says Socialism Poses Grave Threat to Economy

According to Kevin Hassett, the chairman of President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, there is no greater threat facing the U.S. economy than the rise of socialism. In a speech at the National Review Institute last Friday, Hassett argued that it is up to experts and economists to point out the problems with the socialist ideas being bandied about by top Democrats.

“I think the challenge going forward is to sort of respond to these proposals that are getting further and further to the left,” Hassett said.

The economist worried that if entrepreneurs and wealthy capitalists saw confiscatory tax rates coming down the pike, they could decide to sit on their capital instead of investing it in a robust, thriving economy.

“If in two years, there is going to be a 70 percent marginal tax rate on everything—there are people who are advocating policies like that—then maybe you should put your plans on hold right now if you are a forward-looking, rational firm,” he said.

Hassett said that the booming economy under Trump didn’t come out of nowhere. In addition to a boost from the Republican tax cut plan of 2017, he said that entrepreneurs and investment bankers were responding to the “idea that the war on business was over.” In other words, a Republican government has successfully removed the handcuffs that were shackled on the economy during the Obama recovery. With the removal of those handcuffs – reduced taxes, eradicated regulations, and incentives to stay in the U.S. – the economy has responded with near-record levels of employment, a stock market in the stratosphere, and consumer confidence of a type not seen since before the recession.

Implementing – or even threatening to implement – ideas like universal free college, the Green New Deal, or Medicare-for-all could easily derail the progress that the economy has made under President Trump and send us spiraling towards a socialist future we can’t afford. Whether we’re talking about the Soviet Union, Zimbabwe, or Venezuela, socialism/communism inevitably fails. It enriches a select few at the expense of a starving, dying population – the very scenario that people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders say they’re trying to avoid with their programs.

Human history has shown us that capital works best when put in the hands of the people. Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and their likeminded followers think that the American people are too stupid or disadvantaged to be in control of their own destinies. They want to restore power to the Almighty State, which will then tend to us and care for us like a nation of toddlers. The tyrants come under guise of caretakers, but they are tyrants nonetheless.

Let’s not forget it.