Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Bernie Sanders if elected promises to take over healthcare in this country, he will nationalize 10's of thousands of small businesses across the country, mandating that their ownership will agree to compensation set by the federal government and work within strict mandates coming from above not limited to the number of patients seen at each medical office. At the same time he will effectively destroy the health insurance industry putting untold numbers of people out of work. Clearly he has further ambitions for his socialist agenda, this is a man who supports the regime of Nicolas Maduro, praised Hugo Chavez, and is sympathetic to the Castro regime in Cuba.

Under the f**g of moral authority Sanders will push for the confiscation of private assets through aggressive taxing policies claiming that the rich do not deserve what is theirs, but he will not stop there. He will try to restructure our economy to conform to his personal vision of Social Justice. As his policies negatively effect economic activity in this country and federal revenues are threatened leaders like Sanders will only take more and more as they redefine the definition of wealth in this country. Already he is demanding that corporations face punitive sanctions for moving operations overseas and that our government set labor pricing in various industries. How does this speak to freedom, is it not the role of government to provide an environment conducive to economic growth and prosperity? Can a government actually legislate prosperity through oppressive policy?

Make no mistake that Sanders would not for a moment stand for the sorts of control and oppression that he intends to inflict on millions of his fellow Americans in this country to be imposed on himself or the body he supposedly serves, he would never allow for his office to be taken over and allow for every policy, compensation package, and procedure be mandated from above. Were even the suggestion of such control to be proffered the angry senator would go ballistic yet the angry warrior has no issue with imposing such oppression on his fellow Americans.

This country was founded on the ideal of individual freedom and opportunity, Sanders represents everything our founding was not. Make no mistake, Castro, Chavez, all had moral authority as they came to power and were supported by a people wanting the fruits of social justice, but we see where that leads to.

It is no secret that for many on the left the government has become their new church, but let's be clear, Bernie Sanders is a false prophet.

BboH Loc: s of 2/21, Ellicott City, MD

I do agree with you!

LinksUp

Two words: Atlas Shrugged

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

The first 3 paragraphs sound suspiciously like DJT;s policies and plans.
*i* would submit the most dangerous is our Shadow Government. Appointees, police, policies and procedures- especially the unholy alliance of business and government. Lincln and Eisenhower both warned us of this.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/13/us/google-location-tracking-police.html
We have met the enemy ...

thom w Loc: San Jose, CA

Just a word of advice. Breath into a paper bag. Deep breaths. It's really supposed to work. You aren't an i***t, and I have no idea if you are smarter than I am, but you do go off the rails from time to time.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Thom, Bernie is an angry man who feels he has t***h and moral authority on his side and no one has the right to prevent him from imposing his justice on our society....

He is dangerous, he is hardly different than Fidel Castro was. Do you think that Fidel didn't have the same dream?

thom w Loc: San Jose, CA

Can you see no differences? Thank you for staying civil. I expected you would, but some wouldn't have. I would v**e for him if I thought he could do what he says he will. I think others may be more effective. I know we disagree very strongly. I hope it doesn't mean we have to be enemies. So far it doesn't seem so. Many of your posts, mostly from a while ago, indicate you are pretty well informed, probably more than I, even if that isn't a good measurement. I have a hard time understanding how someone as informed as you often seem to be can stake out positions as strongly as you seem to.

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

Bernie is a bigger problem to the Democratic than he is to the Nation, he is ahead at the moment because the AOC's of the left have only him to look to as their candidate, it appears that they have about 25% of the v**e. The other umpteen candidates are splitting the remaining true DEMOCRATS that would never v**e for him. When the Candidates start dropping out you will see little movement Bernie's numbers.

The Dems are worried that should he get the Nomination and lose to Trump it would be disastrous to their party which is already in shambles.

thom w Loc: San Jose, CA

How do you explain the Trump v**ers that say they would have v**ed for Bernie? It's a real question. I don't have an explanation.

btbg

I actually think that is pretty easy to explain. They v**ed for Trump because they viewed anyone to be better than Hillary.

We have a lot of v**ers who don't really seem to know what they believe. They just believe that they want change. That's why they supported Obama. That didn't give the the change that they wanted so then they v**ed for Trump.

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

That seems simple to me but I am sometimes simple, Bernie was offering a lot of "free" stuff, the stuff that is not really free to the working class.
.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Thom, Bernie is punitive in his approach and his attitude, I have no problem with dealing with those who abuse the system but that is not Bernie's approach, his corps are bad and they need to pay their fair share... It is so silly, after 2 decades of watching US corps flee this country he is going to go after them and make it even harder for them to operate here.

Bernie's proposals will cost this country some 5+ Trillion dollars each year, just where is all that money going to come from? Remember, it is not just socialized medicine (3.2 Trillion/yr) but it is also free 4 year education, an infrastructure deal, and the t***sformation of our energy sources. It is a pipe dream and just how is Bernie going to pay for all these things?

So he goes for business and corporations.... How well is that going to really work Thom? He will also go for the so called wealthy, yeah there are people out there with too much money but I think that we need to be really careful in how we approach that... I think that it is interesting that you folks, or actually both sides don't ever think productively in how do we approach these issues when the solutions are so simple.

Thom, I don't know if you watched the Fox Townhall for Bernie last night but I did and a couple of things struck me about what he said. First, he was b***hing about Amazon not having to pay Taxes last year on billions of dollars of profit, why is that Thom, how is it that Amazon can make Billions of dollars in profit yet have no tax liability? Our tax laws just don't work Thom and simply raising the taxing rates or disallowing a few write offs does not work either.

I personally don't think that we should be taxing corporate profits at all, why do we tax the producers and the jobs creators? I know that your hair is probably standing on end at reading this but just follow me for a few moments longer. There are all kinds of bad things that come from the way we tax corporations and businesses such as Amazon not paying taxes on billions of dollars because of all types of credits and write offs contained in the tax code that is thousands of pages long. But that is not all, consider this, I was watching a millionaire on TV tonight, one of those who thinks he should be taxed more, his income last year was well over $1,000,000 and he was speaking of the unfairness of our system, I have to agree, it really pisses me off that hedge fund managers and folks like Warren Buffet or Bill Gates are paying taxes that often don't even approach 20% of their incomes, but again why is that? Because of double taxation, the thought is that because the corp in which they hold stock has already paid income taxes on the profits from which their dividends are drawn then they should be taxed at a substantially lower rate than income earners because they have already paid a significant tax bill out of their income source. But what if those corps didn't have a tax bill to justify that reduction in tax rates? It is no secret that the mega rich are making their money on Wall Street and paying these low tax rates. It is for this reason that I support VAT taxes in lieu of corporate taxes, tax the income at a reasonable rate and forget about taxing their incomes. It is the consumer who is paying those taxes anyway when they purchase goods and services, just get it in the open and simple without all the lobbying and corruption that surrounds the current code.

On the flip side I support flat taxes period, a flat percentage of income with the only deductions being personal exemptions that allow the government to set acceptable levels for taxing on families to begin, for example a flat rate of lets say 25% of income with no deductions other than personal deductions which serve to help working families that are not making huge incomes. IE, a personal deduction of lets say $12,500 means that a family of four would pay no taxes until they earn $50,001 and then it would only be $0.25 on that dollar over $50,000. If that same family earned $100,000 they would pay $6,250 but a millionaire earning $2,000,000 would pay $493,750 and it does not matter how they earned it because all income, investment or otherwise is taxed equally.

Bernie does not come up with thoughtful solutions, he comes to us with anger and socialist rhetoric that will never work in this country. The other thing about Bernie is that he is a guy who thinks he knows all that there is to know, not the kind of guy that is going to ever acknowledge a mistake or a problem in his agenda, he will steam roll his agenda forward and when the negative impact of his taxation and regulations begin to effect the economy Bernie will just continue down his path with out notice of the disruption he is creating. Bernie would be more inclined to nationalize industries rather than to accommodate them. What he is proposing to do to the healthcare industry in my mind is totally unconstitutional, I don't know where in the constitution the authority to completely take over an entire sector of the private economy.

A leader like Bernie would destroy our economy just as Castro did in Cuba, as Chavez did in Venezuela, just as has happened in Argentina, even the Nordic countries that you folks so like to point to are actually more capitalistic in many ways than we are and they are now confronting the fact that they can no longer support many of their entitlements....

If we tax in a manner that would accomplish 1/2 of what Bernie and many others on the left are proposing then clearly our economy would greatly suffer. When the economy suffers people suffer.

PS When Bernie was asked about being a millionaire he was like fuck you for asking, if you want to be a millionaire write a best seller, when asked why he only paid a 23% tax rate he let out that he used a small business write off, apparently he incorporated to get the lower tax rate, when asked why he only gave 3% to charity he had little to say, when asked if his new found success was not the result of capitalism he said no. Then he went off on Donald Trump about his taxes....


He is a small angry man with a bad plan.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

Unfortunately Sanders has the support of many younger v**ers. They favor socialism over capitalism. As part of their education by a very liberal teaching class, excuse me -indoctrination. They really believe that the economic system and the wealthy stole all that money from the poor. Bernie really doesn't like the founding principles.

thom w Loc: San Jose, CA

Your response is thoughtful, took some time, and seems thought out. It deserves more attention than I can give it at the moment.

Elaine2025 Loc: Seattle, Wa

Bernie is a liar, f**e and a sell out. The rich tend to put this crap forward because they believe the impact on themselves will be minimal. Middle America will shoulder the burden.