New York Times Columnist Realizes (OMG!) That Euro Socialism Really Blows

24 May

New York Times Columnist Realizes (OMG!) That Euro Socialism Really Blows

Posted 24/05/2010 by sfcmac in Communism/Socialism, Economy, Europe, Politics. 14 Comments

Will wonders never cease. I’m surprised this got past the NYT censors.

Via Michael Walsh at Big Government.

Credit where credit is due: in this case, this story by Steven Erlanger of the New York Times:

“Across Western Europe, the “lifestyle superpower,” the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II.

Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism.

Europeans have benefited from low military spending, protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella. They have also translated higher taxes into a cradle-to-grave safety net. “The Europe that protects” is a slogan of the European Union.

But all over Europe governments with big budgets, falling tax revenues and aging populations are experiencing rising deficits, with more bad news ahead.

With low growth, low birthrates and longer life expectancies, Europe can no longer afford its comfortable lifestyle, at least not without a period of austerity and significant changes. The countries are trying to reassure investors by cutting salaries, raising legal retirement ages, increasing work hours and reducing health benefits and pensions.”

……I don’t want to spoil the fun by listing the bad news; that’s Erlanger’s job. But having lived in Europe for a good deal of my life, let me just say this news doesn’t exactly comes as a shock to those of us who spent many hours being lectured in Parisian cafes, German beer gardens, English and Irish pubs, Hungarian nightclubs and Russian gangster hangouts about the superiority of the European way of life over the savagery of the States.
http://bigjournalism.com/mwalsh/2010/05/24/must-read-of-the-day-the-times-discovers-that-european-socialism-sucks/

Nothing cures the illusions of a socialist nanny state like a swift kick in the ass from economic reality. Right now, Europe is getting its collective ass kicked.

Still think Obama’s “spread the wealth” crap is such a good idea?

14 responses to this post.

Posted by sfcmac on 26/05/2010 at 11:58

Ben,
Are saying the “stimulus” wasn’t a sham, and that Obama won’t raise taxes through ObamaCare and other measures?

SFC MAC
Posted by Ben Hoffman on 26/05/2010 at 10:28

[Your “facts” are nothing but leftwing spin. Epic. Fail.]

Are you saying that $288 billion of the stimulus were not tax cuts?
Posted by sfcmac on 26/05/2010 at 09:52

Ben,
Your “facts” are nothing but leftwing spin. Epic. Fail.

SFC MAC
Posted by Ben Hoffman on 26/05/2010 at 09:38

[Ben, you’re such a putz.]

Yeah, I know. I look at the facts rather than right-wing spin on the facts. What a dolt I am.
Posted by sfcmac on 26/05/2010 at 09:09

Ben,

You’re a brainless dolt. That “truth-o-meter” just caused my bullshit detector to peg. The biggest liar is Obama. That so-called “stimulus” was the economic equivalent of Potemkin Village.

READ:

The Associated Press has a story this morning called “Unemployment challenges Obama’s economic narrative.” No kidding.

I never get tired reminding stimulus advocates that before the stimulus bill was passed, the president scared the bejesus out of many people by claiming that if the Stimulus bill wasn’t passed, unemployment would reach 8.8 percent. Also, his team promoted the idea that the stimulus would create 3.3 million jobs (not just saved). They even had numbers and a model to prove it.

So the president got his cash, $789 billion which grew to $862 billion, and unemployment kept going up. It even passed 10 percent at one point and is now stagnating at 9.7 percent–where it’s scheduled to stay for a while.

And it’s not the only “job bill” that was passed. There was one in March 2020 ($18 billion) and another one in April 2010.

By the president’s own logic, the stimulus failed. That’s why he has shifted his argument. Sure, the economy lost jobs, he now says, but without the stimulus it would have lost nearly 2 million more jobs. How you go about proving that this is not true is impossible and this is why it’s not powerful. It doesn’t make it right.

……If you want a true picture of the failures of the Obama stimulus bill think about the following. Not only is unemployment high and will stay this way for a while, but the people who are unemployed stay unemployed way longer than they used to. The chart below shows that no job bill or stimulus is changing that trend. In fact, it might be creating the trend.

http://biggovernment.com/vderugy/2010/04/27/hows-that-stimulus-working-for-you/

More facts:

Even the liberal Associated Press is now chiding President Obama for falsely claiming that his proposed tax on uninsured people is not a tax. It is a tax increase, the AP says, and it would be enforced by the IRS: “Memo to President Barack Obama: It’s a tax. Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance – and fining them if they don’t – isn’t the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation’s health care system doesn’t quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax.”

The AP also notes that the Administration’s proposed health-care tax increases contradict “Obama’s campaign pledge on taxes”: “‘I can make a firm pledge,’ he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12, 2008. ‘Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.’ He repeatedly promised ‘you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime.’”

……The costly cap-and-trade energy tax passed by the House and supported by Obama would lead to big tax increases, Administration officials privately have conceded, even though they publicly claim otherwise. “Officials at the Treasury Department think cap-and-trade legislation would cost taxpayers hundreds of billion in taxes, according to internal documents circulated within the agency and provided to The Washington Times” by CEI. It could raise household taxes by $1761 per year, equivalent to a 15 percent tax increase. It would also result in “loss of steel, paper, aluminum, chemical, and cement manufacturing jobs.”

……Americans for Tax Reform summarizes the tax increases in ObamaCare: an individual mandate tax of $900 per individual or $3800 per family (if you don’t have health insurance); an employer mandate tax of $400 per employee if health coverage is not offered; an “excise tax on high-cost health plans”; a “medicine cabinet tax”; capping Flexible-Spending Accounts (FSA’s); abolishing most HSAs; and increasing tax penalties for HSAs.
http://www.examiner.com/x-7812-DC-SCOTUS-Examiner~y2009m9d21-Associated-Press-Obama-healthcare-plan-raises-taxes-breaks-campaign-promises

$1 trillion in new taxes over a 10 year period, starting in 2011:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/obamas-budget-a.html

Ben, you’re such a putz.

SFC MAC
Posted by Ben Hoffman on 25/05/2010 at 20:53

[He hasn’t cut any taxes, nor does he intend to.]

You’re a liar.

Nearly a third of the cost of the stimulus, $288 billion, comes via tax breaks to individuals and businesses. The tax cuts include a refundable credit of up to $400 per individual and $800 for married couples; a temporary increase of the earned income tax credit for disadvantaged families; and an extension of a program that allows businesses to recover the costs of capital expenditures faster than usual. The tax cuts aren’t so much spending as money the government won’t get — so it can stay in the economy. Of that $288 billion, the stimulus has resulted in $119 billion worth of tax breaks so far.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/feb/17/stimulus-report-card/