Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the Perfect Poster Child for Bernie Sanders' Millennials

Senator Bernie Sanders was the Pied Piper of socialism to a generation of Millennials. They sucked it up, hook, line and sinker. Free! Free! Free! is quite a siren call to many. The nascent Democratic-Socialist wing of the Democratic Party blossomed. Alexandria Ocasio-Castro, a community organizer for Senator Sanders, upset Congressman Joe Crowley on June 28 in the primary for the 14th New York Congressional District overlapping the Bronx and Queens. She quickly became the new media star of the Democrats and the poster child of the Democratic Socialists. She is young, 28. If elected she will become the younger woman elected to Congress. She is a fresh face in the Democratic Party. She is articulate. She is energetic. She is telegenic. Alexandria Ocasio-Castro is also smart, contrary to some internet bloggers She graduated fourth in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University, with a dual major in economics and international relations. Her message resonates with many of Bernie’s Millennials: Free Medicare for all Free college tuition Government jobs for all workers Elimination of ICE Impeachment of President Trump Too many Millennials are graduating deeply in debt with majors that, at best, get then low paying jobs. They don’t feel the traditional American Dream. The Native New Yorker proved last week that she’s not yet ready for prime time, which makes her perfect for many Millennials. Her answers to many questions display a degree of ignorance of economics and history. That she was an econ and international relations major makes you wonder what she was taught in college. She parrots much of the tripe she was exposed to in college and within her circle. Many college graduates today lack the ability to engage in critical analysis and critical thinking. Sadly, too many of the young generation are young, gifted and uninformed. She said our country was not founded on capitalism: “When this country started, we were not a capitalist – we did not operate on a capitalist economy.” Of course, it was. 90% of Americans lived on farms at Independence. Farmers are the epitome of independent capitalists. The other early Americans worked as merchants and traders, shipbuilders, fishermen and whalers, and small industrialists, such as the fabled Paul Revere, who was a coppersmith. The Pilgrims had tried socialism. It failed. The free loaders were sapping the drive and initiative of workers. She must have missed the course in economic history, unless it was a course in Marxism. She explained the country’s low unemployment rate as “Well, unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs.” ??????? Common sense tells us that the more people with two jobs, the fewer jobs available for others. She continued “Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their kids.” “And so, I do think that, right now, when we have this no-holds-barred, Wild West hypercapitalism, what that means is profit at any cost.” Free! Free! Free! Someone has to pay for it. Her position is clear: Taxes! Taxes! Taxes! She said, appropriately on Comedy Central: “If people pay their fair share, if corporations and the ultra wealthy, for example as Warren Buffet likes to say, if he paid as much as his secretary, if he paid a 15% tax rate … If we reversed the tax bill but raised out corporate rate to 28%. If we do those two things and also close some of those loopholes that’s $2 trillion right there. That’s $2 trillion in ten years.” That wouldn’t cover college or free medical care. She wants to end fossil fuels, but added “Now, if we implement a carbon tax so that we can financially incentivize people away from fossil fuels, that’s an additional amount, of a large amount, of additional revenue that we could have.” Where are the carbon taxes coming from if she eliminates fossil fuels? President Obama spent 8 years raising taxes, and correspondingly freezing the economy. Liberals always demand people pay their “fair share”, but never define “fair share” because any amount is never enough, as long as it’s not them. She actually understands taxation, or did a few years earlier. After graduating from college, she got jobs as a bartender in Manhattan and a waitress in a taqueria. A significant step was joining the Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator. She established a business in 2012, the Brook Avenue Press, to publish children books based in the Bronx. She pled for lower taxes: “You really don’t make a profit in your first year. To get taxed on top of that is a real whammy.” She was a fledgling capitalist. Capitalism is tough on entrepreneurs. Many fail at their first endeavour, but learn from it in their later efforts. Others give it up. As a resident of New York City in New York State, she resides in one of the highest taxed cities in America and one of the highest taxed states in America. The high taxes have not solved the growing inequality problem, such as in her economically poor Congressional District. She should have noticed in recent ads the New York State ads trying to attract business to New York, a ‘business friendly” state, according to the ads. She continued the standard liberal rant against the military: “Then the last key, which is extremely, extremely important is reprioritization. Just last year we gave the military a $700 billion budget increase, which they didn’t even ask for, They’re, like, ‘don’t give us another nuclear bomb,’ you know?” Ignorance, talking points and tripe! The total military budget is $700 billion, a $18 billion increase. If President Trump made such a mistake, the media’s “fact-checkers” would have crucified him. President Obama spent 8 years shrinking the military and the military’s effectiveness. It’s just getting back to speed. If she wants Medicare for all, she should check out the failing Medicaid, a government health care program. If she believes in a single payer, government run healthcare system, she should check out the two existing federal health care systems, those of the VA and Indian Health Service. They are a national embarrassment. President Obama failed to fix them. A big oops was her statement on Israel. Anti-Semitism is growing globally. The left wing of the Democratic Party has joined the anti-Semitism craze. Many express it, not as anti-Jew, but as anti-Israel. President Obama was clearly anti-Semitic, but he carefully couched it as anti-Israel and its Prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. May 15, 1948 was a sad day for many Arabs. They were driven off their lands seven decades ago in Palestine, giving rise to the refugees living in Palestinian refugee camps. They demand the right of return with an international BDS Movement (Boycott, Divest, and Sanction) spreading across the world and many college campuses. Weeks of protests were planned in Gaza near the Wall. May 14, 2018 was exceptionally violent. Hamas encouraged its supporters to storm the wall, falsely claiming it had been breached. The Israeli military finally resorted to firing live ammo at the crowd. 62 Palestinians died and over 1,200 were wounded. Hamas subsequently admitted 50 of the deceased were Hamas members. The soon-to-be-elected Congresswoman said in an interview on PBS Firing Line: “What people are starting to see, as least in the occupation of Palestine, is just an increasing crisis of humanitarian conditions.” She called it a massacre. She was asked about the word “occupation.” She explained it as a human rights issue, and quickly added she supports a Two State solution. She quickly realized “occupation” was a bad choice of words. She tried a walk back: “Yeah, I mean, I think I’d also just – I am not the expert at geopolitics on this issue.” I thought she had a major in international relations. She’s weak in global developments, not just with Israel. The Jewish vote is large in Brooklyn and Queens, but not in her district, which only has a 4.1% Jewish population. The district is 49.5% Hispanic and 50% immigrants. Whites only comprise 18.41% of the population. She hasn’t learned the lessons of the Soviet Union’s demise, Cuba, and Venezuela, as well as China, Vietnam, India, and Israel before they turned to capitalism to improve the lives of their people. She should study the recent history of England, whose post-World War II economic distress was worsened in the long term by Prime Minister’s Clement Atlee’s turn to socialism. It didn’t recover until Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher reintroduced capitalism to the country and economy. Alexandria is of Puerto Rican ancestry. She should look to the economic poverty of Puerto Rico even before Hurricane Maria. She should check out the hapless San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz Soto, who complained of the lack of support by President Trump while standing in front of relief supplies. She obviously believes in the power of government to solve our programs. If she read the New York Times, she would have seen a series of major articles on the increasing breakdowns of the greater New York City transit systems – all publicly owned. She probably doesn’t remember Vice President Joe Biden referring to the Port Authority’s La Guardia Airport as a “third world airport. If she frequently drives she should note the decaying roads and streets in the area. She might discover the deferred maintenance at many of our parks. The new face of Democratic Socialism won only 15,897 votes in the primary in a turnout of only 12%. That is not a ringing endorsement by voters. She's perfect for the Democratic Socialists.

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