Statistics 2018

                                             

On a recent trip to India Citizen Hillary Clinton found another reason for her loss in the 2016 Presidential election. To the list that includes Russia, and James Comey, the former director of the FBI, she added White Married Women living in deplorable states that contribute little to the Gross National Product (GNP).

Perhaps forgetting her origins as a white, married woman married to a controlling husband from Arkansas, she believes that these women were influenced to vote for Trump by their husbands, sons, bosses etc. She cannot believe that these married white women could have been reasonable or intelligent enough to make up their own minds.

Clinton’s statement must mirror the feelings of many of her former fans. Her complaint about “deplorables” in the campaign only mirrored Barack Obama’s remark about people clinging unreasonably to their guns and religion in the 2008 campaign.  The idea that anyone opposed to the liberal/progressive agenda must be an ignorant, superstitious redneck has become ingrained in a large segment of American society.

People like Citizen Clinton, former President Obama, and Socialist Democrat Bernie Sanders cannot believe that reason, knowledge, and experience can exist on the other side of the political spectrum. Their more progressive followers cannot even stomach independence or moderation in politics. The way in which they shout down or even ban speakers on college campuses is just a sign that they cannot imagine that these speakers have anything reasonable to say.

To act in such a way means they must ignore certain inconvenient facts or truths. Here are some statistics on current issues culled from articles in the most recent issue of the St. CroixReview, a small independent, mid-western journal of opinion.

Issue 1: Tax cuts.

In 1980, the last fiscal year of the Carter administration, total Federal tax revenues were $517 billion. By 1988 after the implementation of the Reagan tax cuts, total Federal revenues had grown to $909 billion.  The economic growth stimulated by lower tax rates had caused Federal revenues to grow by almost 50% during the Reagan years. Reducing the highest tax rate from 50% to 28% did not cause government revenue to decline.

By 2003, the year in which the so-called Bush tax cuts were passed, total Federal Revenues were $1723 billion. By 2007 Federal tax revenues had grown to about $2568 billion although they did drop in 2008 to $2524 billion at the start of the Great Recession. Once again, economic growth had led to increased Federal tax revenue despite lower tax rates.

The evidence that lower tax rates cause Federal revenue to increase would make you wonder why conservative opponents of big government usually are the ones to favor lower rates, while liberals are the ones who oppose tax cuts. Of course, despite increased revenues federal deficits continued to increase as spending regularly outstripped income.

Issue 2:  Progressivism, Socialism, and Communism

Exhaustive studies in recent years have shown that the death toll in Communist regimes during the past 100 years has been more than imagined. The death toll in the Soviet Union during the Stalin years alone is now estimated at between 60 to 70 Million. The death toll in China under Chairman Mao was also about 60 to 70 Million. These were not war casualties but murders of their own citizens.

Although they pale in comparison with Russian and China, Communist regimes in southeast Asia, like North Korea, Vietnam, and Cambodia have also caused the deaths of millions either by famine, imprisonment, or execution. The Communist regime in Cuba, the darling of progressives in this country, is no exception. It is estimated that 100,000 Cubans have died at the hands of the Castro regime; 1000000 have fled the country, and about 500000 have been through the Cuban prison systems.

The numbers are still rising but the total deaths now attributed to Communist regimes in the past 100 years is put at 140 million. Why are these regimes so admired in progressive circles?  The Holocaust with its 6 Million dead is the subject of innumerable books and films. How many films have been made about Russia’s Gulag prison camps, or the millions who died in Mao’s cultural revolution?  Why is the murderous Che Guevara lionized on American college campuses? Even today thousands are fleeing Venezuela where the Communist/Socialist regime is systematically starving its own people.

Given these statistics, is it unreasonable to be suspicious of those who advocate a larger and larger role of government in our lives?

Issue 3: Tariffs.

In 2005 China’s share of global solar cell production was 7%. By 2012 China’s share of global solar panel construction had increased to 61%. During that period 30 American solar panel makers went out of business.  The Wall Street Journal always plumps for free trade but it is not free trade when a country subsidizes its own industries whose products, of often inferior quality,  flood the American market. After all, who cares if a solar panel lasts only five or ten years?

###