From Webster’s:
so•cial•ism
noun
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state These days opponents label the President a socialist. It’s grossly inaccurate and ignorant. To counter the claim, let’s look at an argument I heard recently that Obama’s passage of the health care reform bill makes him a socialist.
If Barack Obama is a socialist for signing HCR (a very middle of the road bill that uses many of the same ideas proposed by Republicans back in the ‘90s but that’s a different discussion), then the majority of congressmen and women are socialists since they voted yes. We also have to conclude that other socialistic government programs signed in the past make the congressmen who voted for them and the Presidents who signed them socialists. I guess we should include everyone in the United States who supports any of these programs too, socialists one and all.
Here’s a partial list of socialist programs in the United States:
- Social Security – Signed: 1935. President: FDR (let’s also not forget FDR’s alphabet soup of government assistance programs including the CCC, the WPA, etc.)
- Federal Unemployment Tax Act – Signed: 1939. President: FDR. This act is the basis for today’s joint federal-state unemployment programs. (As for the federal government financing extended unemployment benefits, George W. Bush did so in 2002-2003 and Barack Obama has done so now.)
- Disability benefits added to Social Security – Signed: 1956. President: Dwight D. Eisenhower. (There have been numerous other amendments to SS signed by various Presidents over the years, but let’s move on.)
- Medicare – Signed: 1965. President: Lyndon B. Johnson
- Medicaid, food stamps, and welfare were also signed by LBJ.
- Medicare-D – Signed: 2003. President: George W. Bush. This bill was a huge expansion of the Medicare program. Over the next ten years it’s expected to cost the federal government over $700 billion.
- TARP – Signed: 2008. President: George W. Bush. The federal government bailout of Wall Street is a great example of a socialist action.
For the record, President Clinton signed welfare reform that cut benefits and led to a massive 60% decrease in the number of people on the welfare rolls. I guess he was the anti-socialist.
If we’re going to claim that Barack Obama is a socialist, at a minimum we need to label FDR, Dwight D. Eisenhower, LBJ, and George W. Bush socialists too as well as all of the congressmen and women who passed the bills above and everyone who supports any of these programs today.
Where were today’s “Obama is a socialist!” protestors when Bush was signing Medicare-D or the TARP bill or extending unemployment benefits? *crickets*. Huh. How about that?
The fact is that labeling any of these people socialists is asinine. Labeling the hundreds of millions of Americans who support one or more of these programs a socialist is equally asinine. You’re not a socialist for supporting these programs. You’re supporting a socialistic policy, but that’s not the same thing.
The United States, like every other first world democracy, is a mixed economy. That means it’s a blend of capitalism and socialism. Nations are at different points on the spectrum between capitalism and socialism, but almost any knowledgeable person would agree that the US leans more toward the capitalism side than most other first world democracies (most of Europe as well as Canada, Australia, etc.)
The “socialist” label implies someone who wants our system of government to be a socialist state, something that absolutely none of these Presidents wanted. Calling Barack Obama a socialist isn’t as stupid as calling him a Nazi, but I’d rank it up there with calling him a Muslim. Both claims are false and make the accuser look ignorant.
You know who else doesn’t think Barack Obama is a socialist?
Actual socialists.
