Is Bernie Sanders a Socialist?

February 12, 2016 -- Well, that’s really two questions, isn’t it? What is Bernie Sanders? And what is a Socialist?
    What’s a Socialist? Classically (as derived from Marx--Karl, not Chico), a Socialist is someone who believes that the state should control “the means of production.” I don’t know what that means, either, but I’ll give it a shot: Imagine an America in which the majority stockholder (and in some cases, the monopoly shareholder) in everyone of our large corporations is -- the United States Treasury. That’s Socialism.
    The Government of the United States -- (and who is that, actually? Well, that’s The People) -- owns control of corporate America. We own the Big Banks, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the automakers … we own Corporate Agriculture (you know, ConAgra & Perdue & Dole & Del Monte & Hershey) … we own the energy companies, we own the railroads, we own the utilities, we own the internet service providers. We own the movie studios and the television networks… That’s Socialism.
    We don’t own all of everything, of course. We don’t own little corporations -- until they get to be Big Corporations. Then we buy them. But, as I understand Socialism, we don’t just passively “own” stuff like Sprint or Bank of America or Con Edison or Comcast Universal, we run them. Your elected representatives (executive branch appointments confirmed by the Congress) select the board members who oversee these corporate entities. Tell them what to do. Which is, basically, turn a profit. Because what’s the point of owning all the stock in Comcast Universal if the executives managing the damn thing can’t make money?
    And the other -- really nice -- thing about Socialism: the corporate tax rate on net profits (i.e., gross receipts minus expenses, including depreciation) is 100%. Under Socialism, equity markets as we know them today -- with capital gains, leveraged buyouts, mutual funds, sub-prime-mortgage (junk) bonds & the other stuff in “The Big Short” that went right over my head -- would disappear faster than Kaiser Sose.
    It’s a brave, brave new world, and I would love to live long enough to see my country transition toward it. There are fascinating questions. What would we do with Major League Baseball, for instance? The People aren’t going to own the Philadelphia Phillies. As a limited partnership, they won’t be subject to the 100% rate on corporate profits, although I dare say, their $20 million-a-year leftfielder (should they ever find one) will get a hefty personal income-tax bill every year from the IRS. … And certainly, Socialized America will never tax Venture Capitalism out of existence (better individual entrepreneurs take the risks on the Next Great App You Have to Have than having We, the People lose your money on it). And I could go on, but that’s not the real point tonight.
    The real point is Bernie Sanders, and I think I have reassured all of you who need reassurance that, whatever he is, Bernie Sanders is anything but a Socialist.

    Did you watch the debate with Hillary from Milwaukee on Thursday night? I did it for you. And took notes. So what does Bernie want?
    (1) Universal, single-payer health care for everyone in America.
    (2) Tuition-free public college (presumably, for everyone who can pass the entrance requirements, and pay for their own books)
    (3) Massive public spending on infrastructure improvements
    (4) Bringing “offshore profits” back to the US and taxing them
    (5) Funding (a lot of) these measures by imposing a “speculation tax” on Wall Street
    (6) Raising the minimum wage
    (7) Lifting the cap on incomes subject to the FICA (Social Security) tax
    (8) More (any?) Federal regulation on insurance companies, investment banks & mortgage lenders -- entities that weren’t reined in by Dodd-Frank (as if anyone has a clue about Dodd-Frank, except that “Frank” was the fackin’ gay guy from Boston).
    (9) Invoking Teddy Roosevelt … Break up the Big Banks….
    (10) Take “on” the entrenched interests

The Ten Commandments, huh? Well, George Carlin was here decades ago  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5rLWJntz-o   But that won’t stop me from stealing a page from his songbook: (4), (5), (8), (9) and (10) amount to the same thing: shaking down the financial system for more tax money, or (to be honest) making them pay at least some of the dough they’re hiding from us. (10) alone demonstrates Bernie is no Socialist. He wants to take “on” the entrenched interests. I’m a Socialist. I want to take “over” the entrenched interests.
    The other five demands are just old-fashioned populism combined with common sense. (1) is self-evident. Romney care (which is what we have) just enriches Big Pharma & Big Insurance … (2) is an “obvious” extension of what we have now, except it will enrich a Democratic constituency (unionized teachers) at the expense of local taxpayers. … (3) is what we should have been doing for decades … (6) is another way of raising taxes on small businesses hard-pressed to pay them: raise the wage, you also raise the employers’ share of FICA taxes … (7) is just a way to keep the same money coming into FICA every year after small businesses fire all the people they can’t afford to pay $15 an hour to.
    I have to back up a sec. (5) the “speculation tax” is the one I simply don’t understand. I thought at first it meant a capital-gains tax, which we have, or an increase in capital-gains-tax rates, which are ridiculously low. Now I think I have it figured out. He means an excise tax on stock purchases -- a sales tax. If you buy 100 shares of Universal Widget @ $44.00 a share [$4,400] Bernie would charge you Sales Tax on it (1%? $44) and this would be over-and-above the 6% [$264] you paid your broker to make the trade for you. In other words, you just bought Universal Widget for $47.08 a share. You better really believe it’s gonna go up

    So what’s Bernie? Sad but true, he’s just the latest incarnation of that old Republican bugbear, the tax-and-spend Democrat. In Kipling’s finely turned phrase, he wants “to rob selected Peter to pay collective Paul.”
    He’s Robin Hood.
    He’s a thief.