Warren’s got 50 plans because central planning always works
Chris Tomlinson Oct. 23, 2019
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1of5In this Oct. 15, 2019, photo, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks in the spin room following a Democratic presidential primary debate at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio. The Democratic presidential candidates are not talking much about impeachment as they campaign. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)Photo: John Minchillo, STF / Associated Press
2of5From left, Democratic presidential candidates, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, businessman Tom Steyer, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, Photo: Tony Dejak, STF / Associated Press
3of5Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) during the Democratic presidential debate at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, Oct. 15, 2019. A day after they sparred in the Democratic presidential debate, Biden aimed more criticism at Warren, who has joined him as a front-runner. (Tamir Kalifa/The New York Times)Photo: TAMIR KALIFA, STR / NYT
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s rhetoric should strike terror in the heart of every businessperson.
Got a problem? She’s got 50 plans because central planning always solves everything.
“Costs will go up for the wealthy,” Warren says, in explaining her health care plan. “They will go up for big corporations.” A mantra she often repeated at the Democratic debate last week.
Got a business? If you work for a large corporation trying to make a profit, you are the enemy of the people.
“They have no loyalty to American workers. They have no loyalty to American consumers. They have no loyalty to American communities. They are loyal only to their own bottom line,” Warren said.
Poppycock. Every executive knows the company’s bottom line depends on workers, consumers and communities thriving. Some corporations may behave badly, and CEOs are generally overpaid, but Warren sounds more like a 19th-century Russian revolutionary than a 2020 candidate for the U.S. presidency. Right down to her proposal to shift power to the proletariat.
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“You want to have one of the giant corporations in America? Then, by golly, 40 percent of your board of directors should be elected by your employees,” she said. Such boards would keep American companies from moving jobs overseas or closing factories, she promised.
Proposals like these may sound brilliant in a university lecture hall, where young, impressionable students may believe more democratic corporate boards would benefit workers. But Warren’s concept of accountable capitalism would scare away investors, encourage more corporations to move overseas and hurt workers in the long run.
When my employer deposits a portion of my salary in a retirement fund, I expect the fund manager to generate the best return. That means investing in the most profitable, best-run companies in the world.
Sometimes a corporation needs to move jobs overseas to remain competitive. Sometimes a CEO needs to shutter a plant that makes products no one wants. Investors expect corporations to make those hard decisions, even if the employees oppose them. In the face of such absurd requirements, corporations will move overseas.
Here is the fundamental problem with Warren’s plans: She focuses far too much on the have-nots and not enough on the have-a-littles.
Warren knows few people will object to levying her wealth tax on the top 1 percent, or even the wealthiest 5 percent. But her policies would also hurt the 50 percent of Americans who work for big corporations and have access to a 401(k) or other individual retirement accounts.
Ever since employers began eliminating traditional pensions, most people under 55 rely on a defined contribution plan, such as a 401(k), that invests in stocks and bonds for their retirement. Mess with the big corporations, and you mess with middle-class American’s retirement.
When Warren talks about Medicare for All, which would put us all in a government-run health care system, she’s also ignoring the middle-class families who like their current plans. Americans love the freedom to choose, and health care advocates ignore that at their peril.
The United States certainly needs universal coverage so that no American suffers just because they are poor, and health care costs are out of control. But competition spurs innovation and increases efficiencies, and the private sector does that better than government.
Warren’s plans will be expensive, and she is finally shedding more light on how she will use wealth taxes, capital gains taxes and income taxes to pay for them. She says her plan will raise taxes $2.75 trillion a year to pay for health care and education spending, but only on corporations and the wealthy.
“They will not go up for middle-class families,” Warren promised. “And I will not sign a bill into law that raises their costs.”
Americans should know, though, that middle-class for a family of four is defined as earning between $52,187 and $156,561 a year, according to the Pew Research Center. A lot of families who think they are middle class, but make more than $160,000 a year, should understand that Warren’s plan would raise their taxes.
The way she sees it, Warren’s solution for the problems facing America are central planning, higher taxation and increased regulation. She demonizes the wealthy and corporations, two easy targets for the base of the Democratic Party. In her search for campaign donations, she unashamedly bashes the successful.
Demagoguery, whether from the right or the left, is equally destructive to American society. American capitalism requires reasonable, market-based reforms, but swinging from one extreme to the other is not the answer to our polarized politics. Neither is class warfare the way to solve our economic disparities.
Warren’s disdain for business and disrespect for the successful disqualifies her from the presidency
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