By David P. Goldman
Glenn Ellmers and Ted Richards make an eloquent and powerful case that government intervention in the economy is pushing the United States toward totalitarianism.
As they write: Democrats constantly have some new way to try to nationalize industries. Healthcare and entitlement increases under Obama, student loan forgiveness and the whole suite of "Bidenomics" policies under Biden. Lastly, during the COVID era, wealth and market transfers from small, independent businesses and individuals to giant corporate conglomerates reached astounding levels, and anyone who wanted them (even some who didn't) was mailed thousands of dollars repeatedly in the form of "direct payments" for relief during the pandemic. Government bailouts of industries, the depletion of social security, the growth of national regulations on the economy, the list goes on. The economy has been nationalizing for years in various forms.
Indeed, government direction of the U.S. economy has risen to levels our forebears could not have imagined when totalitarian regimes were seizing control of markets across Europe and Asia a century ago. By my calculation, federal transfer payments now comprise 24% of Americans' personal spending, up from 6% just after the Second World War. They eat up 70% of the federal budget, while federal support for research and development has fallen from 11% of the budget at the peak of the Apollo program in the early 1960s to about 3% today. | 
Posts
