Dennis Kucinich's New Horizon is Not All That New by Jan Ireland

Dennis Kucinich's New Horizon is Not All That New

By Jan Ireland

August 08, 2003

Dennis Kucinich is one of the nine (and counting) men and woman (to be women?) lumbering toward the 2004 Democrat presidential nomination. One of the lackluster group that 66% of the American public can't name, according to a recent CBSNews poll. But if you take a closer look at some of Kucinich's own words, he starts to fit into a typical democrat pattern. Tax and spend.

We can look at some of the entries about Economy under Kucinich on the Issues, at his official Kucinich for president website.

"I see a new horizon in this country where there is no such thing as an acceptable level of unemployment."

Sorry, Dennis. You won't ever get all able-bodied people to work. Some people don't want to work. Some people want to manipulate the system and get others to support them. Some people like receiving benefits from the government without working at all.

And some people think any job lacking high salary, benefits and retirement is just not good enough. Look at the teeming pages of want ads in papers across the nation, going unfilled, because they're "not good enough." Look at the illegal aliens who flock to our nation to take jobs, and they're not all migrant workers, are they?

"We need a new financial mechanism to get money to cities and states to begin rebuilding and to put America back to work."

In America, Capitalism creates jobs. Government can print money, but it can't generate money on its own. So Dennis will be reaching into our pockets for the money he wants to send to states.

"The federal government can give cities and states loans for infrastructure programs to be repaid over a period of 30 years, at zero interest."

So Dennis thinks he's not reaching into our pockets. He'll just take the money the federal government already has.

"A Federal Bank for Infrastructure Maintenance would administer a program of lending $50 billion per year to state and local governments."

Now there's reassurance. $50 billion to loan to the states? That would cover California's current year deficit, and have about $10 billion left over for the other 49 states.

No mention of how the states, in budget crunches, would repay this money. And we all saw what paragons of virtue the states were when they got the tobacco settlement money that was supposed to go to health costs incurred because of smokers, and to stop-smoking programs. Sure, we can trust the states to use wisely and pay back $50 billion dollars.

And, we already have Federal Banks. Why a new Federal Bank for Infrastructure Maintenance. Another entire government entity, with bureaucracy and red tape, and countless new hires? How much money would be needed to start that? And how many union, that is to say, government jobs would get cushy income and retirement perks from that? Or, is it a voting bloc ready-made to reelect Dennis the next time around.

I say that all these billions would be coming from our pockets. It could be from our pockets via new taxes.

Who is a prominent democrat who said he would not raise taxes, and who went on to give us the biggest tax increase in recent history? And who is a failed democrat presidential candidate who didn't realize the microphone was on, when he smiled and recounted to his friend how they were going to get elected and then tax their a**** off?

It could be from our pockets by his "repealing" the tax cuts George W. Bush has put into place. But make no mistake. The money would come from our pockets.

Contrast that with where Dennis says the money would come from:

"The money comes from an innovative adaptation of the normal money supply circulation activity of the Federal Reserve Bank. The cost to the American taxpayer is simply the cost of the interest on the loans."

That's convoluted. I read it to mean Dennis either thinks the government can just print up more money, as much as it needs. Who owns the printing presses after all? Or, it means that he will "redirect" funds as he thinks necessary, taking money from one area to move to another.

Or, it means that Dennis intends to take Walter Mondale's unwitting comment to heart. And he plans to tax our a**** off.