While it is only 2019, and the General Election of 2020 is still sixteen months away, there are already detectable and distinct patterns rising up among the crowd of those who would be president.
One of the most obvious at this point is vote buying; and you may be saying, “Vote buying? What’s that?” Okay, let’s define it. According to the Governance & Social Development Research Center (GSDRC): “vote buying is usually viewed as a purely economic exchange in which the voter sells his or her vote to the highest bidder.”
Really? This can happen? Well, in a literal sense, no. The practice of outright vote buying for cash is banned throughout the U.S. However, when you look at some of the things being thrown about, there just might be a long term “cash effect” which would benefit a specific group of voters. Let’s look at a few:
Bernie Sanders is big on college debt forgiveness or debt elimination. How? He’ll simply take aim at one of his favorite targets and tax Wall Street.
Kamala Harris is a busy bee. Not only is she into reparations for descendants of slaves, but she is also speaking of $100 billion in federal money for housing assistance for black families as part of her 2020 presidential campaign. She recently tweeted, “After generations of discrimination, it’s time to give Black families a real shot at homeownership.”
Democrat 2020 contender Elizabeth Warren promised teachers’ union members she would tax the wealthy to provide free daycare for every newborn in the country. The senator from Massachusetts told members of the National Education Association at a 2020 Forum in Houston she would enact a two cent per dollar tax on every $50 million levied against 75,000 of the top earners in the United States. Ms. Warren also speaks of reparations to members of the gay community.
Okay. These are just a few examples of vote buying from our friends on the left. Besides the way these types of proposed government give-aways unbalance our political process, is there something even more problematic? What does it suggest about the person(s) making the promise?
This writer would suggest that it underscores a very significant deficiency within the person “giving away the farm”. Is it, perhaps, an unspoken admission that this person really doesn’t have what it takes to be in the Executive Branch of our federal government? That, he or she, can’t speak to the core issues of government like ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, or promoting the general welfare and is instead searching for a gimmick that will put them over the top with voters.
Presidential contenders have always made big promises. That is a fact. But in the evolution of American politics, could it be time for voters to demand more from these individuals than the party favors that only benefit a small portion of the country? Could we ask them to govern the entire population? I think we could.
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