The brains and the money inside the Trump GOP gang have one goal: implementing a radical right-wing, anti-government agenda. It does NOT matter what they call themselves– libertarian, or libertarian-infused conservatism, or conservative with a libertarian emphasis, or movement conservative — they share the same hatred for the federal government.
Why do I say this?
Boil down the Trump administration and the conservatives and you get the same basic principles:
- Taxes are tyranny.
- Government regulation destroys freedom.
- Government assistance makes poor people lazy and dependent.
- Private charity is always better than government programs.
- Cutting or elimination government programs is good regardless of the impact on real Americans.
- The free market is the answer to everything.
These ideas have been promoted for years by two of the richest and most radical right-wingers: David and Charles Koch. They’ve had company in the DeVos family, the Mercer family, and the Bradley family
David and Charles had their bone-deep hatred of government beaten into them by their father, Fred Koch, one of the original founding members of the radical right, anti-government John Birch Society. Birch doctrine declares that the federal government is essentially evil and requires that every single progressive program passed since FDR be eliminated. They don’t stop there. They demand the dismantling of our central bank and a return to the gold standard. They insist that everything the federal government does that is not specifically defined in our constitution is illegal. To put this in perspective, the John Birch Society says that our federal government can only do FOUR things:
- Run the post office
- Conduct foreign policy
- Raise an army in time of war
- Coin money
If the Birch agenda were implemented, most of the federal government would be dismantled, sold-off, and privatized. It’s not a surprise that the vast majority of Americans don’t buy these radicals ideas.
Realizing how unpopular their ideas were, the Kochs took a different tack. They decided to create the changes they wanted by building a vast, powerful political network. Their web of foundations, think tanks, and political organizations worked for decades to make their anti-government and anti-tax ideas palatable to Americans. The Kochs have succeeded. Today, a large majority of Americans hold negative views of the government.
“Waste, fraud, and abuse” and “out-of-control spending” are the mantras of the anti-government crowd. They’ve pushed for tax cuts and then more tax cuts regardless of the impact on the economy. While this was going on, the Kochs and their GOP friends grabbed every kind of government welfare including tax cuts for the wealthy, tax benefits for their corporations, government contracts pulling in billions for their industries, and a host of other “deals.”
While the Kochs and their wealthy friends have grown rich beyond measure, most American families have not shared in the largesse. Despite this, these people continue to push the same ideas: tax cuts, cutting the safety net, cutting regulations, and more tax cuts. It’s more of the trickle-down fiction that has been the backbone of every single GOP president from Reagan to Trump. And, let’s not forget, this is libertarian gospel. It’s also the gospel of the GOP.
Here are the Koch positions, the libertarian positions, the GOP positions:
- Cut taxes on corporations and on the wealthy.
- Make it hard for the IRS to collect taxes by cutting their budget.
- Replace all taxation with a 28% consumption tax – called the Fair Tax by other GOPers.
- Pass a “Balanced Budget Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution, provided that the budget is balanced exclusively by cutting expenditures, and not by raising taxes.
- Cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security with some combination of block grants, premium support, or other means.
- Expand charter schools and for-profit schools and provide as little oversight as possible. Divert tax money to private and charter schools and starve the public schools of needed funds.
- Destroy the union movement for good
- Repeal Obamacare and replace with a free-market health care system.
- Cut welfare programs, unemployment compensation, food stamps.
- Eliminate regulation on the banks and corporations
- Deny climate change and cut the Environmental Protection Agency budget
- The free market is perfect.
Unfortunately for all of us, America jumped a ride on the Trump train. What we’re about to get is a country run by the GOP anti-government gang with a bully, would-be dictator in the White House.
Imagine our country when the GOP is finished. We fell for the nonsense, again. Now we’ll get to learn the hard way that smashing the government has costs and rich folks will not be paying them.
To read about the history of Libertarians: http://claireconner.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3119&action=edit