By Jim Dickson
I try my best to pay attention to what is being said by politicians, but sometimes it’s difficult not to be insulted by some of the promises that they make. It is not uncommon for me to listen to them say what they know, and we should know is nonsense. I can’t help but think “How dumb do they think we are?”
Does anyone believe that if elected, Trump is going to walk into the Oval Office on the first day pick up the phone and call Vladimir Putin, and say” Vlad, it’s me Don, it’s time for you to knock off the war in Ukraine, and bring your guys home”, and the answer will be, “OK, Don I have been waiting for your call, I’ll get right on it.”
I sure wish that he could, but somehow I don’t think so.
How about Harris’ plan to build three million new low cost homes? Does she think that contractors are just waiting around to get a tax credit so that they can use the land they own to build low margin houses and give up profit on higher cost homes?
We already have a shortage of skilled construction workers, where are they coming from? If you give people $25,000 to put toward a new home, don’t you think the prices will rise accordingly, just as they did when the government took over the student loan program, and tuition went through the ceiling. Not to mention the accelerated demand for building material. What happens when demand exceeds supply, the price goes up. The taxpayers are far worse off, and home buyers are no better off.
Trump says that he is going to stop inflation right away. Inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods, usually because of government borrowing and spending. Yet he is proposing to do away with tax on Social Security, and tips, which will cost billions in tax revenue and will necessitate more government borrowing and spending. By the way Harris is a “me too” on that idea.
Harris, is going to force the evil grocery chains to stop raising prices on food. Most grocery stores make about 1.5% on the goods they sell. If she bothered to look at the Consumer Price Index, she would see that the wholesale cost of food has gone up at about the same rate as the retail price in the stores. A lot of this is attributable to the rising cost of fuel and transportation. How did that happen, think Green New Deal. If you take away the small 1.5% profit, stores go out of business, fewer stores mean less competition and higher prices.
It had to come sooner or later, the old socialist standby, “price controls.” Price controls don’t work, have never worked, and will never work. This last time it was tried here was by Nixon in the 1970’s. No surprise, it was a disaster. All that happened were shortages and higher prices. When people can’t make a legitimate profit on their goods, they stop making them available to the market. The only idea that is worse is a communist “five-year plan.”
We still have a $35,000,000,000,000 — that’s $35 TRILLION — debt that we owe, and some day will have to pay back. Maybe someone should talk about that. Hear anything?
Wouldn’t it be nice if people running for office would talk about some practical, common sense ideas, something that we can believe in for a change, like maybe a plan to fund Social Security or Medicare and Medicaid into the future, or rebuild our military. I don’t see that happening, they are still spouting nonsense. Maybe we are not that dumb after all. Let’s be smart as to who we elect locally and who we send to Congress. That’s a beginning.
Born, raised and educated in the Southwest, Jim Dickson served in the U.S. Navy Reserve in Vietnam before a 35-year business career. Retired to St. Helena Island, Dickson and his wife are fiscally conservative, socially moderate and active in Republican politics, though they may not always agree with Republicans. Having lived around the country and traveled around the world, Dickson believes that the United States truly is the land of opportunity.
