Thomas Sowell: "Santa Claus Politics"

As we enter into this election year let me say that I am not hopeful. I abhor socialism and there are few realistic candidates available that do not promote that Utopia.

There isn't much point in even looking on the Democrat side this year as each and every candidate is not only a socialist, but proud to be a socialist. On the Republican side we have, with two notable exceptions, a bevy of politicians that see government as the primary component in a solution to all of our economic and social problems. If you like the European model of economic success you can easily fall in love with any horse in that stable of benevolent thoroughbreds.

Thomas Sowell in Townhall today writes:

Senator Hillary Clinton's Christmas commercial, showing various government programs as presents under a Christmas tree, was a classic example of calculated confusion in politics.

Anyone who believes that the government can give the country presents has fallen for the oldest political illusion of all -- the illusion of something for nothing.

Santa Claus may turn out to be the real front-runner in the primaries, judging by the way candidates are vying with one another to give away government goodies to the voters.

Santa Claus is bipartisan. The Bush administration is unveiling its plan to rescue people who gambled and lost in the housing markets when the bubble burst.

We now have a bipartisan tradition of the government stepping in to rescue people who engaged in risky behavior -- whether by locating in the known paths of hurricanes in Florida or in areas repeatedly hit by wildfires over the years in California or by doing things that increase the probability of catching AIDS.

Why not also rescue people who gambled away their life's savings in Las Vegas? That would at least be consistent.

This is a very interesting article written by an economist. Sadly, an occupation very underrepresented among this year's presidential candidates but also in Congress--as Sowell so aptly points out.