Former California GOP Chairman Tom Del Beccaro listed nine ways in which America is moving towards socialism during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Monday.
Del Beccaro said increased government spending and inflated tax codes are just the beginning and claimed they’ll have a domino effect on the rest of the country.
“We do have massive [spending],” he said. “We are going to spend $7.6 trillion as a society in this upcoming year which is roughly four times what Reagan’s era spent when he said government was the problem.”
“We have massive tax systems,” Del Beccaro continued. “And hallmarks of socialist societies are poor incentives where there is weak economic growth. And that comes from tax systems. Trump did a good job beginning with the business tax code. He’s got to do better with personal so we have better growth.”
He then moved to reduced economic growth through government interference and cited the EU as a prime example.
“[The EU] had zero economic growth over the last 20 years and government is about 60, 70 percent of their economies,” Del Beccaro said. “In the United States, we’re about 36 [percent]. With regulations closer to 50. Our growth has slipped from four to two over the last sixty years.”
He also highlighted deficit spending and said it eventually leads to the printing of money, before massive inflation kicks in. (RELATED: Venezuelans Who’ve Fled Socialism Shred ‘Hands Off Venezuela’ Protesters)
“No government can keep up with the spending, taxes can’t do enough,” he said. “So they start printing money. This is the danger zone when that sort of thing happens. We had it once in the ’70s. Venezuela has it now. They have about a million percent inflation this year. A million.”
WATCH:
Printing money leads to wage and price controls, which could limit commerce and availability, giving rise to underground economies.
“This all comes out of weak economic growth. That’s the key here. If you have zero or less growth, you’re going to have stagnation. And then you start having shortages,” he said.
“In the United States, we had a lot of this during the Carter era. Once the engine got going under Reagan then it changed.”
Del Beccaro said the final two stages of socialism are class warfare and societal discord.
“That all relates to economic growth. If people can get jobs, then they start to worry about what’s on their own plate and advancing,” he said. “But if they can’t get jobs, they look to the others and say well, they’re doing too well. And if you have too much income gap or wealth gap, then it gets played up. That’s where the real danger zone starts.”
Del Beccaro said America has become more socialist over the last 20 years and accused Democrats of normalizing ideas like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.
“Spending is so much more. And if they went forward with something like Medicare for All and drove spending above 50 percent, then socialism starts to sound normal and comes into view,” he said. “If we kill off economic growth with AOC’s Green New Deal, then you’re going to have this class warfare. This can be avoided.”
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