STUART VARNEY (HOST): President Trump said it very clearly: America will never be a socialist country. He was pointing out that the Democrats are now leaning so far to the left that they have become a socialist party. And he thinks he'll beat them and save the country from a disastrous far-left turn.
To be clear, the leading lights of the Democrat Party are indeed pushing socialist ideas. Let's not get bogged down in Venezuelan socialism versus European socialism versus Soviet communism. The policies now being pushed by the Democrats are based on, one, government control of all aspects of your life, and two, expropriation -- that is, the seizure -- of private property. They would abolish capitalism as we know it.
On this program, we've laid out the massive tax hikes demanded by some presidential candidates. This is socialist-style legal theft. Income tax rate, 70 percent or higher. Death taxes, 77 percent. Even an extra Social Security tax on high incomes. Just take it off them. You'll hear a lot of this, the rich don't need all that money. That's the kind of thing that socialists actually say.
Move on to this “Medicare-for-all” proposal, that is a socialist power grab. Private health insurance will be replaced, banned actually, by a vast government bureaucracy that would decide the drugs to be used and the treatment to be offered -- even the pay the doctors would receive. The socialists want the power that socialized medicine gives them.
Move on to the control of business. Sen. [Elizabeth] Warren demands that big business get a license to operate, and you don't get that license if you don't run the company the way the socialists want. That is a power grab. How about the Green New Deal? That's top-down socialist revolution. In 10 years, no more oil, gas, or coal, trillions in new taxes, and a guaranteed job for everybody. How do we get there? [Rep.] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants a select committee for a Green New Deal. As The Wall Street Journal says, that's like a Soviet five-year plan. Twenty-two months until the next presidential election and the lines have already been drawn. It's capitalism -- Trump -- versus socialism -- Democrats. The only way to upset that equation is if Joe Biden runs and wins the Democrat nomination. Dream on moderates, the socialists will move heaven and Earth to stop him.
