Scandiphilia and Income Inequality
14th October 2015
Bernie Sanders channeled the id of liberalism with his deliberate shout out last night that we should “look at” Scandinavian welfare states, especially Denmark and Sweden. He probably doesn’t know that Sweden has lately made some significant cuts to its social spending programs. But why let facts get in the way of a religious narrative.
More curious is that liberals always forget to mention that their beloved European welfare states rely on much more than high incomes taxes to pay for their benefits. All of them have very high (and regressive) consumption taxes. Sweden’s value-added tax is set at 25 percent. Any liberals in America want to propose such a tax here? Didn’t think so. You can count on that being one thing we won’t “look at” as Sanders goes forward.
The reason they are willing to give people all this free stuff is that it’s not their money.