There is no “we.” Move to Norway.
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You can have an expanded welfare state or open borders, but not both. The Nordic nations are learning that lesson the hard way, but our Democrats are hellbent on collapsing the country.
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I was speaking of something like wealth-to-population ratio, in the same manner that two shapes of different sizes are congruent when the proportions between their own elements are the same. But I see what you mean about logistics.
Libs have absolute power in CA, how’s that working out?
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I would suppose (pretty certain) that the structure of their economy is different than that of ours. I’ve said this before, if we can infinitely deficit spend then clearly money is not and never will be an issue. Personally, I’m not in that camp (and would assume you as well) and see that a limiting factor as pointed out here:
In other words, the wealth to population ratio, may be more complicated in implementing such types of programs here. Not sure if I’m articulating this the best?
That link is no longer available.
@Samson_Corwell, here’s along the lines of what I am talking about:
The most basic progressive narrative is that deficits don’t matter and that taxing the rich can eliminate the deficit. But approximately 70 percent of the 2001 and 2017 tax cut costs and subsequent extensions went to the middle and lower classes. If you size up their fiscal impact, only a tiny sliver can be attributed to “tax cuts for the rich.”
Seizing every home, yacht, business, and investment from America’s 800 billionaires would fund the federal government for just nine months. And then the money would be gone. So would your 401(k), given that most of this wealth would be seized from the stock market, causing the S&P 500 to crater.
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I doubt any liberal or lefty here thinks we’re going to become like Norway, or even an approximation of it.
We began referring to Scandinavian social democracies in large part as a response to decades of rightwing ■■■■■■■■ like “Obamacare (or Medicare, or whatever) will turn us into Soviet Russia! (or North Korea or Venezuela)” and all the other dumb slippery slope nonsense about welfare state programs invariably leading to gulags.
I remember when this article came out: it’s more a matter of we won’t than we can’t. And it’s kind of a false dichotomy/strawman; between our current system and the Nordic one, there are countless alternatives. If we choose to provide single-payer healthcare (for example), we’d probably do it differently, according to different priorities and the demands of an entirely different context.
But I gotta give credit: as far as conservative publications go, City Journal is better than some of the other crackpot sources I’ve seen around here over the last decade. So thanks for that.
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The Nordic countries also fund much of their government spending through state controlled natural resource exports. Any country with a small population and large exports (oil, gas, minerals), because they have something, that lots of people outside their country are seeking to acquire, will be able to provide generous benefits with funds generated through exports. Just look at the Gulf states as a prime example. Tiny populations, massive oil exports, controlled by national oil companies…
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The scary figure is thrown out there of high taxes.
But in the context of Scandinavian countries those taxes are funding much more than
medical costs as in Universal Health Care. They also fund:
- Higher Education meaning no education loans to pay off
- Child Care meaning no crushing child care costs
- Elder Care for LTC facilities, home care, and visiting nursing programs
- Basic retirement income for the elderly
WW
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Lipstick on a pig. 
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Do you know why Swedish ships have barcodes on their hulls?
It’s so they can Scandinavian.
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I’m literally using the term used by the writers of the article in the OP. Did you read it?
What should they have used instead? Maybe send them an email correction.
That’s not how the scandanavian countries got their social safety net.
It could be done most likely. But them aircraft carriers and about a trillion dollars worth of new ICBMs that we frankly don’t need (we should cut the land based part of the nuclear triad) don’t pay for themselves.
So do we want to be Nova Rome, like we currently do, or do we want a better welfare state? You can’t have both.
That European social welfare is great for them since they are mostly under our nuclear umbrella and our defense doctrine. Could the Netherlands run its welfare state if it was forced to suddenly develop and maintain nuclear weapons (that’s not cheap) and maintain a conventional military that could perform offensive operations against Russia by itself with no support?
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I recall reading about that as well. Which is another significant structural difference between our economy and theirs.
We produce more oil than Norway…maybe the USA should take a bigger cut…vs billions in profits for companies. Just a thought.
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Our for profit health insurance industry is about $1.4 trillion, which is paid for by people and companies and governments (state and local)
Our Defense Budget is $2.4 trillion. Do we need that much? Of course, that is also a jobs creator as well…
NATO countries are starting to have bigger budgets (thanks Donald!). Which means we could probably afford to cut ours as well.
We are Americans. It is BS we can’t make this work…
We could make it work. I’m just not sure if we could make it work and keep being Nova Roma at the same time. Empire is expensive. Something has to give.
In the Cold War and its immediate aftermath we chose to be Nova Roma with a small basic welfare state.
I’m down with cutting the Empire ■■■■ and focusing on our own citizens for once. But I’ve got no confidence that the current breed of politicians are willing to do it.
For example right now I’m up in arms about the LGM-35 Sentinel program. Because it’s ■■■■■■■ stupid and is going to cost us about a trillion dollars between now and 2040 to replace the Minuteman III ICBMs. When we could just cut the land based part of the triad and focus on Submarines and our bombers. All the ICBMs are is a sponge target to hopefully tempt the Russians and Chinese into vaporizing Montana and Wyoming first instead of the rest of the country in a nuclear war.
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Democratic socialists.
I know you are. The Venezuelans voted for their socialism too. Also.
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