Monday, February 05, 2007

Moving Sharply Left

The “Big Three” Democratic presidential hopefuls are making a hard-left turn in the ’08 Presidential race—despite the fact that Congressional Dems won last November because they did their best imitation of Republicans (who themselves forgot to be Republicans).

Hillary, Obama, and Edwards are all running as lefties—anti-growth, anti-business, anti-war, and anti-capitalism.

This past Friday, Mrs. Clinton announced her profound aversion to oil company profits and cited ExxonMobil as enemy number one. (Thanks to a link from Matt Drudge, almost 200,000 YouTube visitors heard Hillary’s anti-capitalist tirade. In case you missed it, it boils down to nothing more than confiscating private property.)

That ought to send a chilling message to investors everywhere.

And today, “Two Americas” Edwards captured headlines by coming out in favor of raising taxes on the rich (surprise!) to finance his Big Government healthcare program. Edwards says it will only cost $100 billion, but I think the true cost is closer to $200 billion.

Here’s my question: Is there a single Democrat out there advocating a pro-growth message? I haven’t heard one. Are any of them touting a pro-business message or pro-competiveness message?

In the midst of these candidates’ anti-growth, tax-hiking talk, across the pond in Germany they’re preparing to slash their corporate tax rate from nearly 40 percent to less than 30 percent. Big company corporate tax rates are headed to 15 percent from 25.

To top it off, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French presidential favorite, told Charlie Rose last week that he was a free enterprise capitalist. Sarkozy said he believes in capitalism and competition, and wants to cut taxes in France.

What’s going on here?

The Dems are moving further and further to the left. If they keep moving at this rate, at some point, they’re going to fall off the cliff.