'Hillary Clinton Is a Socialist!'

The title of this piece is lifted from an oft-repeated comment on political blogs such as our own. Indeed, it has become a Right Wing talking point, a fall back assertion that, to some conservatives, seals the deal. Socialists are bad, Hillary Clinton is a socialist, therefore Hillary Clinton is bad. One wonders what image pops into the minds of people who make this claim. What is socialism to them? Is it Hitler's National Socialism? China's totalitarian Cultural Revolution? A life spent wasting away in a Soviet Gulag?

There is a strain of the Republican party (and the Libertarian one) that insists that all of our problems are best solved through the innovation of the market. Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani are quick to tell you how they plan rip the stuffing out of your scarecrow government. To them, the New Deal was a travesty because it gave government too much power over the lives of its citizens by creating programs to help its most vulnerable. Clinton's detractors need only point to her promise of national healthcare system, as proof of her Karl Marx-inspired philosophy (Many commentators also decry our current president as a having a red streak, himself).

While shouting "Wake Up America! Hillary Clinton is a Socialist!" may sound like a damning indictment, Hillary is hardly the exemplar of Big Brother-style government. Look at her husband-a fiscal moderate who negotiated some of the biggest free-trade agreements in the country's history. Her corporate donor list is not exactly a who's who of socialist thinkers, either.

But back to the notion that laissez faire capitalism will take care of society's ills. If the free market is so good at solving society's problems then why is our healthcare system failing such a large percentage of our population? In 2005 roughly 47 million Americans did not have any health insurance. And the number rising. Why? The National Coalition on Health Care sites a few factors, including a shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-economy. In other words, we don't make things anymore, we sell the stuff others do. In addition, our workers are going from full-time jobs, to a series of part-time gigs, thereby finding themselves disqualified from joining employer insurance pools. Since the year 2000, when George W. Bush took office, healthcare costs have risen 36%. In comparison, wages have gone up just 12.4%.

People often liken big government to slow-moving dinosaurs, bureaucracies incapable of quickly responding to the needs of its people. But consider the auto industry as a counter example. We've long had the technology to dramatically increase fuel efficiency, so why does it take an energy bill to actually make the Detroit 3 act? Steel and paper companies were content to pollute the Great Lakes (which contain 21% of the earth's fresh water) to the point of extinction before government stepped in and forced them to stop. Industry has a bottom line, pleasing shareholders. That means keeping stock prices high, period. Why do companies outsource labor to third world countries? Because they hate America? No, because it makes financial sense. There is no overriding social conscience to the corporation. That's where government needs to step in.

I may not vote for Hillary Clinton, but her enemies really need to do better than simply yell "Socialist!" without attempting to address the problems that face the country.