By Cliff Kincaid —— Bio and Archives August 24, 2015
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Todd: Left or right? Sanders: Left or right, but it’s mostly right. Let’s be clear about it. It’s not fair to give… Todd: This year it’s, yeah, they have, they’re… Sanders: And it will always be. Todd: …spending more money. Sanders: It will always be. Look: The Koch brothers are going to spend four-hundred million dollars. Do you know what their agenda is? Do you know what they believe in? Let me tell you what they believe in. This is what they told us. They want to end Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. More tax breaks for the rich and large corporations. Nobody in America wants that except the billionaire class. And yet they are now able to put hundreds of millions of dollars into the political process. This is a real danger to American democracy.Todd let Sanders get away with far too many wild charges in that exchange. First of all, the charge about the “billionaire class” wanting to completely end all social welfare programs is a gross exaggeration. Some of these programs clearly have to be modified before they go broke. According to the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Social Security last year paid $73 billion more in benefits than it raised from taxes. Sanders should be pressed on his irresponsible failure to support measures to reform the system to make sure those who paid into it get their benefits. What’s more, it’s not the case that so-called right-wing billionaires are more active than those on the left. In 2014, PolitiFact, a group that purports to review political claims for factual accuracy, reviewed a list of 22 billionaires active in politics and found that 13—or more than half—gave predominantly to liberal groups or groups affiliated with the Democratic Party. The other nine gave predominantly to conservative groups. According to Sanders, the Koch brothers are hoping to spend $400 million in this election cycle. Contrast that figure with the fact that, over the last 32 years, according to their own estimate, the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations had expenditures of almost $12 billion. In 2014, the Open Society Foundations said they had expenditures of $827 million. These figures are not, of course, considered direct spending in elections or on behalf of candidates. But these funds support organizations that engage in political activities that may have even more of an impact than the money that goes directly into issue advocacy or the indirect and direct funding of campaigns. For example, over the 32-year period, the Soros Foundations concede they spent $1.5 billion “to promote reform in the United States on issues such as criminal justice, drugs, palliative care, education, immigration, equal rights, and democratic governance.” All of these are loaded terms that involve substantial sums of money for left-wing political activities. The term “criminal justice” means getting people out of prison. The word “immigration” means more legal immigrants and illegal aliens in the U.S. The word “drugs” means making dangerous mind-altering substances more available to the public. And on and on it goes. One of those terms, “palliative care,” is worth additional review and comment, especially because the Republicans have failed to stop Obamacare, and it is continuing to take root and unfold. Ione Whitlock of LifeTree, Inc., a pro-life group, has called “palliative care” a form of “imposed death” to be used on old people whose lives are said to be too costly for the health care system to maintain. LifeTree has documented Soros support for what Whitlock calls the “Big Death” lobby, being implemented under the Obamacare legislation. Since Bernie Sanders seems to be so concerned about the elderly losing their Social Security benefits, perhaps he ought to take a look at what the Soros-funded “Big Death” lobby is up to. The aim seems to be to get the elderly out of the way so they don’t collect benefits. Sanders can’t possibly defend that, can he?
Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. usasurvival.org.
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