Tom Harkin’s whacky plan to nationalize private debt

In the true spirit of winner-take-all class warfare, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the powerful Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pension Committee, suggested that the government force banks to write off bad mortgages, “especially...for the lower income.” Sure, why not? Obama screwed investors in GM and Chrysler with his autoworkers’ bailout. Why stop there? Let’s screw everyone with any assets, just to make sure that members of Harkin’s party continue to get reelected.

It’s mind-boggling that such a suggestion would even pop into the mind of a United States Senator, much less take form as an audible suggestion. One wonders how in America the Democrats’ psyche has arrived in roughly the same place today as that of the Bolshevik revolutionaries in 1917. The only thing Democrats don’t seem to be advocating, is that all those with wealth be rounded up and executed. At least not yet. Suggesting that banks forgive loans to individuals whose mortgages are underwater is the moral equivalent of the organ-harvesting program with which the Chinese government is keeping its dissidents socially useful. Following this line of reasoning will lead to outright confiscation of wealth from those who are willing and able to work so that it may be redistributed to those who are not.

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Harkin’s suggestion also offers an insight into the way many politicians view America’s sovereign debt. It’s fairly clear that at $15.3 trillion (101% of current GDP), the National Debt is beginning to assume Grecian proportions. If one factors in unfunded liabilities, such as Social Security and government pensions, which currently amount to over $117 trillion, then the idea that any of America’s sovereign debt will ever be repaid becomes ludicrous. Clearly, America’s creditors are going to get screwed by the U.S. government and for some reason there are many politicians to whom this doesn’t seem to matter. The trend among these politicians to look for quick fixes to complex problems has an aura of desperation that makes anything possible, even outright theft! The American economy has been in jeopardy for decades, due largely to the fact that elected representatives in their efforts to remain in power have enacted legislative policies that allowed those in office, the very rich and the very powerful to benefit at the expense of individuals. The housing bubble came as a direct result of policies supported by the Carter, Clinton and both Bush presidencies. The pain of its bursting is going to be felt for a long time to come. Harkin’s quick, cheap fix is designed to garner votes for Obama and the Democrats, while it does nothing to improve the economic climate. Class warfare may seem like a good idea to politicians eager to hang on to their cushy and lucrative jobs. But class warfare also has a tendency to get out of hand, resulting in conditions such as were seen during the French revolution, where eventually the revolutionaries were devouring each other. Individuals like Harkin and their easy, quick fixes serve as prime examples for why term limits are becoming more crucial each year.