Be Like Europe? No Way!

Economist Dr. Walter Williams has an informative column at WorldNetDaily today, entitled "Should we really copy Europe?" Having lived there, I can answer with an emphatic, "NO!"

Dr. Williams offers a few comparisons for why people in this country who look to Europe as a model are either woefully ignorant, or just plain idiots:

Government spending exceeds 50 percent of the GDP in France and Sweden and more than 45 percent in Germany and Italy, compared to U.S. federal, state and local spending of just under 36 percent. Government spending encourages people to rely on handouts rather than individual initiative, and the higher taxes to finance the handouts reduce incentives to work, save and invest. The European results shouldn't surprise anyone. U.S. per capita output in 2003 was $39,700, almost 40 percent higher than the average of $28,700 for European nations.

Over the last decade, the U.S. economy has grown twice as fast as European economies. In 2006, European unemployment averaged 8 percent, while the U.S. average was 4.7 percent. What's more, the percentage of Americans without a job for more than 12 months was 12.7 percent, while in Europe it was 42.6 percent. Since 1970, 57 million new jobs were created in the U.S., and just 4 million were created in Europe.

What is Europe doing to fix the problem? Actually, working very hard to make it even worse:

What's the European response to its self-made economic malaise? They don't repeal the laws that make for a poor investment climate. Instead, through the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, they attack low-tax jurisdictions. Why? To support its welfare state, European nations must have high taxes, but if Europeans, as private citizens and businessmen, relocate, invest and save in other jurisdictions, it means less money is available to be taxed.

I lived in England for three years, and spent a week in Germany, so I've had an opportunty to see Europe up close. In fact, having lived there, I can testify to what a depressed place it is, economically.

When I was in England in the late 1980s, there was a poor class and a rich class, with few middle class people, compared to the United States.

We also know little of poverty in the U.S. I had the boundaries of my mind expanded quite shockingly there. I saw families (not in the inner city, but in average towns just a few miles outside American air bases) huddled together to sleep on couches because they couldn't afford to heat more than one room of the house. I saw many average people who couldn't drive, and couldn't afford a car or even gas for one if they could drive. Many wore their clothes for several days in a row because washing them was too expensive. And frankly I knew more British people who were on the dole (welfare) than ones who weren't.

I had many long conversations with my British girlfriend's dad; in fact, when we were at her parent's house, I didn't see much of my girlfriend. He was of that noble generation that lived through World War II. He even remembered seeing German V1 rockets hit London when he was a boy.

He used to lament for the state to which his proud country had fallen. And while he looked to America with admiration, he cautioned that we Americans should learn from their mistakes. I think he genuinely agonized over seeing the once great country of Britain fall to little more than a tourist attraction (they were and are still more than that, but that relative comparison was any easy one for him to make).

I was opposed to socialism before I went to Europe. But after spending time there, living under it's "hammock," paying taxes for TV broadcasts and outdoor water spigots, and seeing the malaise, I am doubly opposed.

That is why I'm so ardently opposed to the encroachment of socialism in America. That's also why I oppose the Democrats at almost every turn--because they are socialism's evangelists and high priests in this country.

America was founded on individualism, personal responsibility, industry and competition, and equality of opportunity without guaranteed equality of outcome. Socialism is opposed to each and every one of these American values.

So to me, socialism is not only a bad idea that completely ignores human nature, it's completely unAmerican.

We already have an unhealthy dose of socialism here; we don't need more of the disease that is already crippling our great nation.