Socialism, the Nightmare That Never Dies

The American Spectator reports:

“Socialism is coming,” J.A. Wayland, publisher of Appeal to Reason, predicted at the dawn of the last century. “It’s coming like a prairie fire and nothing can stop it.”

More than 100 years later, American socialists speak with similar ebullience. A 74-year-old candidate who once produced a hagiographic documentary about Wayland’s friend, employee, and hero Eugene Debs runs for president as the vehicle of their faith in future.

“And yes, my policies will demand that the top one percent and the largest corporations in this country start paying their fair share of taxes,” Bernie Sanders told MSNBC last year.

The top one percent currently pay 44 percent of federal income taxes and the bottom 45 percent don’t pay, according to the Tax Policy Center. If one percent shouldering 44 percent of the income tax burden represents paying less than a “fair share,” what number, precisely, does Sanders regard as just?

The Vermont senator told Charlie Rose last year of “working right now on a comprehensive tax package, which I suspect will, for the top marginal rates, go over 50 percent.” The Tax Policy Center’s Howard Gleckman pegs the top federal rate at 58 percent under Sanders while Dylan Matthews last month assessed his plan at Vox as imposing a top rate of 77 percent.

Comrade Sanders is looking to steal some money.