Thom Hartmann: Peter Ferrara- 'Is Shared Sacrifice Socialism?'

Source:Thom Hartmann- talking about socialism.

"Thom Hartmann speaks with Peter Ferrara, Senior Fellow for Entitlement and Budget Policy-The Heartland Institute / Author-"America's Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb", about whether shared sacrifice is socialism. If you liked this clip of The Thom Hartmann Program, please do us a big favor and share it with your friends... and hit that "like" button!" 

From Thom Hartmann

To answer the question that Thom Hartmann asked Peter Ferrara, is shared sacrifice socialism: the answer is yes. Shared sacrifice is a form of collectivism to fund the government that our Congress and Administration decided that we should have. 

I'll give you another one: a progressive tax system (that America still technically has) is another form of socialism as well, but my point is so what and I'm a Liberal and I believe that free people in a free society (which is what America is) has the right to go out and earn as much money as their skills and production will allow, but pay taxes based on what they earn. With the wealthy paying the most and go down from there. But that are tax rates should still be low enough to encourage the making of wealth in America. So everyone can benefit from it. 

MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell (who I call Larry because I'm not a preppy snob that he apparently is) said (and by the way I agree with Larry O'Donnell as often as I drink a dry glass of water) but he's dead right here. There's good capitalism and there's bad capitalism and there's good socialism and bad socialism. 

It's not often as far as I'm concern that Socialists get anything right at least not in America, Europeans can speak for themselves. But shared sacrifice is a form of good socialism, because it demands and let's be honest here, it's rare if ever that government asks people to do anything, they always demand it and with shared sacrifice they demand that people contribute to the financing of government based on their ability to pay for it. But not to the point that it discourages people from earning a good living. 

Shared sacrifice is also very important when we are as we are now talking about debt and deficit reduction, because when we need to cut back as we are doing now, we have to do it in a way that hurts the least and doesn't hurt anyone in a way that devastates them. And that includes the people who've benefited most from America and our system, Constitution, economic freedom, and everything else. Shared sacrifice is about everyone contributing to pay their fair share but not in a way that devastates anyone.

So again to answer the question, shared sacrifice is a form of socialism, but a good form of it. Not the form that try's to nationalize industries or limit peoples economic freedom or any other freedom. Or tax people to the point that there's not enough incentive in the economy for people to work hard, be productive and be successful. Which would be a form of bad socialism.