Vote anyway

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The polls are open, and after months of campaign promises, political arguments, and competing claims about the economy, voters are having their say. WORLD commentator Cal Thomas has a few thoughts about the choices before them—and the importance of showing up.

CAL THOMAS: It’s easy to become cynical about politics, politicians and the government. I sometimes feel cynical. The candidates make promises they know they can’t keep, but their pollsters tell them that’s what voters want to hear.

Food, gas prices and affordable housing are tops on the campaign ads I’ve seen, but how can one member of Congress, or even more than one, affect prices the market decides?

They say ending the war against Iran will solve the high cost problem. And if Iran were to build a nuclear weapon—which they were clearly on the way to producing before President Trump intervened—what would they say then? It is the rare journalist who follows up with that question.

The Democrat Socialists have made their agenda clear, but all one has to do is look around the world and see how socialism has failed.

It’s the same with Medicare for All. Look at England’s and Canada’s national health service with people waiting weeks and sometimes months to see a doctor. Some hospitals don’t have rooms for new patients. The UK Daily Mail has done a series of reports on people who have died while waiting on trolleys for treatment in hospital halls. Ambulances are often delayed with tragic consequences. Do we want that in America? And then there is the unaffordable cost.

Speaking of cost, we have a 40-trillion-dollar debt that no politician is addressing. That’s because they would have to cut spending to reduce it, and none of them want to be demagogued for doing that. Recall Ronald Reagan’s powerful line: “The only proof of eternal life in Washington is a government program.”

Too many people have bought the lie that government owes them other people’s money. One hundred years ago our 30th president, Calvin Coolidge, said he wanted taxes to be low so that the people would have more. Today the tax and spend politicians want taxes to be high, especially on the wealthy and successful, so they can waste it on unnecessary and failed programs, while keeping themselves in office.

If you don’t vote you will, in fact, be voting for people who don’t share your values or America’s traditions. There are people who want to destroy America and rebuild it in their image. You owe it to yourself, your children and grandchildren not to let that happen. Vote!

For WORLD, I’m Cal Thomas.

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