Democratic debate shows myth-making machine running at full power

Let the left's myth selling begin.

Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary debate at Wynn Las Vegas featured all sorts of whoppers and wild promises, all of them based on the ideas that government can fix anything and everything (especially the weather), and that all the new laws needed to do the job will accomplish only what they're intended to address and do nothing more.

The linchpin of the liberal agenda, as described by Hillary Clinton and her four weak challengers for the nomination: redistributing the wealth of "the rich" to the middle and lower classes through higher taxes. Income inequality is thereby remedied and an even larger, more powerful federal government is fully funded.

This will come as a great shock to Democrats, but the economy doesn't work the way they say it does.

First, they insist that "income inequality" is a permanent condition that allows the wealthy to stay wealthy, the poor to stay poor and the middle class to be trapped in a paycheck-to-paycheck existence. Clinton and Bernie Sanders, especially, are trying to persuade voters that without more government, they'll never climb the ladder.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The upper, middle and lower classes are constantly churning through good economic cycles and bad. Although the exceptionally wealthy generally stay in the stratosphere of income earners, research by Tom Hirschl of Cornell University and Mark Rank of Washington University in St. Louis finds social mobility is alive and well.

They said there is a 1-in-9 chance for every American to join the wealthiest 1 percent for at least one year, that about 70 percent of workers will spend at least one year in the top 20 percent of income earners, and that 53 percent will spend at least one year in the top 10 percent of earners.

The second great liberal myth is that "the rich" earn enough to pay for everyone's college and health care, and to extend welfare benefits to the middle class. We'll be hearing this lie all through next year.

As I've written before, if Congress declared a national household income limit of just $200,000 and taxed every dime beyond that at 100 percent, it would raise a little more than $1.2 trillion in new revenue, enough to balance the budget and expand domestic spending by $700 billion or so. Then the economy would tank as private investment came to a screeching halt.

The Wall Street Journal determined that Sen. Bernie Sanders' agenda would cost about $1.8 trillion per year in new spending. He'd need more money.

Don't expect the Democrats' message to change. For too many Americans, the siren song of liberal economic policy is too powerful to resist.

Meadows scholarships

I've written a lot about Nevada's new Education Savings Accounts and the incredible choices they offer to families of all income levels. And one of the most common, most cynical retorts of ESA foes invested in the education status quo is to highlight tuition at some of the most expensive private schools in the state and then use those numbers to argue that, even with ESA support, private education is out of reach for the middle and lower classes.

That's not necessarily the case, because a lot of private schools offer need-based financial aid, and the state now offers need-based scholarships to private schools on top of ESAs.

Meanwhile, The Meadows School, arguably the state's best private K-12 institution, made a huge commitment to enrolling students from all economic backgrounds before the Legislature even considered this year's groundbreaking school choice agenda.

This year, for the sixth year, the Summerlin school is offering full rides to incoming kindergartners — not just for kindergarten, but all the way through 12th grade. For next school year, The Meadows will offer five such scholarships, which are worth about $250,000 apiece. For the five students selected, it is literally a life-changing opportunity born from exceptional generosity. And it's proof that committed, persistent families who value education, regardless of their income level, have options beyond public school.

The application deadline for The Meadows School K-12 Scholarship (for kindergartners enrolling in the fall of 2016) is Nov. 2. Winners are selected based on financial need and test scores. For information on the scholarship, go to the school's website: www.themeadowsschool.org. Look under "Admissions," then "Scholarships & Aid." Or call the school at 702-254-1610.

— Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is the Las Vegas Review-Journal's senior editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV. Listen to him Mondays at 10 a.m. on "Live and Local — Now!" with Kevin Wall on KBET 790 AM.