PARKER: Shutdown a smokescreen for Democrats bankrupt of ideas 

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The basic truth is that nothing stays the same. This is true for any person or any nation.

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Every day you are no longer the same person you were yesterday. Either you move forward or you move backward. Either you get better or you get worse.

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I often quote historian Arnold Toynbee that “the autopsy of history will show that all great nations commit suicide.” I bring this up because it is an important reminder. Think of the Greeks, Romans or the British Empire, on which the sun never set.

Regardless of what you think about MAGA, President Donald Trump is a political figure of historic proportions—a man who has never run for or held political office and has been elected president non-consecutively twice. Why?

Because MAGA opinion affects what Americans believe to be true. Something's wrong. The decisive factors that contributed to American greatness are being lost.

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Americans feel it. The polls tell us. Gloomy figures remain regarding satisfaction with the state of the nation, national pride and trust in all major institutions of the country.

Now the point: the current government shutdown.

What's happening?

The Democratic Party is against the wall. It symbolizes everything that is destroying the country. If MAGA means we're in trouble and need to fix what's broken, the Democrats' message is that nothing is broken and we should continue on the same path.

What is the same way? That every problem that the country faces, every problem that every American citizen faces, can be solved by more governments, more programs, and more spending.

But if bigger government and more spending are the problem and not the solution, then Democrats have big political problems. And that's what happens.

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A sign of economic health is economic growth. Growth is what creates new jobs, new opportunities, reduces costs and increases income and wealth.

As I often quote, the average real growth of the US economy was 3.64% annually for the half century from 1950 to 2000.

The average from 2000 to 2025 is a third lower, at 2.2%.

Why? The government is eating up more and more of our economy. In 1950, the federal government consumed 14.2% of gross domestic product (GDP); in 2000 – 17.5%; in 2024 – 23%.

The government doesn't produce anything. The more government takes, the more our resources are diverted from productive to unproductive uses.

Worse, this inexorable growth of government occurred unnoticed. Instead of going directly to the American people and raising taxes to fairly finance all government spending, it wasn't because it was political suicide. Persistent multi-trillion dollar deficits are financed by debt, shifting the tax burden to future generations.

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Thus, the federal government's debt has now reached $37 trillion, more than 20% higher than our 2025 GDP projection of $30.5 trillion.

Is it any wonder that our youth are confused and disappointed?

Democratic leadership knows it is between a rock and a hard place. So they banded together to come up with some clever way to scare the American people into insisting on bigger government. The hot button they chose was healthcare.

We are all concerned about how to make health care delivery more efficient. But Democrats want to continue the distortions. As Veronica de Rugy of the Mercatus Center notes, citing the Paragon Institute: “In 2014, taxpayers covered 68% of

Obamacare premiums. By 2020, that figure had risen to 80%,” and “taxpayers now cover 93% of (Obamacare) premiums.”

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In a recent article in The Hill, Donna Brazile, former chair of the Democratic National Committee and veteran of numerous Democratic presidential campaigns, suggests sweeter word games Democrats should use to hide the truth.

Democrats, she advises, should say they stand for “affordability.” But by affordability, Democrats mean using government subsidies to hide true costs.

Our country needs reality and truth. We are going broke and we need to restore freedom, markets and efficiency. This is what made America great.

And here's how to make America great again.

Star Parker is the founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education.

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