“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.” —socialist playwright George Bernard Shaw

America is indisputably the greatest, most prosperous nation in history. Only a nation as wealthy and secure as the U.S. could afford to indulge the lunacy, greed, and unbridled infantilism we are witnessing today.

Tossing aside thousands of years of knowledge regarding economics and human nature, the Democrat Party has generated a laundry list of goods and services that must be provided by government for “free” — to certain constituents.

Of course, anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows nothing is free. Every good or service is produced at a cost, and producers demand to be paid. So Democrats, while promising you free stuff, are really promising to make your neighbor pay for it.

And what are the Democrats promising, exactly? Just a few things…

Free health care: Barack Obama once slipped up and admitted ObamaCare was a stepping stone toward universal, single-payer (read: taxpayer-funded) health care, and every major candidate for the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination has now signed on to some version of Bernie Sanders’s socialist “Medicare for All” (M4A). Estimates place the 10-year price tag at $32.6 trillion and, as Charles Blahous of the Mercatus Center warns, not even doubling current tax rates would cover the cost of M4A.

M4A supporters argue the massive bill would be offset by reducing overhead costs, forcing price controls on drug companies, and forcing health care providers to take a 40% pay cut (you’d keep working if you took a 40% pay cut … right?). European nations with national health care have seen costs rising faster than the U.S., along with a drop in quality.

Free housing — or at least heavily subsidized: Democrat 2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris has proposed a tax credit for families making up to $125,000/year to offset housing costs that exceed 30% of income. The estimated $760 billion price tag is hopelessly optimistic. Landlords can simply raise rates, knowing taxpayers will pay the difference, resulting in housing costs spiraling further out of control.

Ironically, Harris’s home state of California, controlled by Democrats, has the fourth highest cost of living in the U.S. (and nine of the top 10 most expensive states are Democrat-controlled), in large part due to zoning laws artificially restricting housing development and thus driving up costs. This is nothing more than a ploy to force states in “flyover country” to subsidize the astronomical housing costs of blue states.

Free college: Bernie Sanders has proposed making community college free, and making four-year colleges free for students from families earning below $125,000/year, with loan rates cut by 50% for any remaining debt. The low-end estimate for this Millennial vote-buying scheme is $750 billion, but as with “free” housing, colleges will (and already have) raise tuition rates to absorb the subsidies, driving up costs further, in turn demanding higher subsidies. Senators Harris and Warren support this plan.

Free child care: Elizabeth Warren recently released her plan for “universal child care,” with “free” (i.e., taxpayer-funded) child care for families below 200% of the federal poverty level, and a cap of no more than 7% of income spent on child care.

Yet the $70 billion annual price tag doesn’t guarantee quality child care. When Canada instituted universal child care in Quebec, the results were awful, with reports finding children were “‘worse off in a variety of behavioral and health dimensions, ranging from aggression to motor-social skills to illness’ than children without access to universal care.”

Free jobs: Democrat presidential candidates Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory “Spartacus” Booker, and Bernie Sanders support a proposal guaranteeing a government job to all who want one, with a $15/hour minimum wage, regardless of skill, education, training, or work ethic. The cost? More than $5.5 trillion. This would radically distort the labor market, driving up labor costs for small businesses and bankrupting many of them.

Of course, as bad as this is, at least it’s better than socialist superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s $93 trillion Green New Deal proposal of a guaranteed income for those unwilling to work.

Slavery reparations: Harris (who isn’t African American) and Warren (who isn’t Native American) have resurrected the issue of reparations for slavery. In summary, this means forcing taxpayers who have never owned slaves to pay huge sums of money to people who have never been slaves. The cost? At least $3 trillion. No word on whether the U.S. will force the African nations who sold the slaves to European slave traders to pony up for their part of the reparations.

Warren declared, “We must confront the dark history of slavery and government-sanctioned discrimination in this country that has had many consequences, including undermining the ability of black families to build wealth in America for generations.”

First of all, it was not all “Americans” but Democrats who engaged in, defended, and fought a war to protect slavery. So if anything, a special tax should be levied against Democrat voters to pay the reparations. Furthermore, it is Democrat policies that drive up unwed-pregnancy rates, block educational choice, and keep black Americans trapped in slums that have created generational inequities for blacks. Paying reparations will do little to end the underlying issues that perpetuate black poverty.

By the way, this subject is being resurrected just as black support for Donald Trump is increasing. Coincidence, we’re sure.

With all the promises of free stuff, it seems the only things Democrats don’t want to be free are speech and religion. Intelligent Americans should reject this charade for what it is — vote-buying through a cynical appeal to greed and envy.