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Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, with recent political victories in Democrat primaries in Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere by socialists, I wanted to spend some time with my colleagues sharing the failed results that we have witnessed throughout history under socialism regimes. And if any of my colleagues consider themselves democratic socialists, I would like their attention.

The expansion of candidates and people who want to institute socialism in the United States is very concerning. What they desire is going to destroy everything America has stood for.

The recent trend toward socialism in the Democratic Party frankly surprises me. It ought to make every traditional Democrat worry about the trend of their party and be a warning for all of us.

I am glad some Democrats share this concern, as Democrat pollster Mark Penn wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Democrats could take a playbook out of the 1947 effort by Eleanor Roosevelt and Hubert Humphrey, as recently reported in the Washington Post.

Socialism is a failed ideology and experiment. It claims to focus on the good of society as a whole over the rights of individuals. This is in contrast to America's founding principles.

Socialism, whether it is the revolutionary kind or the democratic kind, is aimed at government ownership of industry and the elimination of private property.

Countries that have adopted socialism have found themselves less prosperous, even witnessing starvation and economic ruin followed by lawlessness and corruption. The only people that benefit from it are the people in the political system.

Socialist countries have also seen private property confiscated and constitutional rights taken away from the people. Recently, there is a group of socialists called Democratic Socialists that have won Democrat Party primaries. Where I sit, socialism is still socialism. They may think that calling themselves democratic somehow would cancel out all of the negatives of socialism, but they want to bring about the same negative outcomes that will produce less prosperity and less freedom. Example after example in history backs up my point.

In 2021, I spoke here on the Senate floor about Sweden's experiment with socialism. I encourage my colleagues to go back and read that speech. In case they don't have time, I will summarize it right now.

In the 1950s, Sweden gained newfound wealth and economic freedom. Then it started to adopt socialist policies. During Sweden's experiment with socialism between the 1960s and the 1980s, it experienced short- lived prosperity, massive government spending and taxation, and a highly regulated economy that eventually came crashing down. During that time, not a single net job was created in Sweden's private sector, and inflation took away almost all of the value of any wage increases. Sweden's socialist policies killed off its wealth creation that was needed to fund all of that government spending.

By the 1990s, Sweden realized its mistake and reversed course, and its leftwing Swedish Social Democrats recognized their mistake as well.

According to a White House Council of Economic Advisers report, if the United States had moved toward Nordic country-style policies in the 1970s, by 2018, America's GDP would be at least 19 percent smaller, coming out to about 11,000 fewer dollars of wealth per person here in the United States.

We can learn a lot from Sweden so we don't go down the dead-end road called socialism. We can also learn a lot from Cuba's experience moving from freedom to socialism. That happened in 1959. Cuba's standard of living over the past 50 years has been destroyed.

In 1959, after Fidel Castro came to power, the Cuban Government took away private property and established price controls. This led to food shortages, and you can see that on our own televisions being a problem today in Cuba. Castro's regime even killed political opposition.

Decades of socialism meant that by the 2000s, Cuba lacked basic infrastructure and reliable energy.

A 2005 report found:

Instead of blackouts, Cubans jokingly refer to periods when electricity was available as ``lights-in.''

That energy crisis continues today, and you see it reported on American television.

Cuba's story under socialism can be summed up by Margaret Thatcher's words. When she was Prime Minister of Great Britain, she said:

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

Not everyone in Cuba has suffered. Its dictators have taken care of themselves.

If Sweden and Cuba aren't enough reasons why socialism has failed as an idea, let's take a look at Venezuela.

In 1998, socialist Hugo Chavez became President of Venezuela. At the time, Venezuela was the richest country in South America, and now it is one of the poorest. One of Chavez's first actions was to nationalize the agriculture sector and rob landowners of their property.

Food production fell 75 percent over two decades. Chavez went on to nationalize other parts of the economy, including electricity, water, oil, banks, supermarkets, construction, and other parts. He did this all while also expanding the welfare state with money that the country didn't have.

Not only is the country poor, but it has also been ruled by brutal dictators, under Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, and riddled with corruption. One analysis about Venezuela's experience with socialism put it this way:

So, what are the results of socialism in Venezuela? Well, we have experienced hyperinflation. We have people eating garbage, schools that do not teach, hospitals that do not heal, long and humiliating lines to buy flour, bread, and basic medicines.

So history is very clear: Economic freedom is a ticket to broad prosperity. Today's American socialists espouse more than just economic ruin and fewer freedoms. They want less law and order by abolishing ICE, defunding the police, and emptying out our prisons.

Don't take my word for it; just look at the agenda of some of the recent people who have won Democratic primaries in New York City. The Democratic socialist platform also wants to defund the Department of Defense, get rid of the U.S. Senate, and draft a new Constitution. Other countries that tried socialism have failed. Socialists' ideas and candidates offer failed ideas.

We should not forget what history has taught us or, as George Santayana once said almost 100 years ago: If you don't learn from history, you are going to repeat the same mistakes.

The United States was founded on principles of individual liberty and on unalienable natural rights, with the government's primary function being to preserve those rights and prevent fellow citizens or attacks by foreign powers from violating our constitutional rights.

Americans have been reluctant to grant too much power to the government since the very beginning. Ultimately, free markets have helped America become the richest country in the world and have lifted more people from poverty than anything else in human history.

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