This post originally appeared in the Kenosha News as part of the column ‘My Turn with Basil Willis’ – May 19, 2009

In March, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann sounded the alarm that the country is “completely socializing the American economy.” Tennessee Rep. Zach Wamp followed up by saying the country is on “a fast march towards socialism.” It’s gotten so intense that in April the Republican National Committee created a resolution calling on the Democratic party to rename itself the “Democratic Socialist Party.”

Socialism is the latest wedge word Republicans have trotted out to try to instill fear in a population that is increasingly tuning them out. Republicans have always portrayed themselves as the party of small government and fiscal discipline, but we have had Republican administrations for 20 of the past 28 years, and it just isn’t true. Bush 43 was handed a budget surplus in 2000 by a “big-spending Democrat” and somehow drove it into doubling our national debt in eight years. Think about that for a second – debt that took almost 200 years to accrue was doubled in eight years (the last time America was debt free was a brief period in 1835 under President Andrew Jackson).

The fact is, our society is already socialized. On the spectrum of a completely free market, all the way to pure communism, we’re not too far from the middle. Police, roads, the legal system, military, social security, Medicare, and schools are all socialized. Even utilities are socialized through agreements between the public and private sectors. In many rural areas, the phone and cable companies are cooperatives owned by the residents. Many public transportation systems are subsidized by government (you and I). Miller Park and Lambeau Field are partially socialized.

In a true free market, you would have to give a credit card number when calling 911, or pay for a private police service. In a purely capitalistic society, you would pay tuition to send your kids to K-12 schools, you would pay tolls on every road because they would be owned by private companies and you would have to pay to be protected by the military and police.

You would not receive social security or unemployment benefits, there would be no FDA to test food and drugs, there would be no EPA to test water and air and there would be no labor unions, because the very idea of a union is socialist. There would be no SBA or FHA loans. There would be no building inspectors or veterans services. “The market” would take care of all that.

But history knows better. Every single time in the history of humanity when people and money are put together without rules, someone, usually everyone but a few, gets exploited. When a program becomes socialized, we, as a group, have decided that it is in the best interest for everyone. Socialism, or at least the regulations that Republicans call socialist, are often times nothing more than an acknowledgement that humans as a group are naturally greedy and checks must be put in place.

The average person who receives health care benefits spends $900 of their premiums each year on the uninsured. When someone without insurance gets sick, they go to the nearest hospital emergency room, where law requires they be treated. The hospital writes that off as a loss and you and I end up paying for it. We already have socialized medicine, but it couldn’t be any more expensive or poorly delivered if we tried. The people I know that work in health care are fantastic, and they will all tell you the system is broken. Any small business owner who provides health insurance will tell you the costs are killing them. I want the government to look for ways to fix (yes maybe socialize) health care because the free market has not figured out how to do it effectively.

I spend $5,000 year on health care premiums and deductibles I thankfully don’t use, and another $5,000 in property taxes to pay for schools even though I don’t have children. I think my taxes are high, and on some level it is unfair for me to pay for your kid’s education, but I understand that having an educated population is good for the country and essential to our collective well being. And in the long run that is good for me. That’s your scary socialism at work.

The original charter of the federal government was national defense and the facilitation of interstate commerce. Some believe that is what is should still be, but most think the government needs to protect us where free markets are unable or unwilling. And rightly so. Regulation of the financial industry is a perfect example. When I hear people lamenting “socialism” (i.e. basic regulation), I hear rich people not wanting the rules changed so they can continue to make money unfettered.

We ask the government to do a lot for us but then don’t want to pay for it. We can’t have it both ways. Let’s be very clear, the government can absolutely do a better job of controlling how it spends our tax dollars. It starts with transparency in budgets, accounting and the decision making process, things we haven’t had much of lately.

Don’t be frightened when you hear Republicans talking about socialism. You’ve been living with it, and benefitting from it, your whole life.