This is a guest blog written by Kent Strang, Americans for Prosperity’s managing director.
Government should serve people, not control them.
That principle runs through America’s constitutional system. The U.S. Constitution limits and divides government power, creates checks and balances, and reserves powers not explicitly given to the federal government to the states and the people.
That framework gave generations of Americans the freedom to build businesses, create opportunity, solve problems, and improve their lives. It has helped make America the most prosperous nation in the world.
America has serious problems to solve. Too many families are struggling with the rising costs of housing, groceries, and health care, for example.
While Americans are looking for solutions to those problems, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) isn’t offering them. In fact, they are proposing something much bigger: A fundamentally different political and economic system.
But don’t just take my word for it. The DSA says exactly that, stating America needs a “new political system.” Its platform calls for:
- A new constitution
- Abolishing the U.S. Senate and Electoral College
- Replacing the presidency
- Expanding the U.S. Supreme Court
- Bringing major corporations and industries under public ownership
Those aren’t just minor policy changes. They are actions that would undermine the principles that have helped our country flourish.
As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, we should ask a basic question: Do we solve today’s problems by building on the constitutional tradition that helped make America so prosperous — or should we give the government much more control over our decisions?
Here are four ways the DSA agenda increases government control and conflicts with the Constitution.
America’s system is bottom-up. The DSA agenda is top-down.
One key to America’s success is the idea that communities, families, and individuals know what they need to thrive better than anyone in Washington.
The federal government has national responsibilities, but states and communities should have decision-making power over most of the matters that affect people closest to home.
The 10th Amendment makes this principle explicit: Powers not given to the federal government are reserved to the states or the people.
DSA takes a very different approach.
It starts from the premise that government should exercise more control over decisions normally made by individuals, families, communities, and businesses.
- If housing is too expensive, the DSA would limit what landlords can charge.
- If families are struggling to afford essential food, the DSA might establish government-run grocery stores.
- If health care costs become too high, the DSA would ask taxpayers to pay more and government bureaucrats to dictate, even limit, your health care decisions.
Their top-down solutions don’t leave a lot of room for states, communities, families, and individuals to solve problems themselves.
Our Constitution protects private property. DSA wants more government ownership.
Private ownership gives people a direct stake in American life. Own a home? You care about the community in which you live. Own a business? You’re worried about taxation and regulation.
This framework gives people room to take risks, invest, and build something for future generations to benefit from.
Again, DSA’s platform calls for something very different.
It calls for public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries and supports greater public ownership of housing and energy.
More government ownership means less room for competition, local decision-making, and generational wealth building.
The result is a government that doesn’t just regulate the economy, it also owns and controls large parts of it.
The American system divides power. DSA would concentrate it.
America’s founders were deeply skeptical of concentrated power. That is why they built a system of checks and balances, divided authority, and limits on what government can do.
The DSA agenda would give government far more power over every day economic life.
Government wouldn’t just set the rules. It would own or control more businesses and industries — from energy and housing to health care and major corporations.
That means the same government deciding the rules would be the landlord, the health insurer, the energy provider, or the owner of major businesses.
America’s constitutional tradition was designed to keep power in check and leave broad space for private enterprise. The DSA agenda would put much more power — political and economic — into government hands and leave that power unchecked.
The American system allows reform. The DSA agenda would remake it.
The founders knew they weren’t perfect and the system they created wouldn’t be, either.
That’s why they established ways to change laws, reform institutions, and even amend the Constitution as the country grew and changed.
DSA isn’t simply proposing different policies within that system. It wants to remake parts of the system itself.
- Abolishing the Electoral College
- Abolishing the Senate
- Making sweeping changes to the presidency
- Packing the Supreme Court
These ideas reflect a much deeper disagreement over the constitutional system America has relied on for nearly 250 years.
Your voice matters
America has real problems to solve. People are frustrated, and they have every right to expect better.
But the answer isn’t to abandon the constitutional tradition that has helped America and Americans flourish. By limiting government power, protecting individual freedom, encouraging competition, and leaving room for people, communities, and states to solve problems our country has thrived for 250 years.
The DSA agenda would move America in a very different direction. As we mark the country’s 250th anniversary, the choice is whether to build on the system that has served us for generations — or follow a path of more government control.