“The $3.5 trillion Biden plan isn’t socialism, it’s marxism.” — Sen. Marco Rubio, Twitter, 9/30/21

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(Karl Marx addresses a large crowd)

KARL MARX: Good afternoon, working people. I come before you with a bold new plan that will fundamentally redefine the relationship between the working class and the bourgeoisie and usher in an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity, the likes of which the world has never seen. Behold, my $3.5 trillion budget plan!

(The crowd issues a resounding “Huzzah!” )

SPECTATOR: Tell us more about this new economic framework, oh great communist crusader! Is your vision to use the $3.5 trillion to repatriate private land and seize the means of production?

KARL MARX: No! It’s just a much-needed investment in education, green infrastructure, and the social safety net!

SPECTATOR: Ah, very clever! So the stimulus is just the first minuscule piece of a long, slippery slope that eventually enables the proletariat to overthrow the greedy capitalist ruling class!

KARL MARX: Not exactly! It’s just a slight increase in government spending partially funded by a small increase in taxes on the wealthy in order to make things slightly less bad for poor people, all while borrowing at historically low interest rates.

SPECTATOR: When you say “slight increase in taxes on the wealthy,” you mean, like “slight increase, wink, wink,” because you’re actually planning on seizing everything they own, including the sports cars?

KARL MARX: It’s more like a 2-3 percent tax increase that they will barely feel in any meaningful way.

SPECTATOR: And you said the spending is $3.5 trillion over ten years, so $350 billion a year? As in, less than half of what we spend on the military?

KARL MARX: Pretty much! Crazy affordable, isn’t it?

SPECTATOR: Huh. Well, forgive me for saying this, but it almost sounds like this $3.5 trillion plan is…modest. Almost as if you could’ve gone even farther without any severe economic repercussions?

KARL MARX: Well, you know me, Karl Marx, the famous advocate for incremental change.

SPECTATOR: Are you sure the plan doesn’t involve any other revolutionary hijinks to finally impose our entire radical, left-wing agenda on the masses? Like, say, assassinating the pope and banning all organized religions except for Pastafarianism?

KARL MARX: Intriguing, but no.

SPECTATOR: And you’re not secretly planning to use all of the money to pay for one-way, first-class flights for every single person in Latin America so they can move here and replace all the white people, who will then be forced to work in the tortilla gulags?

KARL MARX: Again, intriguing, but no.

SPECTATOR: Okay, fine. But please at least tell me that your ulterior motive is to generate runaway inflation to drive every single mom-and-pop shop out of business so we can replace them with combination drag brunch/karaoke bars?

KARL MARX: Well, the new investments in universal pre-K and childcare assistance would leave a lot of women in their thirties with way more free time, so I suppose there’d be a market for it.

SPECTATOR: And then we abort all the babies and turn them into vaccines?

KARL MARX: No.

SPECTATOR: Well, look, I’m not exactly sold, but let’s say you were to try to enact this plan. What would happen if, through some form of antiquated legislative chicanery, your plan were to be stalled and chipped away at for months by members of your own party shamelessly gambling the future of the country for their own political gain, to the point where the bill became so watered down that the stimulus was almost entirely unfelt by working people? And what if that, along with an overall lack of fortitude within your party to do anything about voting rights or widespread misinformation, ultimately enabled a far right-wing autocratic takeover whereby any semblance of representative democracy was effectively dismantled? What would you suggest then?

KARL MARX: Oh, well, in that case, we’d have no choice but to burn that motherfucker to the ground.