ThinkProgress goes bye-bye https://www.thedailybeast.com/thinkprogress-a-top-progressive-news-site-is-shutting-down
“4) Low IQ gullable people” Sanders isn’t getting these voters, they already helped elect President Trump.
Let’s open the prisons and let hundreds out. Universal healthcare for hundreds of millions of people. Free college for everyone. Let’s cancel all medical debt. We will pay for it all with a progressive tax. Yeah I’m sure there will be no social/financial consequences for any of this... none at all.
You are trapped in a bubble limiting your imagination and understanding. You should have nothing to fear from these changes which will benefit most Americans. We are at least as rich as other countries that do not imprison such a high percentage of their population. These countries have free college for everyone who qualifies, have no medical debt and do it with progressive taxation. Try to inform yourself about Scandinavia and most of Western Europe for instance.
White House hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday released a $2.5 trillion plan to guarantee housing for every American. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/461942-sanders-unveils-25-trillion-housing-plan This is great, it would be really nice to have something similar to the Japanese Danchi model, with both low and middle-class public housing being available at affordable cost.
Tax the wealthy to pay for single payer medical for hundreds of millions of Americans. Tax the wealthy for free college for anyone in America. Tax the wealthy to pay all outstanding student loans. Tax the wealthy to pay all outstanding medical debt. Now tax the wealthy to ensure everyone gets affordable housing. I’m all for the super rich paying more in taxes but I don’t see how anyone can think that taxing the rich will pay for all these incredibly ambitious and unrealistic promises.
Why are they unrealistic? How come New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Spain, Slovenia can all offer single-payer universal health care, as well as tuition-free college for all of their citizens? Why can all of these countries (like America already does) offer forms of public housing as well? I'll throw in a bonus, why can all of these countries, on top of all that, guarantee paid time off to their pregnant women as well? Your recurring attitude of being annoyed at any attempt to increase the quality of life for Americans is just so bizarre.
I was curious what this tweet was about. Apparently some org called Working Families Party recently endorsed Elizabeth Warren for 2020 when they had previously endorsed Bernie in 2016. The new head of WFP is one of the blacks and some Bernie Bros have been attacking him with some racist commentary. Shame.
Most of those are realistic in other countries. How about instead of giving subsidies to corporations we just give those subsidies to the neediest American people directly?
Nook as a moderate has no answer as to why other nations with equal or less wealth can afford these things. He just repeats what he reads in the mainstream media about what we can afford. The conservatives and Repubs like Jorge explain it that we have inferior races dragging us down.
Largely because they implement all the other policies necessary to keep the costs of those things lower, whether to private citizens or to the government. The M4A people aren't proposing anything to fix any of the things driving the costs of health care or college or anything else. They are just proposing the government pay for it all as-is. Those countries also tax people at a much higher rate, or have nationalized industries, or have slower growth rates, or whatever. All of which can be acceptable, but our politicians aren't willing to level with people about those things. Why? Because they know their policies wouldn't be nearly as popular if they did. The main reason it all works in those countries is that they are thoughtful policies slowly developed and adapted over generations, rather than stupid quick fixes that don't actually fix the underlying problems. There are other countries like Greece that just promoted government giveaways to everyone and haven't worked out quite so well. If you want to use Norway/etc as a model, that's fine, but then it's important to pay attention to the details of what they actually did - which are NOTHING like what is being proposed here. Looking just at the results and saying "let's just duplicate that!" is either ignorant or misleading.
You’d be surprised how much even a nominal increase would bring into the treasury. However as a campaign position I get how it looks. It looks like a lot, and the corporate media who want more tax breaks can scare folks who think they make enough to see a pinch in their taxes. So in the end, we are stuck with the progressives needing to do the homework, and run their bills through the CBO if they can or get independent groups to provide the financials to really understand the debits and the credits. It’s a balance of inevitable fear and educating the voters. If Bernie and Warren can produce and articulate the education of the financials, this isn’t a problem. Letting the media set the narrative and just promising bright shiny things on the campaign trail... works for Republicans like Trump who the media won’t question because they know it’s hog wash, but will hurt Dems. The fact that me as a Dem voter do not know the financials off the top of my head tells me Bernie and Warren have work to do on this or your narrative will work Against them for sure whether it’s true or not.
This is a slurry of vague assumptions being applied to 7 countries, which isn't really ideal for an argument or conversation. M4A people are not proposing we just pay for everything as currently is and don't lower any cost. Making healthcare 1 large government-run program lowers the cost from the administration end, making the insurance pool one giant one lowers the cost, Bernie/Warren have made it clear drug cost would be lowered as well, and there are likely multiple other supplemental policies that would go into effect. Those listed countries do tax at a higher rate, we need to as well, we have one of the lowest tax rates in the OCED. Slowly thought and adapted ideas over generations? For tuition-free college no, most were adapted within 3-4 year periods, most did not take years and years to create but were voted on and created within a pretty short period of time. For healthcare, yes many have had it for a very long time, which just makes us look worse honestly. The United States has one of the lowest life expectancies amongst OCED countries, we have one of the highest infant and child mortality rates, one of the highest maternal mortality rates, one of the highest murder rates, one of the highest poverty rates, one of the highest levels of income inequality... why is this acceptable? I mean, just digest for a second, us having one of the highest infant and child mortality rates in the OCED. Let's do some math actually, there were nearly 3.8 million births in the USA in 2018, USA's infant mortality rate is 5.8 per 1 thousand. Japan, Slovenia, Finland's infant mortality rates were 2.0 per 1 thousand. If you lay those infant mortality rates across the 3.8 million births we had in 2018 you get 22,040 for the American rate and 7,600 for the Japan/Slovenia/Finland rate That's a 14,440 death different in... babies, the most precious lives we have, What the **** is that. In nearly every measure that relates to how your average American citizen is doing, we almost always look terrible in comparison to other developed countries. Considering how we are the richest country in the world and have one of the highest GDP's per capita, we're basically eating shitfor no reason.
Medicare for all cuts out about 1/2 the cost due to roughly 20% admins cost reductions, 15% reduction in CEO and profits which are costs to the consumers, 15% reduction in intensive care unit costs due to primary care taking care of problems earlier and home health and rationing of truly elective or cosmetic surgeries etc. Quibble if you must or provide counter citations. As for "government paying for it all". This is faulty thinking, though Biden, the insurance industry and other encourage this, for the millionth time. If a family pays $1200 in total costs per month for medical care including premiums, copays, deductibles, drug costs etc. and the alternative is eliminating this $1200 per month and instead paying $600 per month in taxes which allows the "government paying for it all" the family is $600 per month ahead and the government is not going broke. Nook, and others, see Bernietax.com to actually see how you would be better off. As far as other things needed for us to catch up with other advance nations such as mandated 4 weeks or more vacations, free college, family leave for childbirth, all paid for largely by greater taxes on the rich, you are correct that these programs all work in unison and a healthy, happier work force tends to be more hardworking, less crime ridden and healthier also. I doubt you advocate for these programs and again only the elite controlled media, a lack of imagination or perhaps just plain confidence in Americans makes you think that these, too, cannot be afforded or doable here.
How many people are they n Spain? Norway? Iceland? Finland? Are any of them even 1/5th the size of the USA? Do any of them have the same cultural background of the USA? I am not “annoyed” at efforts to improve the quality of life in the USA. I am annoyed when politicians on the left make unrealistic promises like universal single payer medical care and total forgiveness of medical debt and total forgiveness of student loan debt and free college. Do you really believe all of that is realistic? Do you really believe a majority of voters will believe it is realistic? Do you think that helps advance beating Donald Trump? Pick an issue and fight for radical change. Picking a half dozen issues and pushing for radical change for all of them just alienates people and hurts electoral odds. How many of those radical plans pass Congress? Telling people you will raise their taxes alienates them. Anyone that believes all of these will happen without tax increases is naive.
They have a combined population of 74 million people. Those that I listed are just countries with the combination of strictly single-payer healthcare + tuition-free college, there are many more countries that have mixed universal healthcare + tuition-free college as well. Not that it matters, because what matters is based off of our GDP per capita, based off of how healthy this country is, based off of how developed we are, we should definitely have things like universal healthcare, tuition-free college, paid maternity leave. And what does culture... have to do with healthcare, college and paid maternal leave? Do they have the same cultural background of the USA? No, not exactly of course...but Spain has a very diverse cultural background... if that helps? They are also a much poorer country then the US is, they are also a large country of 46 mill people who live more densely populated than the US, they also have illegal immigration from brown people on their southern (maritime) border. So what your saying is... your annoyed at efforts to improve the quality of life in the USA. You're just attempting to mask your annoyance with a claim of it being unrealistic. Yes, I believe it's realistic if we have the right person to implement these things like Sanders/Warren, over half of Europe does it. And before you say it just a geographical thing, New Zealand does it too. Yes, voters believe it's realistic and want to vote for it, those proposals are overwhelmingly popular with the vast majority of Dem voters, yes I think it helps advance beating Trump, giving people an actual reason to vote, instead of telling them everything is fine the way it is like Hillary did. Trump, more than anything, won off of populism, he won by telling people he'd make there lives better, they thought he'd actually do it because he didn't have a political background, unfortunately for his voters (and us), he's as corrupt as they come and didn't attempt to follow through on any of his populist promises.
Bernie Sanders unveils 'Tax on Extreme Wealth' plan https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bernie-sanders-tax-plan-131010181.html
