Deficits should be about as concerning to you rightt now as a bunch of rich old white guys bemoaning the threat of cancel culture
I mean we gave away revenue so corporations could make America great again with their pity bonuses to workers and huge profit sharing with stock holders. Who gives a **** about deficits at this point in time. Trump and Republicans sure weren't worried about deficits then so they can kiss my ass now.
Larry Kudlow has been grossly, monstrously wrong on pretty much anything of significance. He's pretty much Trump's mouthpiece on trying to keep the stock market calm; but why should anyone listen to him?
Smart people listen to Kudlow and do the exact opposite of what he's recommending...have been for a long time.
In another time (basically any time before 2016), this would be amazing campaign fodder. You can run targeted ads in farm states (that are facing huge numbers of farm bankruptcies) that the president just wants you to do something else. Same thing in coal states, rust belt manufacturing towns, etc.... But all of those constituencies seem set on voting for Trump.
I love that. I don't like the entitled American-born mentality of thinking a job is yours simply because you live here and know how to do it. It's lazy. I more so respect an immigrant coming here with nothing to make something of their own. But... Trump campaigned on the opposite. Lulz?
It's one thing to encourage people to find something new... it's another to have Ivanka be the messenger on it during a pandemic where a ton of businesses are shut down and many economic activities are a danger to not only one's own health but the health of the community.
They still should and I would like to see a group like the Lincoln Project take that on. While I don't think farmers and miners en masse will abandon Trump this is about picking at the margins. If we want to see a true repudiation of Trump those groups that make up Trump's base should be reminded that he really isn't helping them nor does he really care if he helps them.
This is similar to people, mostly from the left, telling flyover states to LearnHowToCode. I don't see what's wrong with it as a general message, but of course the collective anger to Trump Admin incompetence is so high that any aspirational message they promote will be dealt with a thick layer of skepticism.
I strongly dislike this as a message because its not reasonable and its incredibly patronizing to the people it targets. You can't tell people in West Virginia or Kentucky to just learn another profession. Many of the people losing their jobs are in their 50s and 60s. There's no time or ability to just magically learn a new profession when your previous profession was a labor job. Those that are capable of these jobs just end up leaving the state anyway. The people left behind are usually the ones that can't perform these types of jobs. And companies won't relocate to poorer states because the infrastructure to support those companies doesn't exist in those states. A coal miner in West Virginia could eventually earn up to a six-figure salary with a pension. That was enough to comfortably support a family of four. There is zero chance that anyone will manage to recreate opportunities like that. West Virginia is now the poorest state in the US and its only getting poorer. Eastern Tennessee, Kentucky and eastern Ohio share the same DNA. They've been robbed of the industries that gave the people there an opportunity to make a decent living and simply talking about retraining is insulting to them. I hated it when Democrats said this stuff and I always felt it was insulting to the people it was targeting. It was never realistic and it didn't present viable alternatives. There have been targeted job retraining programs in distressed areas in Appalachia for decades now and they've all failed at really changing anything. It will take so much more than just job retraining to help distressed parts of the US. You'll need New Deal levels of investment in government programs and government employment to give the people there a chance at any decent work. But to casually throw out job retraining is just not feasible. The only success story anyone can point to is Pittsburgh but that was such a unique case. It was already a large city with two major research universities (Carnegie-Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh) that served as incubators for businesses in emerging industries in science and technology. And Pittsburgh has a rich philanthropic tradition that helped underwrite a lot of the infrastructure that made Pittsburgh an attractive place to set up businesses. I honestly have no ill will towards anyone in the rust belt or Applachia that voted for Trump because I totally understand why they supported him. The entire country has given up on these communities. Neither party has a plan to bring reasonable jobs to distressed parts of the US so voting for Trump was the logical result. Trump might be full of it but he probably represented some minimal hope.
I agree those people shouldn’t be abandoned and also that job retraining is difficult but what then is the answer? What I find far more troubling is the idea that we should save outdated, inefficient and dangerous industries just because that is what those people have been doing all their lives and once could earn a good living. It’s the type of thinking that brought down the Soviet economic system and other countries that they had to preserve uncompetitive industries. Coal is a dead end technology and while we can feel bad for the loss of coal jobs we shouldn’t be propping this industry up just to protect a dwindling group of people working an industry that technology and markets are doing away with. On top of that one that is dangerous and damaging to extract. We should be looking to adapt the economies of states like WV and for those who can definitely through retraining and investments in new technology. For those who can’t adapt I would rather see a strengthened social safety net than propping up their industry.
