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Thread: 2020 Presidential Candidates

  1. #221
    Senior Member rosarugosa's Avatar
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    "Free" is a pet peeve for me. "Publicly funded" is more accurate.

  2. #222
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    "Free stuff" is a characterization meant to be insulting. The stuff I pay taxes for is not free, and I would a thousand times rather spend my tax dollars on health care and infrastructure, for example, than on endless stupid wars and unnecessary payoffs to big business and billionaires.

    Cannabis generates lots of revenue.

    It doesn't cost the government any more money to subsidize gay marriage than straight.

    Universal health care would be much cheaper and more efficient than what we have now, if it were managed as well as, say, Social Security. We pay twice as much for substandard care as any other first-world country.

  3. #223
    Simpleton Alan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JaneV2.0 View Post
    "Free stuff" is a characterization meant to be insulting.
    I agree. I've never understood why so many politicians promise it to us and why so many of their supporters expect it.
    "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein

  4. #224
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    Quote Originally Posted by rosarugosa View Post
    "Free" is a pet peeve for me. "Publicly funded" is more accurate.
    I’m guessing that over the next few years the question “How do you intend to pay for that?” will generate a mighty torrent of creative wordsmithery, sublime spin and desperate distraction among progressive policy promoters.

    “It’s an investment that will pay for itself.”

    “We’ll make the rich pay. It won’t cost you a thing,”

    “Denmark!”

    “We owe the money to ourselves.”

    “Those other guys borrow money too.”

    “We’re trying to save humanity here! There’s no time to argue!”

  5. #225
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LDAHL View Post
    I’m guessing that over the next few years the question “How do you intend to pay for that?” will generate a mighty torrent of creative wordsmithery, sublime spin and desperate distraction among progressive policy promoters.

    “It’s an investment that will pay for itself.”

    “We’ll make the rich pay. It won’t cost you a thing,”

    “Denmark!”

    “We owe the money to ourselves.”

    “Those other guys borrow money too.”

    “We’re trying to save humanity here! There’s no time to argue!”
    Upping the marginal tax rate on the highest earners in the country has already been proposed. And that strategy has been employed by many administrations in the past to solve problems. Why should our 21st century problems require different solutions?
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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  6. #226
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by catherine View Post
    Upping the marginal tax rate on the highest earners in the country has already been proposed. And that strategy has been employed by many administrations in the past to solve problems. Why should our 21st century problems require different solutions?
    Federal taxes have been effectively gutted since Reagan; we need to get back to levels we can work with.

  7. #227
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    Quote Originally Posted by catherine View Post
    Upping the marginal tax rate on the highest earners in the country has already been proposed. And that strategy has been employed by many administrations in the past to solve problems. Why should our 21st century problems require different solutions?
    Upping the marginal income tax rates and finding a way around the Constitution to implement a federal wealth tax will not begin to raise all the additional trillions in proposed new spending. Neither will reducing the military to impotence or eliminating your least favorite law enforcement agencies.

    If the Democrats want to promise eliminating fossil fuels and rehabbing everything with a roof in ten years while simultaneously providing a massive menu of new benefits, they should be honest about the cost involved to average Americans, not just the hated 1%.

  8. #228
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    So I guess we didn't have an extra two billion to gift to the oligarchs, eh? Let's reverse that blunder at the earliest opportunity.

  9. #229
    Simpleton Alan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LDAHL View Post
    If the Democrats want to promise eliminating fossil fuels and rehabbing everything with a roof in ten years while simultaneously providing a massive menu of new benefits, they should be honest about the cost involved to average Americans, not just the hated 1%.
    I heard a pundit recently suggest that we would need to eliminate progressive taxation and credits and enforce a mandatory rate of approximately 50% on every worker, regardless of income.
    That seems about right to me. If you were to add a wealth tax on top of that, it would have the added benefit of eliminating income disparity within just a few years which seems to make it a political no-brainer.
    "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein

  10. #230
    Simpleton Alan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JaneV2.0 View Post
    So I guess we didn't have an extra two billion to gift to the oligarchs, eh? Let's reverse that blunder at the earliest opportunity.
    You know we talk about the pros and cons of socialism a lot and I think your post outlines my biggest problem with it. Your line of thought assumes that those two billion didn't belong to the oligarchs to start with, that all income belongs to the commons and we desperately need a just arbiter to dole it out fairly. That's such a crock.
    "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein

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