View Full Version : What If Bernie Does It?
He’s looking pretty good in New Hampshire, and the recent attacks don’t seem to have penetrated his armor to any great extent. Suppose he wins the nomination and rides the wave of Trump revulsion some people are predicting to the presidency. Also suppose he’s given a narrow Senate (I.e. not filibuster-proof) majority. What do you think the practical result would be?
He doesn’t have much of a history of birthing new legislation. Even some of his party colleagues might balk at eliminating private health insurance, or some of his more radical proposals. He’d be trapped between them and the AOC wing demanding revolution now. How much could he reasonably be expected to move the needle to the left?
I don't think he has a chance to win the general election.
But suppose, as a thought experiment that he does.
I don’t pretend to have any special insight here. I thought we’d be criticizing President Rubio at this point.
But suppose, as a thought experiment that he does.
I don’t pretend to have any special insight here. I thought we’d be criticizing President Rubio at this point.
If he were to be elected, I agree with you - I don't think he'll get much of anything done.
If elected I think he'll convert this country to a socialist paradise. Viva la Revolucion!!!
In general, I think any of the Democrats are going to have a hard time winning. RealClearPolitics shows Bernie doing pretty well in Trump vs. [Biden/Warren/Buttigieg/Sanders] polls. But Bernie will have a gargantuan task overcoming DNC sabotage to even get the nomination.
If he did overcome all these obstacles and become President, I think his contribution would be to bend collective consciousness toward the benefits of Scandivanian-style socialism. He won't get to the Promised Land of Medicare for All or other progressive policies, but he would pave the way for future progressive leaders.
That is enough for me to vote for him.
Between DNC shenanigans, Republican mass voter suppression, and Russian disinformation and electronic hacking, we certainly have our work cut out for us.
Not “we”, exactly. I’m one of the near-extinct species of dinosaur who bitterly clings to the notion that deficits matter. Nor do I subscribe to the interlocking set of conspiracy theories explaining various Democratic party defeats.
But if we live in times where a specimen like Trump can be elected President, I’m not inclined to discount even remote possibilities. I’m just wondering if there is a market out there for a massive increase in government, and if so how it might be expected to be implemented.
I’m just wondering if there is a market out there for a massive increase in government, and if so how it might be expected to be implemented.
We already have a pretty massive government. I think there's plenty of room to discuss restructuring the mass - it doesn't necessarily have to get any bigger. For instance, I'd rather have schools, bridges, hospitals, and clean water than a military bigger than the rest of the planet combined.
We already have a pretty massive government. I think there's plenty of room to discuss restructuring the mass - it doesn't necessarily have to get any bigger. For instance, I'd rather have schools, bridges, hospitals, and clean water than a military bigger than the rest of the planet combined.
I would like to live in a country where people aren't desperately scrambling to pay for health care and higher education and housing, and concessions to billionaires, personally--things that Bernie and Elizabeth talk about regularly. (And yes, lets "right-size" the bloated military.)
Note that when we had much higher federal taxes, under Eisenhower, and the military-industrial complex had not yet assumed control of the country, middle-income people could pay for all those thing, easily. I remember those days.
I would like to live in a country where people aren't desperately scrambling to pay for health care and higher education and housing, and concessions to billionaires, personally--things that Bernie and Elizabeth talk about regularly. (And yes, lets "right-size" the bloated military.)
Note that when we had much higher federal taxes, under Eisenhower, and the military-industrial complex had not yet assumed control of the country, middle-income people could pay for all those thing, easily. I remember those days.
You could do all those things, but it still wouldn’t be enough to cover the proposed ramp-up in entitlement and GND spending without some combination of new middle class taxes, borrowing and higher inflation. Although that would be assuming Bernie got everything he wanted.
While there may be a bit of give in the defense budget, I’m in the camp that believes skimping there could prove to be prohibitively expensive in the long run.
And of course things were cheaper on the health care and higher education front before all that pricey medical technology and college campuses that didn’t look like Club Med staffed with Assistant Deans for Hangnail Affairs.
iris lilies
1-27-20, 6:19pm
I would like to live in a country where people aren't desperately scrambling to pay for health care and higher education and housing, and concessions to billionaires, personally--things that Bernie and Elizabeth talk about regularly. (And yes, lets "right-size" the bloated military.)
Note that when we had much higher federal taxes, under Eisenhower, and the military-industrial complex had not yet assumed control of the country, middle-income people could pay for all those thing, easily. I remember those days.
“..where people arent desperately scrambling to pay for their health care “:
This morning I ventured into the country doctor’s place here in Hermann. I think I’m going to join her practice as a patient. Had a few questions for the office.She is on a subscription basis, you pay monthly to see her.
Anyway, I chatted with two people in the waiting room to see how they liked the doc. Both of them were complaining about their high cost of insurance when they had it. “Can’t afford it! “ They cried. When I asked them about getting on the ACA because that’s affordable, remember that President Obama assured us it was affordable, they said oh no that’s too expensive we can’t do that! They make too much money for subsidies.
So that means that these two separate households, with no children, make minimum $62,000 a year. I am telling you that $62,000 household income in Hermann is decent. It goes far.
I also didn’t want to push the fact that if they’re going bare without insurance how in gods name are they protecting their assets. That gives me the heebie-jeebies.
I am increasingly not always believing Americans when they say “I can’t afford healthcare. “
I am increasingly not always believing Americans when they say “I can’t afford healthcare. “My youngest brother died last year from medical neglect, not from lack of access, he was on Medicaid, but from lack of prioritizing. In his last days he told me he couldn't afford the co-pays on medication although he had the means to never run out of cigarettes (2 packs a day), beer and pot. My sister-in-law now tells anyone who will listen that he died because they couldn't afford healthcare. I think there are a lot of my brothers and sisters-in-law out there.
“..where people arent desperately scrambling to pay for their health care “:
...
I am increasingly not always believing Americans when they say “I can’t afford healthcare. “
I'm lucky. My insurance was completely covered by my employer, with no co-pays. In fact, I never had to pay anything until the last few years when my insurance and/or the government required me to pay a nominal amount. But I've only used a few thousand dollars total over fifty years or so. On the other hand, my stroke-survivor relative has lost everything but their modest home after paying for assisted living, therapies, etc. And I've heard of people paying out thousands a month and then being expected to pay more. From what I've seen a major illness equals impoverishment or bankruptcy for many middle-income people.
If I were going to have a doctor, I'd definitely look into concierge coverage; I don't like the insurance model.
Chicken lady
1-27-20, 6:56pm
Alan, you’re such an optimist.>8)
Simpletonhttp://www.simplelivingforum.net/image.php?u=23&dateline=1550544982 (http://www.simplelivingforum.net/member.php?23-Alan)Join DateDec 2010LocationOhioPosts6,710http://www.simplelivingforum.net/images/misc/im_skype.gif
If elected I think he'll convert this country to a socialist paradise. Viva la Revolucion!!!
Teacher Terry
1-27-20, 7:01pm
People that make 62k in a LCOL can afford HI. They don’t want to pay for it. We pay a fourth of our income for HI if you count our income before any money we make working. Some years we don’t work at all. I would never go without it.
Chicken lady
1-27-20, 7:25pm
Btw, the cheapest health insurance option available for my financially self supporting, doesn’t live here, healthy 23 y.o. Kid is a $300/month add on to dh plan. Dh has a really good plan.
if you have $200 a month leeway, you can’t afford that health insurance, but you can buy a lot of cigarettes, beer, and pot. Which won’t make you GET better, but might make you FEEL better.
Note that when we had much higher federal taxes, under Eisenhower, ....
While that is a convenient phrase, it is important to look at the effective tax rates back then, not the notional ones. The tax code was so different that even though the top bracket was 91%-ish, there were enough shelters and such that the *effective* rate wasn't particularly high.
https://files.taxfoundation.org/20170804133536/Average-Effective-Tax-Rate-on-the-Top-1-Percent-of-U.S.-Households.png
Teacher Terry
1-27-20, 9:21pm
Jane, my good friends lost everything when she had 8 bouts of cancer and he about 4 despite having insurance. She eventually couldn’t work because of Alzheimer’s and he worked until about a year before he died.
Of course middle class taxes would go up, but we would eliminate employer and employee medical premiums, deductibles, copayments, coinsurance, donut holes, and some exclusions. We would treat people more cheaply in doctors' offices, not emergency rooms.
My parents lived in Canada when national health insurance went into effect. There was moaning and groaning and some doctors only in the profession for the money moved to the US. But where would all the greedy US doctors go? Dubai can only absorb so many. Life went on in Canada, and now most Canadians would not exchange their health care model for ours. When Bernie goes on Fox and most of the folks in the audience raise their hands that they would like single payer insurance yes it can happen.
I think the health care issue highlights the real choice Democrats will need to make as the field narrows down to, say, Sanders and Biden: Do they go for a major transformation of the country's economic model, or for a more moderate course aimed at fine-tuning the existing model more to their liking?
The New York Times took the courageous approach of endorsing one from each camp.
If only the republicans would be brave enough to offer a suggestion in this area. But they haven't offered any sort of actual suggestion on healthcare since mitt romney suggested something shockingly similar to the ACA...
mitt romney suggested something shockingly similar to the ACA...
Which Deval Patrick is now trying to claim credit for.
If only the republicans would be brave enough to offer a suggestion in this area. But they haven't offered any sort of actual suggestion on healthcare since mitt romney suggested something shockingly similar to the ACA...
One nice thing about being Republican is that “leave people alone” is a perfectly acceptable default position.
While I think the both major parties have some work to do deciding what sort of party they want to be, the primary season makes that decision a more immediate (or perhaps less avoidable) issue for the Democrats.
I think there are a lot of my brothers and sisters-in-law out there.
I have a few of those. But, rather than blaming them for their addictions and telling them they are undeserving of my tax dollars, I recognize that addictions are diseases that can and should be treated. I'm grateful for their access to all kinds of resources that can help them, and I recognized that helping them will decrease the burden on society, not increase it. If they refuse those resources, I can't do anything about that, but I can thank God and the powers-that-be that enable them to make that choice.
Alan, I am very sorry for your loss.
ETA: I may have gone off on a tangent. In terms of personal choice to pay for "sin tax" over copays, that doesn't negate the need to give everyone equal access to healthcare. It's not an issue of "oh, you can afford it--just cut back on x, y, or z"--it's an issue of a system that is wildly inefficient. This crazy profit-motivated system has given us a system that costs twice as much as all other developed nations and gives us half the results.
ApatheticNoMore
1-28-20, 10:09am
Sanders may use deficits as something other than pure game playing, which is all they are to the Republican party, they are a means and many will say a weapon used in wealth distribution period. Republicans don't actually care about deficits, they care about giving tax breaks to the well off and using the resulting deficits as a reason/excuse to then cut social programs, they are a means of changing the distribution of income in a highly unequal direction, to the point of creating mass poverty as a result (not the only cause but). And that's the entire of their policy.
I mean Republicans themselves don't actually reduce deficits one may have noticed after decades of this. There are strategic reasons of deficit spending that make a lot of sense like trying to spend out of the Great Depression, and a Sanders might, but that's not game playing.
Other than that, we probably would not get the whole of Sander's agenda, it's very hard, we would at least get good policy on the margins which would be a very good thing, that is not intended to destroy government (with bad staffing etc). It would be a remarkable change in itself.
----
As for the flakey relatives, I don't know what the weird compulsion is to focus on them, rather than the saintly relatives who may be spending themselves into bankruptcy trying to save them (Catherine, ok not bankrupt, but has taken the hit). Alan would have probably given the copay had he known (ok a copay isn't going to bankrupt one unless one is already down and out, but clearly that's just an inexpensive example). A social safety net helps people not have to destroy themselves trying to save some wayward relative who darn it they may love. It helps everyone. The relative may not have a great life, ok well they are messed in the head and all right, they are not examples of self-actualization to put it mildly, HOWEVER they won't starve, die from lack of healthcare, sleep on the streets is all. The basic minimum.
ToomuchStuff
1-28-20, 10:12am
Note that when we had much higher federal taxes, under Eisenhower, and the military-industrial complex had not yet assumed control of the country, middle-income people could pay for all those thing, easily. I remember those days.
While that is a convenient phrase, it is important to look at the effective tax rates back then, not the notional ones. The tax code was so different that even though the top bracket was 91%-ish, there were enough shelters and such that the *effective* rate wasn't particularly high.
https://files.taxfoundation.org/20170804133536/Average-Effective-Tax-Rate-on-the-Top-1-Percent-of-U.S.-Households.png
Also, back then, so much of the world was still rebuilding from WWII, we didn't have conflicts on multiple fronts. (we still had Korea, which a recent, former president, made a call to check on a neighbor I has growing up, who was then found after being MIA)
We had a much different standard of living (one car, size of houses, etc), and a lot more savings, from all the money not spent/earned, during the war. So, not really sure the "golden age" is really a fair comparison.
Not “we”, exactly. I’m one of the near-extinct species of dinosaur who bitterly clings to the notion that deficits matter. Nor do I subscribe to the interlocking set of conspiracy theories explaining various Democratic party defeats.
But if we live in times where a specimen like Trump can be elected President, I’m not inclined to discount even remote possibilities. I’m just wondering if there is a market out there for a massive increase in government, and if so how it might be expected to be implemented.Interesting, because I too believe that deficits matter, but I'm so jaded that i assume a bloated spend-like-there's-no-tomorrow budget has just become status quo for a nation of, for and by spoiled children, D's and R's alike. If "I" am going to spend like there's no tomorrow, let it be on the welfare of human beings in general, and not prized specimens.
I do tend to agree with the sentiment that not all that much is going to happen if Bernie gets elected, but ... hey. In the last five years, the word socialist has gone from an evil-eye inciting epithet to a measured consideration.
All the sore losers are coming out of the woodwork. First Hillary, now John Kerry was heard saying he may have to jump into the race to stop Bernie if Biden tanks. The establishment is quaking in its boots.
In truth, Hillary has a right to be sore, as the election was demonstrably stolen from her--and she won anyway, except for the anachronistic electoral college.
That said, it's time for a new vision, so I wish these ghosts of elections past (looking at you, Biden) would just go away.
In truth, Hillary has a right to be sore, as the election was demonstrably stolen from her--and she won anyway, except for the anachronistic electoral college.
That said, it's time for a new vision, so I wish these ghosts of elections past (looking at you, Biden) would just go away.
Personally, I think Hillary had something to do with Hillary losing.
Personally, I think Hillary had something to do with Hillary losing.
What do you mean? It was the Russians, it was the deplorables, it was James Comey, it was Bernie Sanders, it was Sanders supporters. It was not HRC Her Royal Clinton failing to campaign in places like Wisconsin.
ApatheticNoMore
2-3-20, 1:02pm
What do you mean? It was the Russians, it was the deplorables, it was James Comey, it was Bernie Sanders, it was Sanders supporters. It was not HRC Her Royal Clinton failing to campaign in places like Wisconsin.
Since she lost the electoral college by thousands (not millions) of votes in a few states, it could have been any and all, since it was literally such small numbers, but apparently campaigning made her even less popular, so maybe she played it as best she could if campaigning was making her even less popular the more she campaigned.
Teacher Terry
2-3-20, 1:13pm
I wonder what the farmers will do this election? I was laughing that Kerry would even think he is the answer.
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