The 2020 Presidential Election Primary Thread

[creekster]

Creek, this is now the second time I have explicitly said that the effects of Trump's and Warren's economic policies are fundamentally different. Please listen to me this time.

Whenever I hear Venezuela in these discussions, I tune out. It's a lazy argument. If you want to do better, there are a number of developed countries that do rather well with more nationalized health care than we have. Pick one and let's go from there.

And I have tried to tell you that it is not just the scale of the effect, but also the nature of the change that is different, which is why Sanders and Warren are dangerous.

You think Venezuela is lazy, I think it is cautionary.

[Jeff Lebowski]

All presidents make economic decisions, some of which work and some of which don't work. Trump is no different.

Warren/Sanders plan is to NATIONALIZE a trillion dollar industry. Plus, she proposes to fund this boondoggle by taxing wealth. The government is going to roll up and take your property. Not your income stream, but your stuff. That is, by any measure, socialism of the worst sort and constitutes a fundamental alteration (and a huge negative one from my POV) to our economic system. There is simply no comparison to Trump's economic policies, however misguided they may be. It is simply laughable to assert that Trump's economic policies constitute an equal risk to our economic system, particularly when what you are implicitly worried about is a deficit. Moreover, as a philosophical matter moving toward sanctioned socialism is a bad idea, IMO. What industry is next? Oil and Gas? Why allow energy sector profits when we could make life so much easier with centrally planned production and distribution? It has worked so well in Venezuela, eh?

Exactly. The wealth tax may make progressives feel warm and fuzzy, but that is an extremely dangerous precedent. Once you open that door, what is next?

[Uncle Ted]

O'Rourke has just announced his campaign is over.

Oh that makes me so sad... ok, I’m over it.


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[Joe Public]

yeah not sure how the wealth tax would work. Are illiquid assets excluded? Are appraisals of private businesses or other illiquid assets going to be required annually? Value means very little until it is sold.

Probably similar to the estate tax. I agree - liquidity could potentially be an issue, also reduction in ownership percentages over time, which could be a significant issue for the ultra wealthy but not one I've seen discussed.

[frank ryan]

No question. But in terms of who will not destroy the US economy, Trump is head and shoulders above Bernie.

That would be a horrible set of choices. I would vote for Hillary over Bernie any day. By a mile.

I can understand your perspective. The counter argument I'd have is that Trump is already damaging our national security at a scary fast pace.

Even if Bernie or Warren end up becoming as disastrous a POTUS as predicted on here, I think the country could better survive that then more of the Trump cabal.

[Uncle Ted]

And I was getting worried that Warren was going to raise taxes on the middle class...

Warren Releases $52 Trillion ‘Medicare For All’ Plan Funded By Unicorn Farts

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has finally released her “Medicare for All” plan, which her campaign says would cost $52 trillion over the next 10 years. While Warren pledged that middle-class taxes would not increase to pay for “Medicare for All,” given Congress’s refusal to pass a regular budget for a decade, the looming debt crisis due to hundreds of trillions in underfunded existing entitlements like Social Security, and decades of record-breaking federal budget deficits, it’s a certainty her pledge will turn out to be as reliable as President Obama’s “you can keep your doctor.”

In other words, take it to the bank, and watch that check bounce.
[...]
A report by the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget concludes Medicare for All would nearly bankrupt Americans. The study claims, in order to raise the estimated $30 trillion over a decade that Warren and Bernie Sanders outlined in their original “Medicare for All” plan, it would require a 32 percent payroll tax, a 25 percent income surtax, or a 42 percent value-added tax. All of these would represent massive tax increases on all Americans.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/01...unicorn-farts/

[Uncle Ted]

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[SCcoug]

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[Uncle Ted]

The Biden family needs to step in and stop this... this is sad:

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His dementia is getting really bad.

[Pelado]

Fun thread describing each major candidate:

https://twitter.com/DPRK_News/status...830507520?s=19

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[Scott R Nelson]

Fun thread describing each major candidate:

https://twitter.com/DPRK_News/status...830507520?s=19

I usually want nothing to do with Twitter, but that was good.

[Uncle Ted]

Pelosi tells it like it is... The Dems are screwed.

Nancy Pelosi Warns That The Democrat Field Is So Far Left That Is Scares Even Her
[...]
Nancy Pelosi was featured at a roundtable of Bloomberg reporters and editors on Friday. I suspect more than a few of the attendees were shocked when, instead of getting a pep talk about how the Democrats were going to take the Senate and vanquish #OrangeManBad, they got a warning about the direction the Democrat field…especially media darling Elizabeth Warren…is going.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is issuing a pointed message to Democrats running for president in 2020: Those liberal ideas that fire up the party’s base are a big loser when it comes to beating President Donald Trump.

Proposals pushed by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders like Medicare for All and a wealth tax play well in liberal enclaves like her own district in San Francisco but won’t sell in the Midwestern states that sent Trump to the White House in 2016, she said.

“What works in San Francisco does not necessarily work in Michigan,” Pelosi said at a roundtable of Bloomberg News reporters and editors on Friday. “What works in Michigan works in San Francisco — talking about workers’ rights and sharing prosperity.”

“Remember November,” she said. “You must win the Electoral College.”

[...]
Given the dynamics of Democrat party politics, it is difficult to see how the Democrat candidates break out of this. In order to win the nomination, the Democrat candidate is going to have to stake out some very extreme positions. We have seen even Joe Biden endorse the idea of sending felons to women’s prisons based solely on their self-identification as a woman. Elizabeth Warren has endorsed free sex change operations for felons and it is a matter of time before she will demand that they be enrolled as members of the Cherokee nation. As the field gets smaller, the policies they endorse will become more extreme. While I don’t believe that “run to the [left/right] in the primary and move to the center in the general” has ever worked, it simply can’t work in the internet age where their statements are being lovingly collected by the Trump campaign and conservative 501(c)4 groups.

Pelosi is absolutely right. But the conundrum for the candidates, assuming they even perceive their positions as extreme, is that there isn’t a perceivable path off this roller coaster.

https://www.redstate.com/streiff/201...t-scares-even/

[imanihonjin]

And I was getting worried that Warren was going to raise taxes on the middle class...



https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/01...unicorn-farts/

Yes, but some believe that it is good enough to just want to take care of as many people as we possibly can until our economy collapses and that is a good enough reason to support socialism without any other need to provide and reasoning what so ever!

[Moliere]

And I was getting worried that Warren was going to raise taxes on the middle class...

Warrens plan to pay for MFA is abysmal. If anyone believes she can raise the money this way, they deserve her as a president. MFA is going to cost the middle class a lot of money. Everyone knows that and it’s funny that Warren won’t admit it despite even all the other candidates basically admitting it. I hope this unicorn fart based “plan” is the nail in the coffin for her.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Warrens plan to pay for MFA is abysmal. If anyone believes she can raise the money this way, they deserve her as a president. MFA is going to cost the middle class a lot of money. Everyone knows that and it’s funny that Warren won’t admit it despite even all the other candidates basically admitting it. I hope this unicorn fart based “plan” is the nail in the coffin for her.

Even Bernie the socialist thinks her plan is nuts.