U. S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New York Mayor Bill De Blasio have taken to the opinion page Washington Post’s to lay out what they characterize as a “bold” plan to revitalize the American Dream (whatever that means). Here are their proposals:
- Increase the minimum wage.
- Equal pay for equal work.
- Paid family leave.
- Control costs and allow borrowers to refinance educational loans at lower rates.
- Universal pre-K.
- More medical and scientific research.
- Spend more on “roads, bridges, rail, water, power and broadband”.
- Strengthen and expand Social Security.
- Reform trade policy (details unspecified).
- Remove unspecified tax breaks for businesses and ensure that “millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share”.
which seems a lot more like a list of Democratic nostrums for the last 50 years than it does a “bold” plan. To my bloodshot eye that anodyne list wouldn’t have been bold in 1965 let alone in 2015. No red necktie wearers here.
You’ll notice a long list of people who are completely left out of their plan. People who don’t already have a job. People who can’t or won’t graduate from college.
I could propose a bolder list right off the top of my head. I won’t claim that any of these will be effective in reviving the American Dream or even that I agree with them but at least they’re bold:
- A guaranteed minimum wage job for any American that wants one.
- Abandoning Davis-Bacon requirements in federal infrastructure spending bills.
- Universal college education at no charge to the students or their families (just as we have universal high school education now).
- Ban selling Treasury bonds to foreign governments, sovereign wealth funds, or similar institutions.
- Greatly increase the number of work visas available to Mexicans.
- Strong workplace enforcement of immigration laws based on a national biometric ID.
- Impose tariffs on goods and services from countries that don’t have health, safety, labor, and environmental laws at least as strict as ours (or who don’t enforce the laws they have).
So go bold! Let’s hear some bold plans for revitalizing the American Dream.
Cutting the capital gains tax rate, and repealing the 17th Amendment will revitalize somebody’s American Dream.
If we wanted to revitalize the president’s American Dream, we’d repeal the 22nd amendment.
A shorter version of the Warren/DeBlasio economic plan would be “raise taxes on the rich, redistribute the wealth, spend more.”
It’s called a progressive’s progressive day dream. And, to many of my friends, Elizabeth Warren is their “Dream Candidate.”
Trumwill shared this quiz to help you decide who to root for in the British elections: https://uk.isidewith.com/political-quiz
The quiz shows a wider range of policy questions than get debated in the U.S., particularly if you click through the the more detailed responses. I apparently support the UKIP party 87% of the time, the conservative party 85%, labour party 62% and liberal party 61%.
As should surprise no one, I would be a Tory 87%, (followed by UKIP 84%, followed by Lib-D, 78%).
I like the weighting factor on the poll.
Yes, but producers should not be able to patent seeds
in response to Do you support the use of genetically engineered crops and foods?
is interesting!
Sigh. I’m perfectly aligned with the Socialist Workers Party………again.
Lizzie’s plan is tripe. If she could put some meat on the trade plank she at least might have one sensible talking point.
lol, y’all are a bunch of fascists! I’m
80% UKIP
71% Liberal Democrat
65% Labour (on economics, domestic policy, & healthcare issues, no less!)
65% Conservative
OMG, I’ve become more anti-immigration that Ellipses.
(When I get to weight the factors, I find that my libertarian views on social issues get washed away. I think social issues are interesting, but not important)
Where voters side with me? Penzance! Argh!
Bold? How about these (like the post, I don’t necessarily agree with them):
– Rewrite the entire tax code causing intuit, H&R Block and thousands of tax lawyers/accountants to go bankrupt.
– Eliminate the corporate tax and turn the US into a global tax haven.
– Rebuild the federal civil service from the ground up.
– Increase regulation by decreasing and reforming the number of regulations.
– Implement a guaranteed minimum income
– Rebuild the federal contracting and procurement system(s)
– Standardize government IT systems and processes
– End ISP monopolies or make ISP’s become regulated utilities
– Turn Social Security into a universal pension/retirement system, not just a social safety net
– Allow all Americans to contribute to the federal TSP system including matching contributions.
– Subsidize child care for working/single parents, based on income.
– End the fee-for-service (piece work) compensation model for medicare and other federally-provided health care.
– Change federal education spending to focus the playing field when it comes to per-student spending. These federal dollars to poorer areas would be contingent on the ratio of admin vs. education spending at the school/district.
Andy for President!
(Yeah, it’s a horrible thing to do to a person, but look at the alternatives….)