Moderator: "How do we deal with the legacy of slavery in America?"

Biden: "Black people don't know how to raise their kids, so they need government help."
Biden: "And record players. They need record players."

See, I must have been watching a different debate than most people. I thought Biden seemed a bit confused more than once, and then that happened. He is scaring me. Bernie also sounded rough with his voice going. Warren seem to disappear for long stretches. Everyone else did well, but too many doing well means probably status quo. Well, except for Castro. Castro seemed to be auditioning for Warren's Vice President.

I agree, I thought Biden was bad. He stumbles and fumbles. Almost like, if he goes off script, he has no idea what to say and it never turns out well.

No more septuagenarians.

Matt Yglesias here makes a good "birds eye" point as to why Biden is leading:

Joe Biden wins the September 2019 Democratic debate - Vox

Simply put the moderates aren't going after Biden. I was struck by how Klobuchar saved her attacks for Sanders and Warren. It seems the moderates feel Biden will just fade away due to gaffes (as he did the last two times he ran) and therefore don't want to stigma of attacking him.

It's a strategic mistake.

In addition, I read an interesting point from... I think Nate Silver? about why Booker hasn't gotten any traction. His view was that Booker made the error of running in the wrong lane. Booker is running as a progressive who is willing to do moderate things in the interim as opposed to a moderate who has far off progressive ideals. The former is how Warren is positioning herself. The later is how Klobuchar or Buttigieg is. If Booker started off by running as a moderate, he may have been in the 7-8% range instead of the 2-3% range.

That's been Biden for at least 40 years. That isn't an age thing.

He did seem a bit incoherent at times. Constantly fumbling around for what he was trying to say.

My parents are visiting this week, they're both close to 80 and are in decent shape - can do layovers in big airports, walk around town, ect., still - I can't even believe someone as old as Joe Biden wants to and can keep up a campaign schedule.

That describes Sanders last night I thought.

Not to this degree IMO. Contrast the debate performance for VP in '08 with Palin (just his part of it) with what he's doing now and there's a marked difference I think. Back then he was extremely competent with the occasional gaffe.

I like Yang, his response seems balanced to me.

I don't know how many times Gillis said bigoted/homophobic comments but if its not a steady pattern, I agree with Yang. If its like every other podcast, that's a different story.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/16/enter...lis/index.html

On the other hand that article says:


I can totally understand SNL going... uh, nope after offering him a position. Now if he'd been there a year or two, allowing him to give a contright apology may be ok - but it doesn't seem like Gills even apologized for that.

Another week, another big spending plan:

Sanders unveils $2.5 trillion 'Housing for All' plan



I wish voters cared enough about the deficit to actually demand it gets fixed.

There will always be deficits as long as we insist on spending more on our military than the next 7 biggest spending countries combined.

https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0...nse-comparison

I'm all for reducing military spending. I think there's billions upon billions of $ of waste, crony payouts, and that's nothing to say of the 100s of billions spent on military actions we don't need to be doing (and this from someone who is generally a "conservative").

But if military spending is 15% of our budget (as that link you posted states), then the far bigger problem with our deficit is in other areas. And even if we cut military spending to foolhardly minimums, it still wouldn't be enough to eliminate the deficit.

I would argue the far bigger problem is presidential candidates (of both parties) who promise massive "new programs" compounding on top of one another, over and over, until we're buried in debt.

I agree with the original poster - I'd like to see a candidate who actually presents a "plan" for dealing with our spending problem. Until then, they all sound like a bunch of alcoholics ("spend"-aholics) saying, "Our real problem financially is that our mortgage is too high." No, the real problem is your spending habit.

The problem with reducing the deficit is that we live in a democracy. And, as a result, the things driving the deficit are popular. We've already cut the unpopular things because they were unpopular and easy to cut.

Our deficit is driven by

Social Security spending
Medicare spending
military spending
low taxes

Unfortunately for deficit hawks, all four of those things are super popular, so it is hard to win elections promising to reduce/eliminate them.

You end up with every politician promising to eliminate "waste, fraud, and abuse." And, sure, we are all against those things. But the easy to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse have already been gotten rid of. There's not much left there but rhetoric.

And you have a lot of politicians vaguely implying that the issue is "welfare" spending or Obama giving phones away to poor people or something--basically some version of "You know those people who look differently from you? They have way too much money and it isn't fair, and we will take it back from them and it won't affect you in the least." And I can see how that plays very well politically. But it does nothing to actually solve the deficit. It isn't true, and even if it were, there's not enough money there to make any difference.

The way to actually reduce the deficit is conceptually easy--cut Social Security, Medicare, and military spending and raise taxes. But if someone actually runs on that platform, they will end up the answer to a trivia question: "Which candidate received the lowest number of votes ever in a presidential election?"

And now we have presidential candidates running who are ALSO offering federally funded:

- Health Care for all
- College education
- Housing
- etc.

It seems to come down to, "Who is willing to bribe me the most (with my own money) to get my vote?"

Which really comes down to: Who is willing to spend us into financial ruin the fastest?

I know I lean Republican, so I don't have much standing to talk in this particular thread, but if Trump weren't such an awful human being, I would hope America would be smart enough to laugh every one of these Dem candidates off the stage. These ideas are wildly fiscally irresponsible and not even remotely pragmatic without astronomical tax increases and complete, socialist revolution (at least Bernie is honest about it!). Alas, America falls for the "chicken in my pot" line all too often, and alas, the only currently viable alternative ... is Trump.

Trump, who is also spending us into oblivion.

Mmmm, that's good rationalization

Don't mistake my point. It wasn't to rationalize support of Trump. It's that our choices are between people who are making laughable, economy-wrecking, stupid-level spending promises ... or Trump (who has overseen irresponsible spending levels as well). My point was exactly that we're being given an awful choice.

I at least pretend to be concerned about the budget deficit and our spending/revenue disconnect. Not sure my hands are completely clean, as that is a hard position to adopt as an absolute, but intellectually I believe that fiscal prudence is important.

That said... I believe there's an important difference between just launching a new spending plan, and suggesting that that function should be paid for publicly rather than privately. Health care is the obvious example.

If we are talking about the costs of health care, and are only willing to consider government spending and the taxes to support them, that's alarmingly short sighted. Obviously, we are all paying for health care in multiple ways - premiums that both employers and employees pay to insurance carriers, heightened insurance rates due to uncompensated care flowing through to those who do pay, and direct out-pf-pocket costs to consumers. We already pay for health care. If (just as a strawman, relax) we adopt a plan that eliminates $40 trillion in those costs, and relieve employers and employees and families of those costs, and replace them with $30 trillion in new government spending funded by $30 trillion in new taxes to deliver equivalent health care... we are financially ahead as a country. But that change sounds laughably bad if all you look at is the artificially narrow question of "will taxes go up?"

The moderators of the Democratic debates, incidentally, have been fueling this fire, trying to pigeonhole the Medicare-for-all supporters into agreeing taxes would go up. Its defenders are absolutely right to try to respond "you'll pay $15,000 less in premiums, and $10,000 more in taxes... good trade, right?" but they come off as weasels when doing so.

(break)

There are honest debates to be had about whether good and services should be paid for by the user, or by the society. We want to subsidize immunizations against communicable diseases, as a relatively easy-to-follow example, because forcing each family to pay full freight might reduce their willingness to get them, and that causes dangerous and costly public health risks. Honest people can disagree what other things belong toward the "society pays" end of that spectrum - on health care, education, housing, and so forth. You don't have to be a greedy shit, nor a complete idiot, nor a pandering liar, to take the position that, for example, tuition-free state college tuition would benefit society enough to make it worth paying for through taxes.

Don't forget his massive tax cut for those who need it the least!

Oh, and incidentally, I happen to think that the best way to beat Trump in 2020 is to steer away from the super-aggressive stuff. Focus on the public option add-on to the ACA, rather than MFA. Try to appeal to suburbanites who voted Obama-Trump-Blue in 12-16-18.

Though there are some that see 2016 and 2018 and think riling up your base to get out to vote is the best strategy. And, it has indeed worked for Republicans. If you get people excited in your corner, they'll turn out in banner numbers - and one way to do that is to stand for big ideas they like.

I think part of the problem is that you've (not just you but many others) been conditioned for so long as a Republican that Democrats=taxes=bad to really look more specifically at the policies themselves, as QS lays out a bit above.

I know that from a social policy perspective your chance of supporting a Dem is pretty non-existent, but this waving away Dems as having "laughable, economy-wrecking, stupid-level spending promises" does so without real examination of the plans themselves.

I'm pretty liberal, but I agree. Let's try to improve on and build on Obamacare. Maybe try for Medicare for All down the road if the country shifts bluer.

Although there isn't a single party support spending plan that I know of, candidates like Bernie Sanders have a spending plan for healthcare, housing, green new deal, and college, which when added up is in the tens of trillions.

The more moderate administrations end up compromising to something that is basically conservative. Maybe a further left administration compromises to something that is moderate?

I don't really know anymore. The last few years have changed what I thought I knew about how this all worked. We saw candidates, for years and years, typically move to the center after getting their party's nomination. Which made sense, they were competing for the middle. Now, it seems like they're just competing for turnout. I don't share a lot of political views with some of the further left candidates, but, I wouldn't mind seeing one of them get the nomination.

This is the guy they thought would appeal to conservatives?

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...fter-snl-axing

On your first point, you're right. I would argue the majority of the electorate has come to accept partisan vilifying (my party good, your party bad) as accurate, and therefore don't critically think about either their party or the opposing party.

On the second point, I would argue I have looked at the plans (not of all Dems; just those currently running for POTUS). And I do honestly believe they are "laughable, economy-wrecking, stupid-level spending." And it has nothing to do with how my personal taxes are going to go up or down. I think these "free" solutions (whether it be health care, college, housing, or whatnot) would be ultimately very bad for America, and I think history and human nature provide plenty of evidence to support that conclusion.

As for health care, I would argue the Republicans broke it (with help) and Democrats are proposing a solution that's even worse. I would rather see it fixed, rather than revolutionized. But that's a WHOLE 'nother thread, and I've threadjacked this one enough.

Thanks, y'all, for a more reasonable discussion than I could hope to find just about anywhere else online.

I think this part of the article sums up what was going on there

"That's when Gillis pivoted to his joke about Trump being shot in an attempt to prove to his audience he's not "too pro-Trump."

He's a total hack. When he's trying to be "edgy" he does it in the most hacky way possible - racial slurs or joking about the president getting shot.

I have not seen the bit, but apparently he makes a joke about how Chinese food contains too much MSG?

I mean, I'm 43 years old, and that joke was already kind of old and outdated when I was a kid.

I'm not sure your comedy is really on the cutting edge when people need to explain the jokes with "Back in the 1970s as Chinese food was becoming more popular in the United States . . . "

I would then argue that we have spent a very very long time giving away free solutions to supposedly capitalist institutions. Auto bailouts. Farming handouts (which I'm not totally against in certain circumstances). Corporate welfare. Low or zero tax burdens to corporations willing to locate in certain areas. Sports team owners. The list goes on.

At what point, instead of subsidizing the rich, do we start investing more in the lower and middle class, a place where the VAST majority of Americans lie?

Yeah, you are going to have freeloaders. It goes with the territory. What's worse, 10 million lower class sucking off the teat of American "giveaways", or 1,000 people basically running the government by corporate fiat?

If you really want the USA to lead in the coming tech heavy, robotic future, then lowering the barrier of access to college is a great way to go. Lowering the barrier to healthcare is a great way to keep your citizens healthy and prolong their lives, which coincidentally is good for a capitalist society, as it prolongs their working lives as well.

But free stuff=bad because the GOP says so, despite the fact that the amount spent on healthcare as a % of GDP would actually decrease. OK.

It drives me nuts that there isn't a Dem running just on the traditional Dem, highly popular stances. Public option, some gun control, abortion with late term restrictions, higher taxes on the wealthy, etc., all poll very well. Just run on those ideas and accept incremental change. Way too many Dems are in the all or nothing camp, but they are the ones that probably control the primaries.

Somehow we've ended up in a situation where Dems won't commit to doing things that are popular and GOPers commit to only things that are unpopular, but win because they at least stand for something.

edit: I should add that personally I think the two most important topics are climate change and preservation of democracy, and there's plenty of options there that are also very popular and traditionally Dem friendly.

Economy (including global/technological competitiveness), Healthcare & Immigration reform are the top 3 for me.

Couple other contenders ...

Deficit reduction would be in the top tier also but is there anyone really talking about it?

Also rebuilding relationships with our allies but I think once Trump is gone, it will be automatic when our allies welcome us back from our schizophrenia the past 4 (or 8) years.

Free Higher Education and bailout/forgiveness of student loans is at the bottom.

First segment: There's something we actually agree on.

Second segment: Complete strawman. I don't think like that, and it has nothing to do with reasonable objections to current proposed "free" giveaways.

Third segment: No, I argue against most of the newly proposed free stuff because the drawbacks and negative consequences, I believe, outweigh the benefits.

Butter 2020!!

Seriously though (because I don't think Butter wants the job... ;) ) I mean a lot of this 'free stuff' are things provided in countries like Germany where the economy has been pretty damned good. So not economy wrecking, but in many ways, economy bolstering (I mean free education especially).

"Traditional" Dem? How far back are you looking at this traditional Democratic view? Because this sounds more like a Clinton/Obama Third Way sort of thing, which was considered a new way to be a Democrat (it was even called the New Democrat Coalition, IIRC).

I may argue that something like a Medicare For All would fit in the traditional Democratic playbook - the Democrats who created the New Deal and Great Society, which is far more traditional than Third-Way Democrats (though I'm probably more third way than traditional Dem).

Please elaborate.

Medicare for All as a replacement for private insurance isn't that popular. A public option is very popular. I'd like to get to a single-payer system, but jumping directly there won't happen in the near future. I like fighting for it, explaining it, setting the ground for it, but Dems need to be able to accept moving towards a goal rather than seeing a half-step as a failure.

Dems will get killed by a "They want to take your insurance away" attack if the candidate running agrees with the basic sentiment.

You mean like Obamacare ;). The public option was initially part of it, of course.

That was pilloried as well... and is still being done so.

While it would be a major threadjack to go into each of them and debate them in detail, I'll just paint with some broad strokes as to why I believe it so:

1. Our Constitution is the only legal document under which the American people have consented to be governed. That document was specifically designed to bind and limit the federal government (federal, mind you, the states I would concede have more latitude) from infringing upon individual rights. To give the feds the exclusive purse strings for health care and education (for example) also gives the fed govt a very liberty-infringing control over individual lives. This not only radically transforms America as a nation, but also further diminishes the restraints of the Constitution and makes us more of a democracy than a republic. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that democracy was nation-destroying, and I agree with them. Democracy is neither sustainable, nor just. A democratic republic still is the best form of government invented by man and America's best hope for a sustainable future.

2. A few years ago, when I was a Medicaid recipient, I learned that here in Iowa, the feds pay only about 30% on Medicaid claims. Consequently, not only are privately insured patients picking up the tab on the remaining 70%, but many doctors simply stopped taking Medicaid patients. I had to drive nearly 2 hours to find a dentist. Waiting times, substandard care, a lack of ability to choose your own doctor, even a loss of incentive toward medical technology investment - all these things are a reality, not a scare tactic, if we give the govt the purse strings. Reform is needed (desperately needed - I acknowledge often that Democrats seem to recognize all the right problems, just have all the wrong answers), not revolution.

3. Our nation's debt position is unsustainable, financially and in terms of national security (debt to other nations). And every "entitlement" program we've taken has been nearly impossible to stop, because ... human nature. From Social Security, to Medicare, to federally run roads and parks, etc., once we put America on the teat, it doesn't unlatch. Taking on multiple trillions in new annual "entitlement" programs will only make deficit and debt so permanent, eventual bankruptcy will be inevitable. Winston Churchill was right, "The problem with socialism is, eventually you run out of other people's money."

4. Consolidation of finance is consolidation of power; and consolidation of power is an evil to the masses. Yes, big business has too much power in America (primarily because they have too much influence on government). But shifting the power to government is no better. In the history of the world, government leaders asking the people to trade away liberty for security have always led to tyranny. What REALLY needs to happen is to restore power and liberty to the people. That means returning to the Constitution, not ignoring it, and enacting measures that put economic choice in the hand of the individual, not the collective.

5. I hardly trust the people who run the post office, military, and DMV taking over health care, education, housing, etc.

6. I consider endless borrowing, with no intention of paying back a moral wrong. Further, I consider govt leaders who make no effort to spend within a balanced budget negligent of their duty. America is overloaded with debt as it is, and I don't want to contribute to the generation that buried our own grandchildren in inescapable debt. While it looks compassionate now to provide everyone with everything they need out of the public coffers, it will look merely selfish when the govt/economy collapses xyz years down the road, and our descendants have no country left. I still have in a drawer at home, over 6 million German marks, all printed during a time when a loaf of bread could cost a wheelbarrow full of money. And those marks have no value today (other than historical), because an economy - and a government - collapsed.

If you've read this far in my diatribe, thanks.

I can't monitor this thread much more, but I hope I've presented these ideas in a reasonable and respectful manner.

If it was only an island of Republican thought in a Democrat thread, perhaps it simply leads to more understanding.

But Obamacare with a "Medicare for all who want it" type plan would be even more popular than it is now, which it is pretty popular, btw. Just because politicians blasts it, doesn't make it unpopular. There should have been a public option from the beginning, and Medicare expansion should have been mandatory. Obama did give on things that he shouldn't have.

This logic doesn't make any sense to me. Your fear is that once every American has government provided healthcare doctors will refuse to treat anybody on government healthcare, and all doctors will immediately start giving substandard care?

I'm certainly not surprised that doctors and providers will chase private money rather than government controls given the choice, but it's that broken market dynamic that assures all of the worst talent is funneled to the low-paying public sector. If you gave everybody equal coverage and placed nation-wide government controls on the costs doctors & providers wouldn't have any reason to be basing the quality of your care on the level of your particular insurance coverage.

Medicaid is not a very good system, mainly because it is administered by the states. Many doctors do not take it because they are slow to pay, and pay very little. Medicare on the other hand is taken by almost everyone. It is administered federally, pays close if slightly lower than most health insurance for most things, and they pay about as fast as most insurance companies. In this case, federal administration is by far superior to leaving it to the states.

Thanks for replying, revrew. I do have some thoughts but no time right now. Hopefully we can continue this discussion in future.

Right, at least on the left because Dems can't handle incremental progress. Obamacare got close to a public option, and now that idea is very popular. Incremental progress. A public option will make single-payer more likely, it isn't an either or.

The Postal system is fucking amazing. For fifty-five cents you can have a piece of paper hand-delivered to anyone, anywhere in the country. That's a damned miracle.

Forget it, he's rolling

Except when the post office closes my brother's account for no reason when baseball tickets are being delivered.

Amazon's delivery driver pool of morons have made me appreciate USPS even more.

Speaking of Amazon:

Jeff Bezos unveils ambitious set of Amazon projects to take on climate change - CNET

Climate change is solved!

I think you forgot what was going on during that time. Obama didn't simply 'give up', Joe Manchin and other conservative Dem Senators told Obama they would not vote for a public option. And mandatory Medicaid expansion WAS a part of the original ACA. The Supreme Court struck it down.


The ACA is being ripped apart right now by the Trump Administration bit by bit. People like some of the parts of the ACA, but are more than fine with having parts that make it work ripped out (such as the individual mandate). Which makes it easier for someone to come around, say it isn't working, and try to dismantle it. So why not go big? If the other party is going to try to dismantle it by any means they can, just adding small aspects to it like the public option won't stick or be viability.

Hell, look at the ACA's legislative history, even with 60 Democratic Senators. Any Medicare for All will be compromised to Medicare for All Who Want It. If you start with Medicare for All Who Want It, it'll end up as something much less.

So why not propose something that excites the base, like universal healthcare that takes power out of the hands of insurance companies? Let's get turnout and excitement up rather than try to appeal to those who won't go as far as needs to be done anyways (see: public option for the ACA).

Incremental steps are better than denial and doing nothing.

My previous response aside, I have more faith in Bezos getting something accomplished than any politician.

Anything can be torn apart by another administration. Republicans are yet again running on gutting Social Security. We'll never get to a point when the GOP isn't the party of, "I got mine, fuck you."

The reason not to go all-in on single-payer is that it isn't popular. Even among Dems it generally polls under 70%, and independents generally are well under 50%. It won't pass and it will be an anchor around the neck of a general election candidate. I think single-payer is where we need to end up, but right now the country doesn't see it that way.

JPhiilips response is right on, but this statement that you made shows why not to go for Medicare-For-All. People are for it UNTIL you say it is mandatory. Even you admit that is the part people didn't like in the ACA. Run on the more popular program that will hopefully move over time to single payer.

All that being said, it is really beginning to look like the campaign is going toward a Medicare-for-all candidate. Elizabeth Warren has opened up a lead over Biden in Iowa. She is only up by 2 points as a first choice, but her lead on the first or second choice question is staggering. Sanders is fading fast, and it already looking like a two person race. I can tell you by the anecdotal daughter report (my daughter is 23. She gave me the heads up four years ago that Sanders was surging among her age group four years ago) that all the Sanders supporters her age she knows have seemingly switch that excitement to Warren this time.

The one to watch might still be Pete. He seems to still have the possible room to grow. Meanwhile, Harris has basically moved to Iowa and hasn't moved the needle at all. Booker is making noise that he may be out by the end of the month.
It looks like to me, Biden's largest strength left is his support among African-Americans, which is not going to help him in Iowa and New Hampshire. If he takes defeats in those two states, he is most likely going to lose that support. AA, among almost all Dem groups, lists elect-ability as the top issue of concern. If he opens with two losses, expect a mass exodus as his best argument is destroyed. Can Warren make inroads into the AA demo?

It also looks like the latest New Hampshire polls are looking good for Warren:

Warren surges ahead of Biden in New Hampshire poll - POLITICO


I think even if Biden finishes 2nd in Iowa/NH, African-Americans will stick with him in SC.

Also latest Morning Consult shows Warren to be the highest 2nd choice among Biden supporters for the first time ever (it's been Sanders since Biden has declared).

As Warren does surge, the pot-shots come: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/wall...nominated.html
This doesn't surprise me. She does not endear herself to Wall Street. There is probably some real fear from some of the big players there of the reforms she is threatening. How bad does this hurt her?

I think she's taking the right strategy, in aggressively positioning herself against Wall Street and being VERY public about it. She was never going to get that Wall Street money so she might as well put them on blast whenever possible and paint that money as dirty.

You would think that having Wall Street against you would be a plus for any populist types.

Hurt her? People on Twitter were half joking wondering if she needs to declare these as campaign contributions.


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And I get that, from her base. But there are many moderates, independents, and cross over Republicans she is going to need to actually win. Many of them are going to be concerned about warnings from Wall Street. If that concern turns into an elect-ability issue...

Many people still blame wall street for the great recession and rightfully so. Warren just needs to remind people of that.

Many people have their whole retirement invested in wall street. I think they will remember that as well.

If you raise our taxes we'll destroy the country, doesn't exactly not prove her point that Wall Street has too much power.

It doesn't. I believe she probably has the best take and exactly what we need in dealing with wall street. Not going to make a difference if she doesn't get elected, though. There is reason this kind of article is coming out now, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if Biden wasn't behind it. In my opinion, the affects of this is it doesn't really hurt much in the primaries. What about the general, though? We have people on this message board say they are more concerned about their 401k than anything else. People seem to be fine with the idea of sacrifice for the greater good as long as it is other peoples sacrifice. If wall street promises gloom and doom, how much does that hurt her?

This is fantastic! ( A mix of this thread on the soccer thread ;) )

https://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2019...ical-breakdown


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Bernie has to be out now?

You would think?

For context:

Bernie Sanders undergoes surgery for artery blockage, cancels events until further notice

I don't know. We'll see. I think it does kill his already slimming chance of winning. He should drop and maybe endorse, but I don't see him endorsing anyone till the end.

Best thing he can do is roll it up and call it. He ain't winning after this.

Biden said today that he "didn't know" if he would vote to remove Trump if he were in the Senate right now. That made me immediately give to the Warren campaign. He needs to lose if he really is that spineless.

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The November debate stage has added Booker and Steyer. Which causes me to ask, who is voting for Steyer? Why is he a thing?

I don't know either. I have no idea what his signature issues are other than self funding rather soft-hitting ads against Trump.

He's come out for a really stupid national referendum plan.

dola

Things look really bleak for Sanders at this point. Where does he pick up a win before Super Tuesday if he loses NH to Warren?

Nevada probably

That's his best chance, yes, but Warren has an insane ground game here. It's going to be close IMO. I haven't seen any Biden presence anywhere.

Who decided that 12 candidates on a stage was a good idea?

This seems to be the Senator Warren vs the World show so far.

She was definitely the central target. I thought she handled herself well, considering. The announcement of the Squad endorsing Bernie Sanders after the debate is probably the story. Bernie is still plugging along after the heart-attack and is not going to go away.

Sanders did very well in the debate as well. Actually looked better and healthier than the previous debate (perhaps due to the rest after his heart attack).

Harris, Klobuchar, and Buttigieg tried to go aggressive, but it never really seemed to go anywhere or do anything for them - especially Harris's strange pushing to get Warren to agree to ban Trump on Twitter. Really, that's the big issue you are going to go bat for, Kamala?

Oh, and it was my wife's first debate. She really like Harris among all the candidates - so what do I know?

Is Sanders still a serious candidate after the heart attack?

As serious as a heart attack.

Yes. He's a bit like Trump in that he has a better floor than just about anyone else, with the same questions as to ceiling (FWIW, he's my 2nd option after Warren)

So, a thought on E Warren and her health care plan. I find it fascinating.

Basically, here are the underlying mechanics behind what she wants to do. Let's take a middle class person Nancy with a legit job from a large employer Comcast- earning $60,000 with health insurance benefits subsidized to the tune of, say, $10,000. (We'll ignore other benefits since they aren't changing) That is more or less the "working family" band that most pols want to appeal to, to some degree, especially Dems.

Under the basis M4A framework, we'd wipe out the concept of employer-funded health insurance. Everyone is on Medicare. Maybe some people would retain the ability to buy above-and-beyond stuff, but that's not this family (and that's a separate, also interesting, policy debate, too).

So - Comcast today basically decides that this employee position is being compensated $70,000 for the work - some salary, some benefits. Once the USA were to shift to M4A, that employee no longer needs an employer heath care subsidy - she's covered by Medicare. In theory, that "frees up" $10K that that Comcast could, conceivably, just shift to that employee's salary - the employer is still whole, and the employee now, on paper, comes out better.

However, the federal government had to pay for this plan. So, we raise tax rates. Income tax is the easiest to picture, so we'll say that the scheme to pay for the M4A plan (costly) would require her effective tax rate to go up, from 20% to 27%. That's a proxy number, for illustration, but probably isn't terribly off the mark. She's likely only paying income tax today on, say, $30K in income... so that means she will pay an additional $4800 in federal income tax. (The math: 20% on $30K for $6K taxes... then 27% on $40K for $10.8K in taxes) For now, let's say that's her full tax effect, to keep this simple.

Assuming this comes together like described above... Nancy goes from $54K after-tax income to $59.2K after-tax income. Assuming her health care is a wash, this means she comes out well ahead as a result of this change.

So... when Warren talks about "costs will go down" she is clearly avoiding getting into the details of this three-part notion. She has decided to avoid saying "her taxes will go up." But they will. However, if it plays out like above, she will be WAY better off, financially... more salary in pocket.

Now... the big wrinkle here is that in the example above, I am assuming that Comcast simply takes every penny of the savings they get on no longer providing a health benefit, and converts it to new salary. There's your weak link. People still have a taste in their mouth about what happened to the fat Trump tax cuts on corporations - they didn't go out and pay employees more, some of them did a showboating bonus check, but most of the money went to executives and shareholders, naturally. In general, we shouldn't expect that employers would just "do the right thing" here - markets are full of imperfections, there's no reason to think employees would be so strong and savvy to understand and fully exploit every penny of this sudden employment market imbalance.

And there's the rub. If E Warren were to walk through this logic step by step, she would say that taxes go up for sure, and that your salary would go up even more, we hope. And there you go, it's a talking point against her and the plan. Bernie Sanders, who's for basically the same plan, has already decided it's wiser to just go there and say it. Warren is being cagey.

The thing is, Warren had to make a calculation here - which is better, to look like a middle-class-tax-hiker like Bernie, or to look evasive? She chose the latter, but couldn't have possibly imagined how much Democratic oxygen would be spent, in every debate stage and in seemingly every forum, on this exact issue. Fellow Dems are assailing her, and that is (IMO) deeply piercing one of her strongest assets as a candidate. If she, because of this mostly, looks like she's being sneaky... it will set a bit more kindling under the inevitable fire about her whole Native American heritage issue (you know in a general election we would hear that a ton) and the campaign to discredit her as a phony/liar/opportunist would be strong, well-funded, and effective with the stripe of voters the Dems need (again, IMO) to win back purplish states.

So, as the Dems (the centrists, especially) clearly now set their sights on E Warren as the front-runner to attack, they are creating wonderful B-roll footage for a Summer-of-20 campaign ad that could easily be her effective undoing. That's kind of built in to the way party-first, then general-last elections work... but this particular element is fascinating to watch unravel in slow motion. It's a prisoner's dilemma of sorts... Mayor Pete sees his only avenue for a longshot move is to bring down someone ahead of him, but when that (likely) fails and he's (probably) out on the campaign trail working for the nominee, he's going to run into all the arguments he helped fashion and perfect.


I am simultaneously in awe of how good the Warren campaign has been, and how it has appropriately paid off with her rise to frontrunner status... and at the same time tortured by how weak I think she could prove to be in a general election. I think she would likely make a good President, would have good judgment on most matters affecting the country, and I'm comforted that most of her ideas that are too ambitious for my tastes would likely be bogged down by the DC mire... but my real fear is her capacity as a nominee.

I fully expect to pay more in taxes for M4A, however, since I won't be paying for typically pretty crappy and expensive employer provided health insurance, I should, theoretically, have a bigger pay check each pay day.

Truth be told though, I'm on my wife's insurance and we would literally save less than $50 dollars month if it's no longer taken out of her check. So we actually may end up paying more if M4A becomes a reality. However, I'm totally fine with that as long as it means everyone (regardless of their status) gets competent and quality health care that's not dictated by profit.

The beauty though in having a M4A system is, that employees will no longer be chained to a job that they don't like because they don't want to lose their health insurance.

Regardless of who wins (I'm going out on a limb that it will be a democrat), if the democrats don't also own the senate and house, no M4A policy will pass in my opinion.

I don't understand why so many Dems insist on running on ideas that are unpopular. Polling on M4A is terrible, but public option polling is pretty good. Take the incremental change and make the GOP position the negative one.

Yep. I'm pretty liberal, but I'd rather see them try to build on the base of Obamacare and maybe try M4A down the road.

I pay $0 for healthcare, so I'd likely end up losing money if we went with Warren's plan. Which would be fine if they could get it through Congress, but that seems pretty impossible right now.

But here you are missing the most important money in the equation. It's not what you'd save in co-pays and your share of the plan costs... for most people the far bigger amount is what the employer currently pays on your behalf, that they wouldn't have to any longer. If some or most or all of that ends up in your pocket and keeps your "compensation costs" the same, that means you have more cash - to pay your tax hike and then some.

I definitely see what you're saying and that would be great if it happens, I just highly highly doubt that employers would pass that money on to their employees. We saw what they did with the trump tax gift to the rich, they just pocketed the money, bought back stock & pretty much Scrooge McDucked their workers. I would love to be wrong in my assumption, but, historically, companies have rarely done what benefits the employee unless forced to by the government (i.e. various labor laws).

Doesn't the net drop the overall amount though? I would be taxed so heavily on the extra income coming to me that I would never get the 'value' of the benefit that is the employer paid portion of my health insurance, that I get from it now.

How would the money settle out? It's hard to put aside the "frustrated would-be economics teacher" in me, completely.

Let's look at Nancy who makes $60K plus $10 in health insurance now. Her employer pegs her value at $70K, and pays it across two forms.

Another way to look at the current situation is Nancy is paying for her own employer health insurance subsidy in the form of a lower salary.

So, we change the laws. Now employers no longer need to provide that benefit. All compensation is just salary now.

Let's say that this market functions at least semi-normally, at least over time. If Nancy is worth $70K to her employer... if today's employer decides to be rotten and tell her "tough luck, the salary is still $60K, no health insurance needed anymore, tough luck" then surely somebody out there should be willing to pay her $65K, right? Or $68K? The the extend markets work properly, this should resolve itself, more or less. If she's worth $70K, she'll get it somewhere.

Naive to think employers would do this out of charity. No, they'd do it because that's what markets do. If they don't bump up salaries, they'll be stuck with shit employees.


The effect on costs in total would be a function of whether health care purchased through taxes is cheaper or more expensive than that purchased through private insurance and the rest of stuff we do now. But the effect on workers, especially those on the lower end of a progressively-built tax system (especially whatever add-on we might adopt to pay for a M4A plan) would pretty much have to be a net positive.

Do most folks here have their employer pay all of their premiums? Because my wife and I are government employees and pay roughly $300 a month out of our paycheck for premiums. So, if we have no copays or deductable payments (unlikely) that's a good $3600 saved before anything done with paychecks.


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Not here. 75%. Forget how much I pay per month out of paycheck for premium, but I'd stand to get more money back myself.

I negotiated with my company to pay my entire family's premium.

I pay ~$150 for premiums, and put $225 into my FSA every month for my lonesome. Even though I agree with the observation above that most employers aren't going to put the funds from their share of the deleted premiums into their employees hands, I think most people would still see significant savings simply not paying their share of those premiums either ($4500 per year in my case).

I also think people that think a public option can/will compete with a private option are dreaming and/or not paying attention. As long as you give providers the option not to comply with the government oversight & price controls why in the hell would they choose to? Any other private option will make the public option useless, by design.

I think my wife pays about $38 a month for the both of us for her being a state of California employee. So cheap that when she told me, I didn't believe her. Even the co-pays are ridiculously cheaper and the care provided is better than the way more expensive insurance that I had through my company at the time.

Damn, California's got better benefits than the Federal Government (not that our benefits are as amazing as people like to think they are).