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That money does not come with no strings attached. There is a very good reason Biden and Buttigieg in particular have so many billionaire donors, it's because they promise to be status quo candidates. If you are reliant on the 1% to fund your campaign, nobody should expect you to be seriously committed to the causes of the 99% which are diametrically opposed. If Bernie was also relying on corporate money to win, I guarantee you that he would backpedal on medicare for all and start singing praises for a public option.
And I think it's time we put the notion that you need the most money to be able to win an election to rest. Trump got outspent by Clinton 2 to 1 and still won, Bernie got outspent heavily in Nevada and won in a landslide, Bloomberg is on track to spend the most money of any presidential candidate in history in the primary alone but is not polling in 1st place.
Cash actually does matter in elections. Trump got billions gifted through his free, favorable media treatment (fully televised rallies?!). Also, Republican mega-donors instead focused their cash on down ballot races in 2016, netting them unexpected gains in Congress and state legislatures.
Your persistent insinuation that all campaign contributions are nefarious is harmful.
Example: if Bernie decides to accept Bloomberg’s $ 1 billion in his bid to defeat Trump, would that make Bernie corrupt?
There is a lot of misinformation around Bernie’s policies. For starters, the 30% figure for Medicare for All is... bullshit. If we cover the most expensive demographic (65+) for 1.45% FICA tax, does it sound anywhere plausible that would jump 2,000% (factor of 20) to bring on the rest of the healthier adults?
My question to you: if a President could wave a magic wand to get their entire agenda passed, why do we Americans constantly say nothing ever gets done?
Minimum wage is being successfully implemented in many states throughout the country. If the Federal minimum wage has been raised 22 times already, what makes this time be any different? In fact, Minimum Wage should be about $23/hour if it kept pace with its inception.
I'm sure average salary should also be hiked though?
I could care less about the history of "getting things done" and I think anyone who disses Bernie for that is stupid. I just can't agree with some agenda to give the government a lot more money because they can't figure out what to do with what they have already.
From what I understand, the 1.45% FICA tax is not enough to help the people (65+) I know for one it wasn't enough to help my family.
So yes, I absolutely know that the healthcare system is fucked up. I don't agree that the solution is to pay more in taxes.
i have no intention to vote for trump and i will vote Bernie as he is "Less bad"
But I really don't want to be forced to pick between two candidates I think are bad which is why I'd like someone to give me reasons to like Bernie.
All people have said is he isnt Trump. No shit, neither is Biden, Pete, Amy, or Warren. So why Bernie over the others?
I understand at this point he will probably be the candidate so I'd like reasons to like him.
People claiming I'm a millionaire don't understand how tax is broken down, also to be clear, Bernie has said that he will pay for a $15 minimum wage by increasing the federal tax rate to 52% for everyone making over 29K lol. You don't need to be rich to be making 29K. To be clear, if you work 40 hours a week at $15 an hour, you make 31K a year.
He literally wants to tax the fuck out of everyone.
I mean, I liked Warren too but then she did things that made me not like her. Sure, she's better than the moderates still but why go with Warren when you could have Bernie? Everyone already mentioned the reasons in this thread already so I don't wanna drag on but in the case of Bernie v Warren it's pretty clear to me that Bernie will waver less on what he believes vs. Warren (equivocating on M4A (which she hasn't even supported for that long in comparison anyways), flip flopping on superpacs and campaign finance (using loopholes like transferring from her senate account), etc.
Naw. I don’t particularly like Bernie as a public figure, lol. His policies are good and he’s 20 times better than Trump. We don’t have to feel warm and fuzzy about politicians. We don’t even know them!
I was more considering the fact that you said that Bernie was simply "less bad" than Trump. Also I'm pretty sure that 52% tax on people making 29K+ was debunked, will try to find a source real quick and edit this post.
trump's belief that climate change is a hoax is enough reason on its own to never, ever vote for him. also I'm pretty sure bernie is against our military budget being as absurdly high as it is. with it you could pay for medicare for all/student debt multiple times over and not blink.
People claiming I'm a millionaire don't understand how tax is broken down, also to be clear, Bernie has said that he will pay for a $15 minimum wage by increasing the federal tax rate to 52% for everyone making over 29K lol. You don't need to be rich to be making 29K. To be clear, if you work 40 hours a week at $15 an hour, you make 31K a year.
He literally wants to tax the fuck out of everyone.
i have no intention to vote for trump and i will vote Bernie as he is "Less bad"
But I really don't want to be forced to pick between two candidates I think are bad which is why I'd like someone to give me reasons to like Bernie.
All people have said is he isnt Trump. No shit, neither is Biden, Pete, Amy, or Warren. So why Bernie over the others?
I understand at this point he will probably be the candidate so I'd like reasons to like him.
People claiming I'm a millionaire don't understand how tax is broken down, also to be clear, Bernie has said that he will pay for a $15 minimum wage by increasing the federal tax rate to 52% for everyone making over 29K lol. You don't need to be rich to be making 29K. To be clear, if you work 40 hours a week at $15 an hour, you make 31K a year.
He literally wants to tax the fuck out of everyone.
The healthcare tax starts at 4% for any income above 29K. That means, if you make 31k a year, that tax would only apply to the last 2000, and youd only pay 80$. 80 / 31K = 0.25%, much lower than 52%.
You need to learn how taxes work and stop listening to far-right talking propoganda.
Cash actually does matter in elections. Trump got billions gifted through his free, favorable media treatment (fully televised rallies?!). Also, Republican mega-donors instead focused their cash on down ballot races in 2016, netting them unexpected gains in Congress and state legislatures.
Favorable media treatment? What planet are you living on? The media was overwhelmingly negative to Trump. I guess you don't remember the "grab 'em by the pussy" leaks that came out that were being constantly being played on the airwaves.
Your persistent insinuation that all campaign contributions are nefarious is harmful.
Example: if Bernie decides to accept Bloomberg’s $ 1 billion in his bid to defeat Trump, would that make Bernie corrupt?
I would be very worried if Bernie did accept that contribution, but there is absolutely no way Bloomberg would ever offer him that much money if any at all, unless Bernie decides to completely flip flop and NOT run on policies that could drastically decrease his wealth, and that goes for any of his other billionaire friends for that matter. If anything I am certain that instead they will be trying to court Trump, and in Bloomberg's case he might choose to run as an Independent spoiler in an effort to stop Bernie (he has floated this idea before).
Let me spell it out to you again so you can understand it in clear terms. I trust Bernie to remain committed to things like ending the drug and regime change wars because he doesn't take money from the tobacco industry or military contractors (eg Boeing, Lockheed, and Raytheon). He is the most committed to fighting climate change because he doesn't take money from the fossil fuel industry. He doesn't take money from big pharma or the health insurance industry, which is why he is the only viable candidate left in this race that is committed to medicare for all.
Maybe the reason you don't see it as being "nefarious" or "harmful" is because you are probably fine with the status quo as it is other than the fact that Trump is president. But if you are someone who is strongly affected by these issues, I don't know how you could see it any other way. In my case getting single payer medicare for all in this country is an especially important and personal issue to me because I had a near death experience as a result of our current system (I had a pulmonary embolism while in my early 20's), and I have spent a lot of time in my life in Italy and know just how much more effective their healthcare system is than ours.
Favorable media treatment? What planet are you living on? The media was overwhelmingly negative to Trump. I guess you don't remember the "grab 'em by the pussy" leaks that came out that were being constantly being played on the airwaves.
I would be very worried if Bernie did accept that contribution, but there is absolutely no way Bloomberg would ever offer him that much money if any at all, unless Bernie decides to completely flip flop and NOT run on policies that could drastically decrease his wealth, and that goes for any of his other billionaire friends for that matter. If anything I am certain that instead they will be trying to court Trump, and in Bloomberg's case he might choose to run as an Independent spoiler in an effort to stop Bernie (he has floated this idea before).
Let me spell it out to you again so you can understand it in clear terms. I trust Bernie to remain committed to things like ending the drug and regime change wars because he doesn't take money from the tobacco industry or military contractors (eg Boeing, Lockheed, and Raytheon). He is the most committed to fighting climate change because he doesn't take money from the fossil fuel industry. He doesn't take money from big pharma or the health insurance industry, which is why he is the only viable candidate left in this race that is committed to medicare for all.
Maybe the reason you don't see it as being "nefarious" or "harmful" is because you are probably fine with the status quo as it is other than the fact that Trump is president. But if you are someone who is strongly affected by these issues, I don't know how you could see it any other way. In my case getting single payer medicare for all in this country is an especially important and personal issue to me because I had a near death experience as a result of our current system (I had a pulmonary embolism while in my early 20's), and I have spent a lot of time in my life in Italy and know just how much more effective their healthcare system is than ours.
Trump campaign rallies were televised. He was “great for ratings.”
Bloomberg publicly said he will commit $1 billion to the Democratic nominee effort to defeat Trump, even if its Sanders. To suggest he would do something else with no evidence of the contrary is just negative speculation (your doing the right wing cynicism campaign work for them).
I don’t find all campaign contributions nefarious because we are still talking about people and it’s a hypocritical argument. I’m not going to assassinate someone’s character because someone decided to donate to them. Just because a guy is wealthy doesn’t mean he has bad intentions (hi Tom Steyer!)
We all want to get to Universal Health Care it just seems like Bernie supporters act like he can get elected and things are just all good and it will happen. Policy implementation is very difficult. It takes organizing, winning, and congressional votes. Ideas have to become laws.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sanders-tax-plan-52-percent/ Does Sanders’ Medicare for All plan raise taxes to 52% on incomes over $29,000? In short, no. The general claim here — that Sanders’ health care plan would raise the tax rate to 52% on everyone making over $29,000 per year — is egregiously false. The meme asserts that Sanders made this claim “at the debate last night.” Although Sanders did say that he wanted to raise the minimum wage to $15 during that debate, he did not say that he would pay for his health care plan by raising “taxes to 52% on anybody making over $29,000 a year.” One proposal offered by Sanders would raise the tax rate to 52% on earningsover $10 million. Sanders also proposed that the first $29,000 of a person’s income would be exempt from taxes, and a 4% income-based premium would be applied to earnings over $29,000.
Sanders wants a progressive tax rate. This means that the tax rate increases proportionally to your income. E.g. under Sanders' tax plan, the first $29,000 of a person’s income would be exempt from taxes. When a person’s income crosses the $29,000 threshold, a 4% tax will be applied to earnings over $29,000. This tax rate continues to grow as a income increases. Income over $10 million, for instance, would be taxed at 52%.
Critical thinking is vital. Don't just take things at face value, but fact check them. Especially from shady sources such as internet memes.
huh? What small business is using offshore labor? What would even have the capacity to...offshore their warehouse stocking? Or restaurant supply delivery? Offshore labor benefits large corporations due to economies of scale and cheaper low skill work available in other counties. I don't know how small businesses would start moving all their business to india
One of the main things I enjoy about reading this thread is how different political discussion is for Americans compared with the common discourses in European politics. Energy's discussion on household tax is one of these. America has a real low household tax rate compared with other countries which is an assertion often disregarded by anti-tax Americans as being irrelevant to developed countries. However, it's still way below average for only developed countries.
European culture is that it's acceptable for states to tax highly so long as they work to keep living costs low. If it's cheap to live, then higher income tax is more acceptable because people can still buy the same things. For instance, the recent French riots sparked from the Government proposing a higher price for petrol for environmental reasons as it would hike up living costs, meanwhile it has the 2nd-highest tax rate in the OECD and the French are content with it. It's simply a matter of separate priorities.
willempju kind of referenced this already in his post above. While the UK, where I live, is an outlier when it comes to healthcare because it's wholly free for everyone for everything, the cost of healthcare is still much lower in Europe entirely rather than in America. Not only does health insurance not exist in most European countries, meaning there's no monthly cost for healthcare and people only pay for it when they actually use it, but the Government subsidises people's healthcare severely in co-pays when health services do have to be used. Not only that, but the complete deregulation of pharmaceutical markets makes American healthcare stupidly expensive compared with the real costs. This video did the rounds a couple months ago where the British public were asked to guess the cost of American healthcare.
I haven't fact-checked his figures and I assume he high balled all of them for shock factor, but there are some crazy things in there regardless. $40 fee to hold your baby right after giving birth? A couple hundred dollars for an EpiPen? $250-$350 for an inhaler? Up to $2,000 for an ambulance? I can buy an inhaler for £7.75 ($10.02) and an EpiPen for £48.99 ($63.34) and that's without co-pay or anything, that's just the price that places like schools pay for their first aid kits. Ambulances are free almost everywhere because, y'know, it's an emergency, and literally nowhere makes you pay to hold your baby straight after you give birth that's ludicrous. It's natural that the more rungs of the ladder there are between healthcare and the "consumer"/patient the higher the final cost because each rung makes its own profit, but America's costs are crazy independent of that fact.
For reference, the report from which this chart comparing pharmaceutical prices comes was commissioned by the UK Government and made the amount of healthcare all countries provide equal to the UK, so it does not matter that America is bigger and these stats can be assumed to be valid. The fact that the price of healthcare is so high in America not just for the consumer but in its actual cost is a key thing that right wingers use to argue against the Government providing any healthcare whatsoever. Per each case in America the cost is 2.6-3.3x that of the listed developed countries and so it will be extremely expensive for the state to begin with. What needs to happen before state-provided healthcare is viable is the basic pharmaceutical regulation that every other country has.
That's why Bernie wins on this issue. He has fought for greater regulation of Big Pharma for his entire political career. He's said that he will destroy American private companies' patents on drugs and will allow importation of all generic prescription drugs according to him on day one, which will tank the cost of healthcare and make it viable for the American state to help pay for it. This is better than every other Democratic candidate. Klobuchar of all people comes closest to matching him but, in classic neoliberal fashion, she would only allow the import of drugs which "face little or no competition in the United States" (source: her website) which leaves a loophole to protect the Big Pharma companies funding her campaign. Yang leaves the importation of prescription drugs as a last resort meaning there would still be several years before healthcare is provided to the poor. Steyer would allow Americans to buy drugs internationally themselves but wouldn't have the state do it. Everyone else only, and the 4 candidates mentioned in this paragraph additionally, would allow Medicare to negotiate with Big Pharma companies on their prices.
To bring this back to tax more directly, the reason why Bernie is the best candidate is because he's making the transition towards the European system in both manners and not just one. Yes, he will increase taxes. But what separates him from the other candidates pledging to increase taxes is that he will concurrently lower the cost of living. Social democrats are characterised as taking the public's money and saying "yeah you're poorer but we can provide more services now, so stop complaining". Sanders' lowering of the cost of living means that Americans won't actually, or to a much smaller degree will, be poorer in real terms. Doing both at once is precisely what is needed.
For reference I'm not trying to say that European politics is better or more successful than American. Instead of income tax, the UK Labour Party is finding it difficult to garner public support for increasing corporation tax despite our current rate being one of the lowest in the world at 20% and, interestingly, the right wing press uses the exact same criticism as Energy used to rebuke raising the minimum wage ("corporations will go elsewhere"). Right wing politics in general is becoming pretty samey in the message it's giving out through all of the developed world because right now it seems to be what's successfully infiltrating the public consciousness. However, European states are already way more successful than America at providing basic services like healthcare and America desperately needs to catch up. A high-tax, low-living-cost system helps the people of countries better endure terms of right wing rule because even if cutting taxes can be popular, the cost of living increasing makes everybody recoil. If people have a low cost of living to start with because a left wing party just left office, the damage that right wing Governments do becomes a little less.
I've flipped from being a Tulsi supporter to a Bernie somewhat recently and I think actually posted my support for Tulsi in this thread before. The more American issues I look into the better Bernie is, because he has sound policy proposals on a greater number of issues. I still believe that Tulsi wins foreign policy (feel free to change my mind, I'd be interested) but domestically Bernie ends up being the clear front-runner.
Edit for the current conversation: Our right wing party in the UK increased minimum wage a few years ago. How is that considered a loony left thing to do in America? Inflation goes up, the minimum wage has to match it. I'm an advocate for minimum wage increasing every year in line with inflation so there isn't this cycle of people being real terms poorer before a Government is sensible and raises it again until they don't and people are poorer again, but that's just me.
The media purposely televised his campaign rallies to instill fear in their viewers, and they especially emphasized the violent behavior of his supporters at these events. The coverage certainly helped him, but that was more along the lines of their bias backfiring rather than a genuine attempt to help him.
I am not necessarily saying you don't need money to win, but Bernie has proven in this election that you do not need to spend the most money to win. Yes, the billionaires are greatly outspending him but he has still been consistently out raising the rest of the field on small dollar donations which is very impressive given that Biden and Buttigieg each have over 50 billionaire donors a piece.
Bloomberg publicly said he will commit $1 billion to the Democratic nominee effort to defeat Trump, even if its Sanders. To suggest he would do something else with no evidence of the country is just negative speculation (your doing the right wing cynicism campaign work for them).
Again, talk is cheap. Until last weekend, the establishment hasn't acknowledged that Sanders is the frontrunner, and I am positive Bloomberg will definitely backtrack on this given that (1) he and Trump have a long history of friendship as fellow NYC billionaires, (2) he and Trump are far closer to each other ideologically than Sanders, and (3) Bernie's policies could have a huge negative impact on his net worth compared to Trump's. I am sure Bloomberg would not be running if he was sure that Buttigieg or Biden could stop Bernie, not to mention that his pal Jeff Bezos himself has asked him to run, who is the richest man in the history of the world and has a known beef with Bernie over giving his workers a $15 minimum wage.
I don’t find all campaign contributions nefarious because we are still talking about people and it’s a hypocritical argument. I’m not going to assassinate someone’s character because someone decided to donate to them. Just because a guy is wealthy doesn’t mean he has bad intentions (hi Tom Steyer!)
Well I guess that's another fundamental difference between you and I. I believe that billionaires have no moral justification for their existence, they are fundamentally hoarders as they have far more money than they could ever reasonably spend on themselves in a lifetime. Some billionaires (like Steyer) are better than others, but nobody reaches such an obscene level of wealth by hard work alone. There is a reason Bernie is the only candidate who doesn't have a single billionaire donor, and that's because what he is promising will have a huge impact on their wealth.
We all want to get to Universal Health Care it just seems like Bernie supporters act like he can get elected and things are just all good and it will happen. Policy implementation is very difficult. It takes organizing, winning, and congressional votes. Ideas have to become laws.
We aren't dumb, we understand that the real battle begins when Bernie gets elected, and it will be a difficult fight. As long as he doesn't ditch his grassroots organization like Obama did, he can get the changes to happen by starting a massive effort to primary down ballot candidates who are undermining his agenda. I don't like to make comparisons with Trump because many of them are apples to oranges, but there is a reason the Senate rejected his impeachment even though many of them were against him when he campaigned in 2016. They knew that they would lose their reelections and and get primaried if they undermined his agenda. Love it or hate them, the Republican base knows how to keep their representatives in line. What needs to happen is for the democratic base to do the same and start having actual standards besides having a "D" next to their name.
We also know that the "incrementalism" promised by neoliberals is just a flimsy excuse at best. The rest of the developed world did not need to experiment with something like the ACA and then a public option before finally switching to single payer. I wonder why they could do it but we can't?
Minimum wage in California is 12.00$ an hour and no small businesses have been perishing or looking offshore for cheap labor btw, increasing it by another 3$ would make little to no difference.
It would however, make the world of difference to the starving waiter working 2 jobs just to make rent and eat more than once a day (let alone those that have to feed their families on minimum wage)
huh? What small business is using offshore labor? What would even have the capacity to...offshore their warehouse stocking? Or restaurant supply delivery? Offshore labor benefits large corporations due to economies of scale and cheaper low skill work available in other counties. I don't know how small businesses would start moving all their business to india
Thanks but that would be if you want the same insurance as the public? In Massachusetts where there is Romney Care (ironic) many people still pay for private insurance Through their occupation.
Minimum wage in California is 12.00$ an hour and no small businesses have been perishing or looking offshore for cheap labor btw, increasing it by another 3$ would make little to no difference.
It would however, make the world of difference to the starving waiter working 2 jobs just to make rent and eat more than once a day (let alone those that have to feed their families on minimum wage)
I work with legal teams at companies and almost everyone is outsourcing low value legal work offshore. Most small companies have a legal person already that is completely offshore.
IT/security analysts are similar but less paramount to small businesses
Naw. I don’t particularly like Bernie as a public figure, lol. His policies are good and he’s 20 times better than Trump. We don’t have to feel warm and fuzzy about politicians. We don’t even know them!
I work with legal teams at companies and almost everyone is outsourcing low value legal work offshore. Most small companies have a legal person already that is completely offshore.
IT/security analysts are similar but less paramount to small businesses
Business already tried outsourcing IT / security analysts offshore in the early 2000s. It was an unmitigated disaster and they've been trying to bring them back inhouse ever since.
Offshoring is cyclical. Some MBA type thinks "oh wow we can save so much money!", it ends up costing the company more money after the MBA is gone, and so the cycle repeats.
If anything will cause job losses in that sector at the small business scale, it's US-based cloud providers like Amazon, Google, Microsoft.
Business already tried outsourcing IT / security analysts offshore in the early 2000s. It was an unmitigated disaster and they've been trying to bring them back inhouse ever since.
Offshoring is cyclical. Some MBA type thinks "oh wow we can save so much money!", it ends up costing the company more money after the MBA is gone, and so the cycle repeats.
If anything will cause job losses in that sector at the small business scale, it's US-based cloud providers like Amazon, Google, Microsoft.
For a year and a half I worked with a cyber security company and I can testify for a fact that in order to meet 24/7 monitoring compliance most companies are forced to offshore security analysts.
It is required for HITRUST :/ i mean its a completely separate issue but its much more sustainable than night shifts
Campaigns require cash. Until we overturn Citizens United, those are the rules of engagement. It’s a fallacy to suggest PAC money and small dollar grassroots organizing are mutually exclusive. The question earlier was - why should any candidate (including Bernie) turn down $1 billion in campaign resources?
Bernie said that while the campaign won't accept cash for its ads/operations and won't coordinate with any PAC Bloomberg sets up, they can't dictate how Mr. Bloomberg uses his money. So if he wants to run anti-Trump ads, or Pro-Bernie ads, or ads supporting Democrats up<->down the ticket and on policy, go for it.
Honestly Bernie is going to keep pulling more than enough for operating any campaign; and his volunteers and media penetration will be more than sufficient as a nominee. If there's a billion being spent on anti-Trump ads on top of that independently, I think that's more than enough. There doesn't need to be coordination for Bloomberg to push Bernie over if that's Mr. Bloomberg's interest (though we know that's not...).
I just want to acknowledge that Sanders finally mentioned Native Americans in his CNN town hall tonight. Small step but it's kinda a small step that I was legit just asking for, so can't complain too much.
Interested to see how Bernie’s unforced error on Cuba pans out. He likely hurt a few Democrats in South Florida who have tough re-election races. Cuba and Israel are pretty dicey topics to discuss; there’s no reason to unless specifically asked about it. Hopefully he will be counseled on this going forward.
Look for Sanders to be attached viciously in the upcoming debate.
No. Energy I will be voting for Senator Warren in the primary. New Jersey is the last state so my vote won’t matter much.
Democrats need to recruit more governors for the Presidency. Governor Murphy here in New Jersey would make a fine president. They should look to purple states if possible.
It's awful that discussing lsrael's horrible treatment of the Palestinians is seen as a risky move in America. Both parties have shown unconditional support for Israel no matter what atrocities they commit, much to the international community's dismay, yet they show no signs of budging. At the very least, I'm glad that a presidential candidate is finally recognizing that Israel should not be above international law and that Palestinians are human too. Calling out a racist government and asking them to treat their neighbors and own citizens with respect should be the bare minimum, yet Sanders is the only one on stage with the integrity to do so. Hopefully his campaign can help bring about a shift in the overton window. We truly need the US to stop being so partisan, if the Israel-Palestine conflict is ever going to get solved.
I think Bernie’s defense on his Cuba comments should be similar to how he defended himself in the town hall; he could probably do better on stressing that he does not endorse the authoritarianism of the Fidel Castro regime, which he really needs to stress in order to improve the Democrats’ standing in Florida. He’s surely already being briefed on how to respond to the moderators’ questions on this (which, if last night’s town hall is anything to go by, they will ask).
I think Bernie can claim victory in this debate so long as he maintains his current standing and brings Bloomberg’s standing down, so I would certainly expect him to attack Bloomberg whenever the opportunity arises
