2020 US Elections | Biden certified as President | Dems control Congress

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Carolina Red said:
To me, he’s referencing the Friedman view of UBI here.

If Yang isn’t going to keep the welfare state in place, then he’s ascribing to the Friedman model himself.
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He has no plans to kill the welfare state. His policies on his website indicate that he aims to expand it or perhaps reform it.
 
Florida Man said:
MLK supported UBI. It literally takes the state to intervene in the market through taxation to give money to people. If anything, that idea at worst lies in the center of the spectrum, not that we should be religious about left or right. A good idea is a good idea.
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Florida Man said:
Yeah I get that, but it doesn’t hold water if there are leftists who support it and right wingers who oppose it.
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My argument isn't that all UBI ideas are right wing(The party I support - The Labour Party is thinking of UBI trials) it's that UBI can also be a right wing policy.

Sweet Square said:
Yang platform is hardly progressive or such a threat to the current state of things(Yang is against a living wage and UBI at the moment is a right wing idea to kill the welfare state).
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Sweet Square said:
Er......ok but doesn't make a certain type of UBI any less right wing..
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The Jacobin article
But there’s a problem here: his conception of UBI will not improve, reform, or revolutionize capitalism. His UBI plan would replace existing social welfare benefits rather than build upon them. There are progressive cases for UBI, but Yang’s version isn’t one of them.

Yang’s UBI won’t set Americans free — it’s in the vein of free-market economist Milton Friedman’s conception of the policy, used to weaken the welfare state rather than strengthen it. And his vision for social change is more about benevolent elites like him handing down the policies that average people need than building a grassroots movement to change society.
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Florida Man said:
Can we have a better explanation than this one guy liked it? You can’t have UBI without government intervention and increased taxation, a no-no in the libertarian philosophy.
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Libertarians aren't political, they are idiots. As someone pointed out libertarianism is just astrology for men. Conservatism isn't anti govermemt/state it is fact the complete oppsite.
 
Sweet Square said:
My argument isn't that all UBI ideas are right wing(The party I support - The Labour Party is thinking of UBI trials) it's that UBI can also be a right wing policy.

Libertarians aren't political, they are idiots. As someone pointed out libertarianism is just astrology for men. Conservatism isn't anti govermemt/state it is fact the complete oppsite.
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Yang’s version of UBI does not empower corporations. It’s literally the government taking money via VAT from the richest companies and giving it to the people. It doesn’t kill the welfare state as it’s an opt out system. I get that it doesn’t add to the welfare state too. You may also want to consider that it’s a selling point to make the idea more widely accepted in the American mindset of “how do we pay for it?” I can say that it doesn’t tick every progressive checkbox but it’s still laughable to call it right wing. Call it centrist if you want to place it on that spectrum.

I don’t disagree with the part about Libertarians but ok.
 
Florida Man said:
Yang’s version of UBI does not empower corporations. It’s literally the government taking money via VAT from the richest companies and giving it to the people. It doesn’t kill the welfare state as it’s an opt out system. I get that it doesn’t add to the welfare state too. You may also want to consider that it’s a selling point to make the idea more widely accepted in the American mindset of “how do we pay for it?” I can say that it doesn’t tick every progressive checkbox but it’s still laughable to call it right wing. Call it centrist if you want to place it on that spectrum.

I don’t disagree with the part about Libertarians but ok.
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Really ?


But Yang doesn’t stop there. He not only waters down the total payout, he then proposes to use the UBI to replace extant welfare spending. When you go to Yang’s website, it actually says this:

Andrew proposes funding UBI by consolidating some welfare programs and implementing a Value-Added Tax (VAT) of 10%. Current welfare and social program beneficiaries would be given a choice between their current benefits or $1,000 cash unconditionally – most would prefer cash with no restriction.

Yang is essentially pledging to offer welfare recipients lower lump sums in exchange for surrendering their claim on more lucrative benefit packages. He makes this so obvious:

The means to pay for a Universal Basic Income will come from 4 sources:

1. Current spending. We currently spend between $500 and $600 billion a year on welfare programs, food stamps, disability and the like. This reduces the cost of Universal Basic Income because people already receiving benefits would have a choice but would be ineligible to receive the full $1,000 in addition to current benefits.

Yang is openly promising not to increase the amount which low income Americans receive, which means these people would not receive any relief from the pressure to seek employment at all. Beyond this, he is pledging to pay for the remaining cost with a VAT–this is a regressive sales tax, which hits poor and low income people disproportionately hard. That means that low income Americans won’t receive a benefits increase but will be subject to a 10% VAT. Because low income Americans consume virtually all of their income, this proposal renders them net losers. So not only does Yang hope to cut benefits for poor people, he also wants to make them pay for the program with regressive taxes. Combined, these features increase the pressure on poor people to work.


https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2019/03/20/andrew-yangs-basic-income-is-stealth-welfare-reform/
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Raoul said:
I doubt any of this stuff will move the needle. Biden has been a known commodity in US politics for many decades and his record is largely already baked into public perception.
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Yeah I agree. Plus, a lot of the electorate that is deemed as "important" historically opposed busing, who knows he'll probably get a boost in said areas for standing up to busing.
 
Raoul said:
I doubt any of this stuff will move the needle. Biden has been a known commodity in US politics for many decades and his record is largely already baked into public perception.
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I'm not so sure about that. One single issue might not do much, but there are a lot of people out there to whom Biden is mostly the Obama VP, and this stuff is going to add up. And from the debate, "Obama VP" is clearly the image Biden wants to project. It won't

Then again, by far his worst moment in the debate was when Harris pounced on the busing issue, and he paid for it in the post-debate polls. An issue which fuels a bad moment in a debate and hurts him might not be exactly the same thing as the issue itself hurting him, but if the end result is the same then we're mostly talking semantics.

adexkola said:
Yeah I agree. Plus, a lot of the electorate that is deemed as "important" historically opposed busing, who knows he'll probably get a boost in said areas for standing up to busing.
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His support might have dropped by as much as 10% from the debate, and it's probably in part due to the Harris/busing moment. In all likelihood he already has the support of people who approve of his actions, so he won't gain much from it.
 
Biden was not vetted for this job.
Obama picked him for VP to shore up the blue collar vote.

Its significant That Sharpton used the word “egregious” and mentioned the Civil War.
He was neutral in 2016.

it is also significant that Clyburn and Lewis have been silent. An indication of how deep the corruption of the Democratic party goes.
They do not represent their communities. If they did they would support Bernie and other progressives who are seeking to end injustice and poverty.
 
Worth keeping an eye on Bullock in the coming months. He's picked up 2 big Iowa endorsements.

 
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/30/poli...-gay-rights-waiter-comment-seattle/index.html

Joe's "gay waiter" bit fell a bit flat...
Washington (CNN)People gathered at a 2020 presidential fundraiser for Joe Biden Saturday pushed back against the former vice president's claim that just a few years ago people in Washington state would have let a homophobic comment slide, saying "Not in Seattle!"

The presidential hopeful suggested public sentiment toward gay rights issues has come far in a short period of time, saying five years ago if someone at a business meeting in Seattle "made fun of a gay waiter" people would just let it go, according to a pool report of the event. The audience vocally responded to the remark and some in the crowd said homophobic comments would not have gone unchallenged even before five years ago, according to the report.
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Red Dreams said:
So after raising her hands she is for abolishing private health insurance as Bernie did, she back tracks the next day.

Harris cannot be trusted at all.
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You will never win by saying you want to abolish private medical insurance and to be honest, you shouldn't say it anyway as people don't understand what you mean.

EVERY SINGLE PERSON should be entitled to and should be able to receive exactly the same medical advice, care and treatment. It should be paid for by taxes. However, those who wish to then pay extra out of their own pocket for private care should be free to do so, but they do so by paying separately and while still contributing via their taxes.

Ideally there would be no need for a separate private healthcare system but nothing is ideal and it does has positives as well as negatives but the priority is healthcare for all. Get that first and then sort the rest later.
 
berbatrick said:
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berbatrick said:
Great timing, because now...



The usual brigade will tell me I'm attacking her for no reason, but I think this is a good reason. She's consistently a lot more militaristic than him.
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Which bit in her tweet is "militaristic" ? The things she is describing are pretty ordinary in terms of diplomatic policy on behalf of the nation state she represents.
 
berbatrick said:
Great timing, because now...



The usual brigade will tell me I'm attacking her for no reason, but I think this is a good reason. She's consistently a lot more militaristic than him.
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I've not seen her be like that tbh but will take your word for it. However, she's 100% spot on with what she said. BUT! It's easy to say all this shit when you're not the one making the decisions and even easier to say when you are trying to gain popularity. Best intentions? or false promises based on calculated manipulation?
 
Raoul said:
Which bit in her tweet is "militaristic" ? The things she is describing are pretty ordinary in terms of diplomatic policy on behalf of the nation state she represents.
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The nation state she represents is pretty militaristic.
The blanket condemnation of Trump's move, which objectively reduces the chance of war, is militaristic. The rhetoric about "love letters" is macho. The emphasis of US security and absence of peace in that entire tweet is militaristic.

@Carolina Red goes for you too

langster said:
I've not seen her be like that tbh but will take your word for it. However, she's 100% spot on with what she said. BUT! It's easy to say all this shit when you're not the one making the decisions and even easier to say when you are trying to gain popularity. Best intentions? or false promises based on calculated manipulation?
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You can compare her statement to Bernie's, the difference isn't that hard to see:

 
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