2020 Democratic Presidential Nominees

WFcatamount22 said:

You would have thought that if all those racists hated the black guy so much they would have come out in full force the first two times and voted against him, instead of waiting for a white person to vote against. Weird.

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...So child care really should be an important part of the progressive agenda. Hillary Clinton had a serious plan back in 2016, but the news media was too busy obsessing over emails to pay attention. And if you ask me, Elizabeth Warren’s new proposal isn’t getting as much attention as it should.

For the Warren proposal is the kind of initiative that, if enacted, would change millions of lives for the better, yet could actually happen in the near future.

Among other things, unlike purist visions of replacing private health insurance with “Medicare for all,” providing child care wouldn’t require imposing big new taxes on the middle class. The sums of money involved are small enough that new taxes on great wealth and high incomes, which are desirable on other grounds, could easily raise sufficient revenue.

The logic of the Warren plan is fairly simple (although some commentators are trying to make it sound complex). Child care would be regulated to ensure that basic quality was maintained and subsidized to make it affordable. The size of the subsidy would depend on parents’ incomes: lower-income parents would get free care, higher-income parents would have to pay something, but nobody would have to pay more than 7 percent of income.

Warren’s advisers put the budget cost at $70 billion a year, or around one-third of one percent of G.D.P. That’s not chicken feed, but it’s not that much for something that could transform so many lives.

It is, for example, well under half the revenue lost due to the Trump tax cut, which seems to have been used mainly for share buybacks. And it’s a tiny fraction of what it would cost to replace all private health insurance with a public program.

So what are the objections to this plan?

I’m hearing from a few people on the left who complain that the plan doesn’t go far enough — that it should involve free, direct public provision of child care, not subsidies to private provision. There’s certainly a case for a more expansive policy. There’s also no chance that it will happen anytime soon.

The perfect here is the enemy of the good.

Meanwhile, on the right there are the usual cries of “socialism,” which these days means anything to the left of eating poor people’s babies.

More interestingly, I’m seeing at least some commentary on the right that doesn’t just push back against the whole idea of making it easier for mothers to work, it wants us to go back to the days when families could “live on one income.”

Realistically, of course, that’s not going to happen, and not just because 30 percent of U.S. children live in single-parent households. And bear in mind that even as conservatives bemoan the decline of the traditional male breadwinner, they’re pushing policies like Medicaid work requirements that basically force mothers out of the home.

The bottom line is that Warren’s proposal is impressive: It’s workable, affordable, and would do a huge amount of good.

And while this isn’t a horse-race column — I’m not arguing that Warren necessarily will or even should be the Democratic presidential nominee — the field needs more policy ideas like this: medium-size, medium-priced proposals that could deliver major benefits without requiring a political miracle.

Right now, all of the real contenders for the Democratic nomination are solidly progressive, but so far some seem either underbriefed on policy issues — there’s been far too much fumbling over Medicare for all — or too committed to sweeping, maximalist policy visions to think seriously about what they might truly be able to do if their party takes the White House and Senate next year.

Visions and values are great, but Democrats also need to be ready to hit the ground running with plans that might actually turn into legislation. And so far, Warren is setting the pace.

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sailordeac said:

You are the one still in denial about Clinton criminality. No one has denied that Trump may have dicey tax returns, business dealings, or women problems. What has been denied, and quite accurately, is the Trump-Russia collusion fabrication, which is nothing but a cover up for efforts to spy on Trump's campaign by high ranking members of Obama's DoJ, DoS, intelligence agencies, the FBI and the Clinton campaign. Politicians, yes even presidents, with dubious business deals, woman issues, and tax returns are a dime a dozen. Those that try to subvert significant parts of US law enforcement and intelligence, as well as a presidential election, are - thank God and perhaps only for the time being - a much smaller club: Richard Nixon, Hillary Clinton and perhaps Barack Obama. Do you really think that if the Clintons and their fellow travelling criminals are allowed to get away with what they tried to do, there will not be others in the future, others who are even worse? And just because it was against Donald Trump is not an excuse. Stop defending the indefensible. Come to grips with what really happened in the 2016 campaign and stop chasing fraudulent tales on non-existing fritter trees.

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ImTheCaptain said:

true, capitalism has its benefits

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Wakeforest22890 said:

Well that's not a big deal to Sailor because he's focused on one area which hasn't been proven yet and he's going to stand by that until the bitter end.

Yeah if you ignore the other crimes that he's committed (that Sailor personally doesn't deny apparently) and only focus on the one thing that hasn't concluded yet it's no big deal!

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AsesinoDeTortugas said:

How on earth did Hillary Clinton and “perhaps” Barack Obama try to subvert election laws?

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...What separates him from the pack in this race are his forceful and well-defined foreign policy views — his synthesis of domestic and international concerns. Rather than fight on old, now-crowded ground, he can move to new territory, opening vital conversations about America’s role in the world. He can bring a new set of progressive ideas to the Democratic mainstream and force his opponents to debate them on his terms. In doing so, Sanders could establish himself as the leading candidate for progressive Democrats who want to rebuild the nation’s reputation and influence as much as its economy.

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JamesSokolove said:

As I've said over and over again, the DEMS should NOT nonimate anyone over 60 for POTUS in 2020

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AsesinoDeTortugas said:

How on earth did Hillary Clinton and “perhaps” Barack Obama try to subvert election laws?

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myDeaconmyhand said:

Why specifically President? Half of Congress is over 60. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, John Lewis are all over 60.

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myDeaconmyhand said:

Why specifically President? Half of Congress is over 60. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, John Lewis are all over 60.

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Deacfreak07 said:

It’s really funny to me that RJBot keeps getting engaged.

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AsesinoDeTortugas said:

Wouldn’t be a tunnels thread without RJ fighting someone

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RJKarl said:

Sokolove's post is an edited copy of what I have shown in the past. That is no person the Dems have nominated who is 60+yo and running for the first time for POTUS has won in over a hundred years.

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