Elizabeth Warren 2020

[TwiceHorn 32,104]

11 hours ago, tantric superman said:

Promoting the general welfare when the states fail to do so:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 

Commerce clause, bro.

[Doc Sam Beckett 5,908]

22 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

Trump, despite being rich his entire life, is far better at communicating to ordinary people than Liz.  Professional middle class types may jerk off to her aesthetic but most people don't find her to be very likable.  Look at her favorability in her home state, for instance.

I don't think this is true at all. When people actually listen to her, without the fox news planted fear of contracting the deadly socialism disease, they love her. 

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

Warren's home state favorability right now is 46 - 46, driven down by 93% unfavorabiltiy by Republicans.   Trump's favorability in his home state of NY is 34 - 63, and in his claimed second home state of FL, it was 40 - 52 last I saw.  

Warren is an excellent communicator and will only improve her standing nationally as people actually listen to her in speeches and debates rather than getting impressions from sound bites and second-hand narratives. But I'm glad Republicans think otherwise for now. 

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

7 minutes ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

I don't think this is true at all. When people actually listen to her, without the fox news planted fear of contracting the deadly socialism disease, they love her. 

You're talking to someone who is trying to push a false narrative.  It obviously isn't true, but this is the right's strategy for trying to define her early. 

[tucker 238]

She would likely be the best President in my lifetime if elected. 

[Longhornfan1024 1,707]

23 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

You can be both smart and relatable - look at Obama, for example.  It's not their fault she can't relate or connect with ordinary people.  Have you seen videos of her attempting to act like a normal person? It's not a pretty sight.  

You really like to just say things and pretend that they are true.  Does lying to yourself all the time help you to sleep better at night?  

[Fozzz 152]

8 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

Warren's home state favorability right now is 46 - 46, driven down by 93% unfavorabiltiy by Republicans.   Trump's favorability in his home state of NY is 34 - 63, and in his claimed second home state of FL, it was 40 - 52 last I saw.  

Warren is an excellent communicator and will only improve her standing nationally as people actually listen to her in speeches and debates rather than getting impressions from sound bites and second-hand narratives. But I'm glad Republicans think otherwise for now. 

How many Republicans are there in MA and NY?  If you want to compare their favorability, according to the latest YouGov poll Warren has a favorability among dems of 65-16 (only 34% very favorable) compared to Trump among Republicans of 89-11 (76% very favorable).  Why is Liz losing to other Dem candidates in polls of her home state?  That's embarrassing.  

[NBMisha 224]

 

Because there are other compellng dem candidates.  Trump has no compelling pub alternative. Period.

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

Numerous recent polls show that many people who prefer Warren on her own merits currently have Biden or someone else as their #1 choice because they care most about defeating Trump and think another candidate is more electable.   There was an Iowa poll a day or two ago that showed Warren had the highest spread by far — that is, the combination of top choice, second choice, or would consider voting for.  

And that is precisely Warren's strength — the narrative that she's not relatable and can't win is false, and crumbles each day as people hear from her directly rather than relying on what they think other people think of her.  She is primed for a huge run.

[Hank Kingsley 21,809]

Yes, Warren can capture a ton of voters that currently favor someone else. 

After some early adversity she's on a long, sustained run of 100% positivity within the Democratic electorate right now. That won't last forever but it's extremely encouraging for her. 

 

 

[Anastasis 23,717]

14 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

 

- Why would there "likely" be increased costs?
- Why would there be reductions in quality?
- Why would there be "reduction in diversity of programming"?
- Why would there be "restrictions in choice"?

The plan calls for mandated wage increases. This will increase aggregate and per capita costs. Aggregate costs will also increase as a function of increased enrollment, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, is just a reality of the increased costs to be borne by the federal government and likely the unsubsidized individuals using day care services. Determination of quality is complex, but for one example consider the unanticipated impacts when the provincial day care subsidy system in Quebec was implemented. This analysis was by one of the architects of Obama care. https://www.nber.org/papers/w21571 I think what you would see is a general regression to a mean based on national standards. Some high quality centers would lower quality of care, many low quality day care centers would improve their care, or far more likely among the very low performing unable to meet the standards, simply close down. Reductions in diversity of programming would also be the likely result of tailoring programming to a national set of “quality standards”. In the end the program will exacerbate certain problems facing the middle class, eroding the feasibility of the child care situation preferred by most mothers. Warren discussed this dynamic, specifically the negative impact that day care subsidies have wrt widening the gaps between middle class families, in the book she wrote with her daughter.  https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18183091/two-income-trap-elizabeth-warren-book

Edited June 13, 2019 by Anastasis

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

Went back and looked at some posts on the first 10 pages of this thread, all before the 2018 midterm elections:

 

Bateshorn is one of my favorite CR posters but this take from July 2018 made me laugh.

On 7/30/2018 at 12:28 PM, Bateshorn said:

Elizabeth Warren just does not strike me as a candidate that democrats (and independents) are going to fall in love with.

 

Below is an Elizabeth Warren speech from her first ever campaign for elected office. As you can see, her messaging has remained consistent and it is pure dragon energy.  This speech also goes into good depth about her background. 

On 8/5/2018 at 7:50 AM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

2012 Elizabeth Warren DNC Speech

“Thank you! I'm Elizabeth Warren, and this is my first Democratic Convention. Never thought I'd run for senate. And I sure never dreamed that I'd get to be the warm-up act for President Bill Clinton—an amazing man, who had the good sense to marry one of the coolest women on the planet. I want to give a special shout out to the Massachusetts delegation. I'm counting on you to help me win and to help President Obama win.

I'm here tonight to talk about hard-working people: people who get up early, stay up late, cook dinner and help out with homework; people who can be counted on to help their kids, their parents, their neighbors, and the lady down the street whose car broke down; people who work their hearts out but are up against a hard truth—the game is rigged against them.

It wasn't always this way. Like a lot of you, I grew up in a family on the ragged edge of the middle class. My daddy sold carpeting and ended up as a maintenance man. After he had a heart attack, my mom worked the phones at Sears so we could hang on to our house. My three brothers all served in the military. One was career. The second worked a good union job in construction. The third started a small business.

Me, I was waiting tables at 13 and married at 19. I graduated from public schools and taught elementary school. I have a wonderful husband, two great children, and three beautiful grandchildren. And I'm grateful, down to my toes, for every opportunity that America gave me. This is a great country. I grew up in an America that invested in its kids and built a strong middle class; that allowed millions of children to rise from poverty and establish secure lives. An America that created Social Security and Medicare so that seniors could live with dignity; an America in which each generation built something solid so that the next generation could build something better.

But for many years now, our middle class has been chipped, squeezed, and hammered. Talk to the construction worker I met from Malden, Massachusetts, who went nine months without finding work. Talk to the head of a manufacturing company in Franklin trying to protect jobs but worried about rising costs. Talk to the student in Worcester who worked hard to finish his college degree, and now he's drowning in debt. Their fight is my fight, and it's Barack Obama's fight too.

People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: they're right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs—the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs—still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.

Anyone here have a problem with that? Well I do. I talk to small business owners all across Massachusetts. Not one of them—not one—made big bucks from the risky Wall Street bets that brought down our economy. I talk to nurses and programmers, salespeople and firefighters—people who bust their tails every day. Not one of them—not one—stashes their money in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

These folks don't resent that someone else makes more money. We're Americans. We celebrate success. We just don't want the game to be rigged. We've fought to level the playing field before. About a century ago, when corrosive greed threatened our economy and our way of life, the American people came together under the leadership of Teddy Roosevelt and other progressives, to bring our nation back from the brink.

We started to take children out of factories and put them in schools. We began to give meaning to the words "consumer protection" by making our food and medicine safe. And we gave the little guys a better chance to compete by preventing the big guys from rigging the markets. We turned adversity into progress because that's what we do.

Americans are fighters. We are tough, resourceful and creative. If we have the chance to fight on a level playing field—where everyone pays a fair share and everyone has a real shot—then no one can stop us. President Obama gets it because he's spent his life fighting for the middle class. And now he's fighting to level that playing field—because we know that the economy doesn't grow from the top down, but from the middle class out and the bottom up. That's how we create jobs and reduce the debt.

And Mitt Romney? He wants to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. But for middle-class families who are hanging on by their fingernails? His plans will hammer them with a new tax hike of up to 2,000 dollars. Mitt Romney wants to give billions in breaks to big corporations—but he and Paul Ryan would pulverize financial reform, voucher-ize Medicare, and vaporize Obamacare.

The Republican vision is clear: "I've got mine, the rest of you are on your own." Republicans say they don't believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends. After all, Mitt Romney's the guy who said corporations are people.

No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people. And that's why we need Barack Obama.

After the financial crisis, President Obama knew that we had to clean up Wall Street. For years, families had been tricked by credit cards, fooled by student loans and cheated on mortgages. I had an idea for a consumer financial protection agency to stop the rip-offs. The big banks sure didn't like it, and they marshaled one of the biggest lobbying forces on earth to destroy the agency before it ever saw the light of day. American families didn't have an army of lobbyists on our side, but what we had was a president—President Obama leading the way. And when the lobbyists were closing in for the kill, Barack Obama squared his shoulders, planted his feet, and stood firm. And that's how we won.

By the way, just a few weeks ago, that little agency caught one of the biggest credit card companies cheating its customers and made it give people back every penny it took, plus millions of dollars in fines. That's what happens when you have a president on the side of the middle class.

President Obama believes in a level playing field. He believes in a country where nobody gets a free ride or a golden parachute. A country where anyone who has a great idea and rolls up their sleeves has a chance to build a business, and anyone who works hard can build some security and raise a family. President Obama believes in a country where billionaires pay their taxes just like their secretaries do, and—I can't believe I have to say this in 2012—a country where women get equal pay for equal work.

He believes in a country where everyone is held accountable. Where no one can steal your purse on Main Street or your pension on Wall Street. President Obama believes in a country where we invest in education, in roads and bridges, in science, and in the future, so we can create new opportunities, so the next kid can make it big, and the kid after that, and the kid after that. That's what president Obama believes. And that's how we build the economy of the future. An economy with more jobs and less debt. We root it in fairness. We grow it with opportunity. And we build it together.

I grew up in the Methodist Church and taught Sunday school. One of my favorite passages of scripture is: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matthew 25:40. The passage teaches about God in each of us, that we are bound to each other and called to act. Not to sit, not to wait, but to act—all of us together.

Senator Kennedy understood that call. Four years ago, he addressed our convention for the last time. He said, "We have never lost our belief that we are all called to a better country and a newer world." Generation after generation, Americans have answered that call. And now we are called again. We are called to restore opportunity for every American. We are called to give America's working families a fighting chance. We are called to build something solid so the next generation can build something better.

So let me ask you—let me ask you, America: are you ready to answer this call? Are you ready to fight for good jobs and a strong middle class? Are you ready to work for a level playing field? Are you ready to prove to another generation of Americans that we can build a better country and a newer world?

Joe Biden is ready. Barack Obama is ready. I'm ready. You're ready. America's ready. Thank you! And God bless America!”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/OTUS/transcript-elizabeth-warrens-democratic-convention-speech/story%3fid=17164726

 

This speech is four years later and gives you a window into what her general election campaign against Trump might look like.  She rhetorically castrates Trump in this speech with surgical precision.  It is remarkable how well this speech holds up.

On 8/6/2018 at 5:55 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

She nails it on Trump in this speech. 

 

2016 Elizabeth Warren DNC Speech

“We are here tonight because America faces a choice, the choice of a new president.On one side is a man who inherited a fortune from his father and kept it going by cheating people and skipping out on debts. A man who has never sacrificed anything for anyone. A man who cares only for himself — every minute of every day.On the other side is one of the smartest, toughest, most tenacious people on the planet — a woman who fights for children, for women, for health care, for human rights, a woman who fights for all of us, and who is strong enough to win those fights.We're here today because our choice is Hillary Clinton! I'm with Hillary!For me, this choice is personal. It's about who we are as a people. It's about what kind of country we want to be.

I grew up in Oklahoma. My daddy ended up as a maintenance man, and my mom worked for minimum wage at Sears. My three brothers served in the military. The oldest was career, 288 combat missions in Vietnam. The second worked construction. The third started his own business. Me? I got married at 19 and graduated from a commuter college in Texas that cost $50 a semester. The way I see it, I'm a janitor's daughter who became a public school teacher, a professor, and a United States Senator. America is truly a country of opportunity!I'm deeply grateful to that America. I believe in that America.

But I'm worried. Worried that my story is locked in the past. Worried that opportunity is slipping away for people who work hard and play by the rules.Look around. Americans bust their tails, some working two or three jobs, but wages stay flat. Meanwhile, the basic costs of making it from month to month keep going up. Housing, health care, child care — costs are out of sight. Young people are getting crushed by student loans. Working people are in debt. Seniors can't stretch a Social Security check to cover the basics.And even families who are OK today worry that it could all fall apart tomorrow. This. Is. Not. Right!

Here's the thing: America isn't going broke. The stock market is breaking records. Corporate profits are at all-time highs. CEOs make tens of millions of dollars. There's lots of wealth in America, but it isn't trickling down to hard-working families like yours.Does anyone here have a problem with that? Well, I do too. People get it: the system is rigged. So-called experts claim America is in trouble because both political parties in Washington refuse to compromise. Gridlock! That is just flat wrong.

Washington works great for those at the top. When giant companies wanted more tax loopholes, Washington got it done. When huge energy companies wanted to tear up our environment, Washington got it done. When enormous Wall Street banks wanted new regulatory loopholes, Washington got it done. No gridlock there! But try to do something, anything, for working people, and you'll have a fight on your hands. Democrats have taken on those fights. Democrats fought to get health insurance for more Americans. Democrats fought for a strong consumer agency so big banks can't cheat people. We fought, we won, and we improved the lives of millions of people — thank you, President Obama! Yes, we won, but Republicans and lobbyists battled us every step of the way. Five years later, that consumer agency has returned $11 billion to families who were cheated. And Republicans? They're still trying to kill it.

I'm not someone who thinks Republicans are always wrong and Democrats are always right. There's enough blame to go around. But there is a huge difference between the people fighting for a level playing field, and the people keeping the system rigged. Look at Congress since the Republicans took over. Democrats proposed refinancing student loans. And Republicans? They said no! Democrats proposed ending tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas. And Republicans? They said no! Democrats proposed raising the minimum wage. And Republicans? They said no! To every Republican in Congress who said no: this November, the American people are coming for you!

And where was Donald Trump? In all these fights, not once did he lift a finger to help working people. Why would he? His whole life has been about taking advantage of that rigged system. Time after time he preyed on working people, people in debt, people who had fallen on hard times. He's conned them, he's defrauded them, and he's ripped them off. Look at his history. Donald Trump said he was "excited" for the 2008 housing crash that devastated millions of American families because he thought it would help him scoop up more real estate on the cheap.

Donald Trump set up a fake university to make money while cheating people and taking their life savings. Donald Trump goes on, and on, and on, about being a successful businessman, but he filed business bankruptcies six times, always to protect his own money and stick his investors and contractors with the bill. Donald Trump hired plumbers and painters and construction workers to do hard labor for his businesses, then told them to take only a fraction of what he owed or fight his lawyers in court for years.What kind of a man acts like this? What kind of a man roots for the economic crash that cost millions of people their jobs? Their homes? Their life savings? What kind of a man cheats students, cheats investors, cheats workers?

I'll tell you what kind of man. A man who must NEVER be President of the United States! And we've got the leaders to make it happen: Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine! Donald Trump knows that the American people are angry — a fact so obvious he can see it from the top of Trump Tower. So now he's insisting that he, and he alone, can fix the rigged system.Last week Donald Trump spoke for more than an hour on the biggest stage he's ever had. But other than talking about building a stupid wall, which will NEVER get built, really, did you hear any actual ideas? Did you hear even one solid proposal from Trump for increasing incomes, or improving your kids' education, or creating even one single good-paying job? Donald Trump has no real plans for jobs or for college kids or for seniors, no plans to make ANYTHING great for ANYONE except rich guys like Donald Trump.

Just look at his ideas. Donald Trump wants to get rid of the federal minimum wage. Donald Trump wants to roll back financial regulations and turn Wall Street loose to wreck our economy again.And Donald Trump has a tax plan to give multi-millionaires and billionaires like himself an average tax cut of $1.3 million — a year. You're struggling to put your kids through college, and Donald Trump thinks HE needs a million-dollar tax break!

Trump's entire campaign is just one more late-night Trump infomercial.

Hand over your money, your jobs, your children's future, and The Great Trump Hot Air Machine will reveal all the answers. And, for one low, low price, he'll even throw in a goofy hat.

And here's the really ugly underside to his pitch. Trump thinks he can win votes by fanning the flames of fear and hatred. By turning neighbor against neighbor. By persuading you that the real problem in America is your fellow Americans — people who don't look like you, or don't talk like you, or don't worship like you. He even picked a vice president famous for trying to make it legal to openly discriminate against gays and lesbians.That's Donald Trump's America. An America of fear and hate. An America where we all break apart. Whites against blacks and Latinos. Christians against Muslims and Jews. Straight against gay. Everyone against immigrants. Race, religion, heritage, gender, the more factions the better.

But ask yourself this. When white workers in Ohio are pitted against black workers in North Carolina, or Latino workers in Florida, who really benefits? "Divide and Conquer" is an old story in America.

Dr. Martin Luther King knew it. After his march from Selma to Montgomery, he spoke of how segregation was created to keep people divided. Instead of higher wages for workers, Dr. King described how poor whites in the South were fed Jim Crow, which told a poor white worker that, "No matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man." Racial hatred was part of keeping the powerful on top. And now Trump and his campaign have embraced it all. Racial hatred. Religious bigotry. Attacks on immigrants, on women, on gays. A deceitful and ugly blame game that says, whatever worries you, the answer is to blame that other group, and don't put any energy into making real change.

When we turn on each other, bankers can run our economy for Wall Street, oil companies can fight off clean energy, and giant corporations can ship the last good jobs overseas. When we turn on each other, rich guys like Trump can push through more tax breaks for themselves and then we'll never have enough money to support our schools, or rebuild our highways, or invest in our kids' future. When we turn on each other, we can't unite to fight back against a rigged system. Well, I've got news for Donald Trump. The American people are not falling for it! We've seen this ugliness before, and we're not going to be Donald Trump's hate-filled America. Not now, not ever!

I come to you as the daughter of a janitor, a daughter who believes in an America of opportunity. The hand of history is on our shoulders. We know how to build a future, a future that works not just for some of our children, but for all of our children. We know, and we must have the courage to make it happen.This is about our values, our shared values with our candidates Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine!We believe that no matter who you are, no matter where you're from, no matter who you love, equal means equal. Hillary will fight to make sure discrimination has no place in America. And we're with her!We believe that no one, no one, who works full time should live in poverty. Hillary will fight for raising the minimum wage, fair scheduling, paid family and medical leave! And we're with her!We believe every kid in America should have a chance for a great education without getting crushed by debt. Hillary will fight for refinancing student loans and debt-free college. And we're with her!We believe that after a lifetime of hard work, seniors should be able to retire with dignity. Hillary will fight to expand Social Security, strengthen Medicare, and protect retirement accounts. And we're with her!We believe that oil companies shouldn't call the shots in Washington, that science matters, that climate change is real. Hillary will fight to preserve this earth for our children and grandchildren. And we're with her!We believe – and I can't believe I have to say this in 2016 – in equal pay for equal work and a woman's right to control over her own body! Hillary will fight for women. And we're with her!We believe we don't need WEAKER rules on Wall Street, we need stronger rules, and when big banks get too risky, break 'em up. Hillary will fight to hold big banks accountable. And we're with her!We believe that the United States should never, never, sign trade deals that help giant corporations but leave working people in the dirt!

Hillary will fight for American workers. And we're with her!And just one more. We believe we must get big money out of politics and root out corruption. Hillary will fight to overturn Citizens United and return this government to the people! And we're with her!

If you believe that America must work for all of us, not just the rich and powerful, if you believe we must reject the politics of fear and division, if you believe we are stronger together, then let's work our hearts out to make Hillary Clinton the next President of the United States!”

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/4421731/democratic-convention-elizabeth-warren-transcript-speech

 

Below is an outline of what I consider Warren’s primary and most important policy idea.  If she wins, I expect this anti-corruption legislation to be her focus on day one as president.

 

On 8/21/2018 at 11:47 AM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

From Warren’s Twitter feed on this:

Our government systematically favors the rich over the poor, the donor class over the working class, the well-connected over the disconnected.  This is deliberate, and we need to call it for what it is – corruption, plain and simple. 

Today, I’m introducing the most ambitious anti-corruption legislation proposed in Congress since Watergate. This is an aggressive set of reforms that would fundamentally change the way Washington does business. 

These reforms have one simple aim: to take power in Washington away from  the wealthy, the powerful, and the well-connected who have corrupted our  government and put power back in the hands of the American people. 

There’s no real question that the @realDonaldTrump era has given us the most nakedly corrupt leadership this nation has seen in our lifetimes. But they are not the cause of the rot – they’re just the biggest, stinkiest example of it. 

The problem is enormous – but we’ve dealt with enormous problems before. We just need some big reform ideas and a willingness to fight for real change. 

First Big Change – Padlock the revolving door between big business and government. 

Ban elected and appointed officials from becoming lobbyists after they leave office. Not for 1 year.  Not for 2 years. For the rest of their lives. No special deals for millions and millions of dollars to the policymakers who will be in a position to pay back their old employers.

Second Big Change – Stop self-dealing by public officials. If a person works for the government, then that person should serve the public. No making policy decisions to help yourself instead of taxpayers.

Presidents should not be able to own companies on the side. And we shouldn’t have to beg candidates to let the American people see their financial interests. That should be the law – not just for presidential candidates, but for every candidate for every federal office.

Third Big Change – End lobbying as we know it. 

Start by fixing the Swiss cheese definition of a “lobbyist.”  Require everyone who gets paid to influence government to register. And bring that lobbying out into the sunlight. Make every single meeting between a lobbyist and a public official a matter of public record.

We should ban Americans from getting paid to lobby for foreign governments – period. If foreign governments want to express their views, they can use their diplomats. 

Fourth Big Change – End corporate capture of rulemaking. 

Prosecute companies that knowingly mislead government agencies. And stop the practice of companies paying for sham “studies” designed to derail the rulemaking process. 

Fifth Big Change – Restore faith that ordinary people can get a fair shake in our courts. 

Strengthen the code of conduct for all federal judges – no stock trading, no payments from corporations for attending events, no honoraria for giving speeches, no lavish getaways & fancy hunting trips funded by billionaires. & I mean all federal judges, including SCOTUS justices.

Big Change Number Six – Hire a new independent sheriff to police corruption. There are dedicated public servants that enforce our ethics laws – but they have less authority than security guards at the mall. 

Build a new anticorruption agency to make sure that all key federal officials – even powerful Senators and Presidents – file disclosures and get rid of conflicts. 

Inside Washington, some of these proposals will be very unpopular, even with my friends. Outside Washington, I expect that most people will see these ideas as no-brainers and be shocked they’re not already law. 

I plan to fight to pass as many of these reforms as possible. I believe we can break the stranglehold that the wealthy and well-connected hold over our government. I believe we can get democracy working again. /end

 

Just a 30k foot view of Elizabeth Warren’s economic theory.

 

On 8/29/2018 at 12:27 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Elizabeth Warren’s Theory of Capitalism

A conversation with the Democratic senator about why she’s doubling down on market competition at a moment when her party is flirting with socialism

FRANKLIN FOER

AUG 28, 2018

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Franklin Foer: All the investment bankers who have voodoo dolls of you might be a bit surprised that you recently described yourself as “capitalist to the bone.” What did you mean?

Elizabeth Warren: I believe in markets and the benefits they can produce when they work. Markets with rules can produce enormous value. So much of the work I have done—the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, my hearing-aid bill—are about making markets work for people, not making markets work for a handful of companies that scrape all the value off to themselves. I believe in competition.

Foer: To what end?

Warren: Markets create wealth. Okay, so I used to teach contract law, and if you really want to go back to first principles: On the first day, I used to take my watch off and I would sell it to someone in class. We’d agree on a price, $20. Then the question I always asked the students was: What did the buyer value the watch at? Much of the class would say $20.

That’s not the right answer. All we know is that the person would rather have the watch than have the $20 bill. What did you know about the value I placed on it? Exactly the inverse. I’d rather have the $20 bill than have the watch. Now, most people think the benefit of markets is: I walked away with a $20 bill, great, which I valued more highly than the watch, and you walked away with the watch that you valued more highly than the $20, but look at all the excess value there.

Maybe you wanted that watch because it completed your fabulous watch collection or you desperately needed a watch or it was so attractive to you that the value you placed on it would be in the hundreds of dollars. You got all that surplus value, and me, I really needed that $20. I had an investment opportunity over here for that $20 that has yielded a manyfold return for me. That’s how markets create additional value.

Foer: But markets right now are doing a good job of producing wealth. Yes?

Warren: Right.

Foer: In your description, that’s markets working.

Warren: The problem is that when the rules are not enforced, when the markets are not level playing fields, all that wealth is scraped in one direction. For example, leading up to the financial crash, there were a lot of mortgage brokers out there selling mortgages. Wow, did they get rich doing it. Families thought they were buying a product they could afford, whose payments they understood. Many of them lost everything. That’s a market that clearly was not working. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, after it passed, the first thing we did there at the bureau was to put new rules in place about mortgages. Not so that you could control the mortgage market, but so that the market would work.

I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at the rules, but the rules were basically to say you can compete, but you’ve got to be real clear about the things you're competing on. Things like: Information has to be put in the same place on each of the forms, so people can lay the forms down next to each other and see what’s there and you don’t get to put it back on page 32 in fine print.

Foer: Oftentimes, it seems that you’re not really criticizing the behavior of markets—you’re describing  outright theft and deception.

Warren: Exactly. Theft is not capitalism. Right?

Foer:  Was there a moment when capitalism in America worked?

Warren: There are times that parts of the markets worked better. Look at it this way: 1935 to 1980, a time when there’s much more emphasis on worker power. Union membership is going up. There’s more aggressive regulation of markets, more enforcement of antitrust laws. The Securities and Exchange Commission had just been created and was a strong cop on the beat. Glass-Steagall was strictly enforced, FDIC insurance had gone into place. And you watch: GDP goes up 1935 to 1980 and the 90 percent of America—everybody outside the top 10 percent—gets 70 percent of all new income growth.

Foer: Policing, rules—these are really core concepts for you.

Warren: Yes.

Foer: What does it say about human nature? We have this almost innate inclination to trade with one another. And yet, the market also brings out an innate human tendency toward avarice and greed.

Warren: I would describe it differently. There’s always somebody who will see if they can run the light. The question is whether we maintain good rules and an effective cop to enforce those rules. This is where the wheels came off starting in the ’80s.

This is a political issue. It’s not a markets issue. There were years of not perfect but fairly well-enforced rules that were pretty firmly hit and held. Then you hit the ’80s and the lobbying by the wealthy and the well-connected steps up and the rules start shifting. The rules tilt just a little more toward the rich and the powerful. Just a little more, just a little more. Enforcement gets weaker and weaker. Remember the whole description that started in the ’80s about deregulation and the beauties that deregulation would bring America? I understand no one wants to have to abide by dumb regulations. I get that, but deregulation became a code word for “fire the cops.” Not the cops on Main Street, the cops on Wall Street.

Foer: The 1980s seem to be the moment of your own personal political transformation. Right? [Warren  says that around that time she went from identifying as a Republican to becoming a consumer activist.]

Warren:   Yes.

Foer: That's when you—

Warren: —I never want to overstate this, because the truth is I was never very politically active. I was active in economic ideas and what was happening to working families. That’s been the animating feature for me since the first time I got to do research.

Foer: But it changed your analysis of capitalism?

Warren: Absolutely.

Foer: On this question of regulation and capture, you have your own wariness.

Warren:   I do.

Foer: When you think about erecting new structures, like in your Accountable Capitalism Act, creating a new federal structure for the licensing of corporations—why isn’t a structure like that ripe for capture?

Warren: This is about taking the current structure and making it work better. Every corporation in America is chartered somewhere. The big banks in the country are already federally chartered. Chartering is just where the rules reside. For decades there have been restrictions in the charters on what it is the corporations can do and instructions on what they must do. Quarterly shareholder, annual shareholder meetings ... What I propose is to amend those rules for billion-dollar-plus corporations. The reason is because the rules are not working now. We were talking about how when GDP goes up, productivity goes up and workers' wages go up. In the ’80s, that just flattens out. GDP continues to go up, productivity continues to go up, but workers fall behind and the gap has now become enormous. Eighty-four percent of the wealth in the stock market goes to 10 percent of the population.

Half of all America owns not one share of stock. Not one. Not even in a 401(k) or an employer retirement plan, and yet a huge portion of the worth of the corporation is being directly diverted to the shareholders. That was not always true. There was a time in America when that wealth was shared among those who helped produce it. The workers and the investors. That’s just not true today.

Foer: There are all these hints of Louis Brandeis in what you do. Brandeis had a vision of how the economy could be structured differently when the rules that he wanted were applied. He  favored the small shopkeeper. In your vision, who gets favored? Are there forces in the market that you feel like are being unfairly shackled that you want to see unleashed?

Warren: Yes. Perfect. Competition. I love competition. I want to see every start-up business, everybody who’s got a good idea, have a chance to get in the market and try. This is what's so interesting to me. There are so many people right now who argue against these reforms and other reforms, who claim they are pro-business. They’re not. They’re pro-monopoly. They’re pro–concentration of power, which crushes competition.

This is where the political and the economic interact. Once a corporation climbs up the ladder so that it’s got hundreds of millions—no, so that it’s got billions of dollars in resources—today too many of them turn around and use those resources to influence government to cut off that ladder, so nobody else climbs it. To cut off that ladder so that the big guys don’t have to compete with the little guys anymore.

I was just going to say, you were asking me, what excites me about markets? I was telling you that gains-from-trade argument, but really what excites me about markets is competition. I want to make sure we’ve got a set of rules that lets everybody who’s got a good, competitive idea get in the game.

Foer: I’ve heard your latest proposals described as an attempt to save capitalism, which implies that it’s in pretty dire straits. How dire do you think the state of American capitalism is?

Warren:  I worry both for capitalism and for democracy. People across this country once believed that folks who work hard and play by the rules have a chance to be able to build real security and that their kids will do better than they did. Today, that dream runs into a very hard reality that this is now a world that works better and better for a smaller and smaller number of people. That's a problem for capitalism and for democracy at the same time.

Foer: There’s so much talk right now on the left about socialism, which seems somewhat misguided given everything you say capitalism has to recommend itself.

Warren:  I love the competition that comes with a market that has decent rules. I love the structure that encourages anyone with a good idea to try their hand in business.

Foer: When Franklin Roosevelt talked about the crisis in capitalism, he looked and he saw the left and alternatives to capitalism emerging, and that was one of the things that he was able to argue to the country—to say, “Look, we need these reforms in order to save this system, in order to prevent something dangerous from happening in another direction.”

Warren: Okay. You’re taking it to a hundred thousand feet, which is great, but my argument is far more personal. We need to make capitalism work for your family and we need to make democracy work for your family ... It’s not that you’re wrong, I’m just saying this is where I land it, right with how families experience this economy. A rising stock market is not helpful to the half of all America who own not one single share of stock. Rising productivity that doesn’t translate into rising wages for the people who actually do the work is not building a better future for them. Costs that are skyrocketing for education and health care and housing put a squeeze on families that are struggling with flat wages, so every one of those is about the lived experience, and that’s what colors our view of both capitalism and democracy in 2018.

Foer: I find it interesting that you have frequently used the word liberty in connection with all of this.

Warren: That’s what it’s really about. You’ve got an idea and you want to get into the market, or you’re an employee and you want to be able to negotiate, you want to have some bargaining power in getting a share of the value that you produce. That’s participation, but it’s participation in democracy as well.

When Big Pharma rolls into Washington and gets a law passed that says that the federal government cannot negotiate down the prices of drugs, then democracy is not working for families. When the big [coal] companies can get a new rule out of the EPA that will increase particulates in the air and trigger over 100,000 premature deaths, then democracy is not working for the American people. So you are exactly right. Everything I’m working on is about giving individuals the opportunity, the liberty to participate in this economy and in the governance of this country. I love this stuff. Isn’t this stuff fun?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/elizabeth-warrens-theory-of-capitalism/568573/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2018-08-28T12%3A00%3A51&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

 

 

 

 

Foreshadowing post from me nine months ago.

On 10/1/2018 at 9:54 AM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

You’ll come around.  Elizabeth Warren’s political strategy has been in the making for a while.  She’s positioned herself to capture the Bernie bros early even though she’s actually much more conservative than Bernie when it comes to the welfare state.

 Her positions aren’t far left, they’re just so disruptive to the status quo’s culture of corruption and corporate greed.  She’s going to use Trump’s playbook against him by going right after him relentlessly.  

Trump’s strongest appeal is he’s a fighter. He doesn’t have any original ideas or solutions but he’s excellent at putting his opposition on the defensive.  

That isn’t going to work against Elizabeth Warren because she doesn’t have the political baggage of a traditional Washington insider.  It also helps more than hurts that she’s a woman.  I can’t tell you how many people were begging her to run in 2016.

As far as the age thing goes, she doesn’t look a day over 60 and that’s really all that matters. Bernie, Trump, and Hillary are all older than Warren so to use it as a disqualification is kind of absurd considering the alternative if someone much more inexperienced and naive. 

Will she be the nominee? I have no idea but her ideas should be attractive enough to permeate to the platform of whoever gets the nomination.

 

 

After page 10 there were a lot of posts like the one below.  

On 10/15/2018 at 9:10 AM, Asithappens said:

Warren has no shot, imo. She comes across as too shrill and whiny. Moreso than HRC. 

Maybe VP material. 

Elizabeth Warren isn’t Hillary Clinton.  She isn’t playing to the center.  She is playing to win without any fear of failure.  She’s among the best of us and why I want her to be president.

Edited June 13, 2019 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Bruh Man 3,160]

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

2 minutes ago, Bruh Man said:

 

If you group first and second choice in this poll, she is ahead of everyone in California.  

Still a good number of undecideds but I didn’t expect Kamala to be this far behind in California so early.  

 

[horncyclist 1,391]

5 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

If you group first and second choice in this poll, she is ahead of everyone in California.  

Still a good number of undecideds but I didn’t expect Kamala to be this far behind in California so early.  

 

The virtuous cycle of positive coverage of her move in the polls is going to catapult her to frontrunner status. She may or may not stay there, but it's going to crush the inevitability of Biden and shake up the race tremendously. 

Edited June 13, 2019 by horncyclist

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

1 minute ago, horncyclist said:

The virtuous cycle of positive coverage her move in the polls is going to catapult her to frontrunner status. She may or may not stay there, but it's going to crush the inevitability of Biden and shake up the race tremendously. 

The thing about Warren I want to believe is once people get on her team, it’s really hard to get off because she keeps impressing and widening the gap between her and whoever your second choice might be.  

Assuming there is any truth to the above it’s nice to not have to worry about her peaking too early.   “She persisted” is really the perfect campaign slogan for Warren.

 She is cultivating a powerful base that isn’t going to go away regardless if she wins.

 

[bad_teammate 13,566]

18 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

The plan calls for mandated wage increases. This will increase aggregate and per capita costs. Aggregate costs will also increase as a function of increased enrollment, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, is just a reality of the increased costs to be borne by the federal government and likely the unsubsidized individuals using day care services.

Services cost money.

News at 11.

Quote

Determination of quality is complex, but for one example consider the unanticipated impacts when the provincial day care subsidy system in Quebec was implemented. This analysis was by one of the architects of Obama care. https://www.nber.org/papers/w21571 

The fact that one of the architects of Obamacare did the study does nothing to increase my confidence in it.

My confidence in it is further decreased when I see this...

"In our previous study of the Quebec program we limited our analysis sample to children in two parent families."

Weird that, when studying the impact of a program designed to help people, you purposefully ignore those who are most likely to be helped! OBAMACARE! lol

But yes, there are troubling things in there that should absolutely be addressed in a larger social scheme. The universal child care program in the study done in pure isolation definitely seems to have had some negative unintended consequences. When I look at the negative consequences, however, what we see is that they are all related to undue economic pressure on the families. The paper you cite here isn't even about the quality of the external child care centers.

In an earlier paper (Baker, Gruber & Milligan 2008, henceforth BGM) we documented that relative to the rest of Canada, where child care services remained unchanged, Quebec saw large increases in maternal labor supply and in the placement of children in child care (see also Lefebvre and Merrigan 2008 and Lefebvre et al. 2009).

Here's the question at the center, it seems: Why do so many married women put their very young kids in extended daycare and join the workforce?

It's not about the childcare institutions themselves becoming worse than they were (the "quality" of the individual care centers doesn't seem to come up in the study). It's about the reality that having a parent or grandparent at home with the child is preferable to putting a kid in outside child care.

We know this already, so it goes back to that question: Why do so many married women put their very young kids in extended daycare and join the workforce?

It's because our economic capitalist system in the West is immiserating and we feel the need to work ourselves to the bone to cope with it. It's not the access to childcare that's the problem, it's the economic pressure on families that is the problem.

If we actually care about the raising and outcomes of these kids, we should be paying parents to stay home with their kids. Treat stay-at-home parents as child care workers and pay them accordingly. If the federal mandate in a child care center is $X/child-cared-for, give each stay-at-home parent the same rate.

Quote

In the end the program will exacerbate certain problems facing the middle class, eroding the feasibility of the child care situation preferred by most mothers. Warren discussed this dynamic, specifically the negative impact that day care subsidies have wrt widening the gaps between middle class families, in the book she wrote with her daughter. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18183091/two-income-trap-elizabeth-warren-book

Yes, but again, that's a capitalism problem, not a daycare problem. NOT giving parents the economic freedom to stay home is the problem here.

[Chuckie Finster 23,095]

Just wanted to get on the record that while I've stated numerous times on this site that I had my doubts about Warren's electability, I would be absolutely thrilled to be proven wrong.  She would make a phenomenal president, and these new polls are encouraging. 

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

1 minute ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Just wanted to get on the record that while I've stated numerous times on this site that I had my doubts about Warren's electability, I would be absolutely thrilled to be proven wrong.  She would make a phenomenal president, and these new polls are encouraging. 

You never really know how someone is going to perform in a campaign until they actually run for president.  Some people seem like they'd kill it, and then they run and can't get any traction.  Other people seem like a stretch, but then they come alive under the lights of the stage.   From what I've been seeing the last couple of months, Warren seems to be in that latter category.   Much to my surprise. 

[Fozzz 152]

 

 

[Anastasis 23,717]

48 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

It's not the access to childcare that's the problem, it's the economic pressure on families that is the problem.

I agree with this. And as warren has argued previously, I believe that subsidizing day care will only exacerbate the problem and gaps between American middle class families. 

[TwiceHorn 32,104]

4 hours ago, Fozzz said:

How many Republicans are there in MA and NY?  If you want to compare their favorability, according to the latest YouGov poll Warren has a favorability among dems of 65-16 (only 34% very favorable) compared to Trump among Republicans of 89-11 (76% very favorable).  Why is Liz losing to other Dem candidates in polls of her home state?  That's embarrassing.  

There are lots of the dumbass variety Trump types outside of the NYC MSA.  NY is a quite rural state.  Not quite sure about MA, but it aint all Boston, that's for damn sure.

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

Doesn't Massachusetts have a Republican governor right now? 

[Hank Scorpio 17,924]

4 hours ago, tucker said:

She would likely be the best President in my lifetime if elected. 

Are you 2 years old?

[Js1 87,281]

21 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

Doesn't Massachusetts have a Republican governor right now? 

A two term Republican governor! 

[Anastasis 23,717]

1 hour ago, bad_teammate said:

My confidence in it is further decreased when I see this...

"In our previous study of the Quebec program we limited our analysis sample to children in two parent families."

Weird that, when studying the impact of a program designed to help people, you purposefully ignore those who are most likely to be helped! OBAMACARE! lol

The full context. 

In our previous study of the Quebec program we limited our analysis sample to children
in two parent families. This was to minimize any possible confounding effects of concurrent changes to Canada’s National Child Benefit on our sample of 0-4 year olds. Due to income testing, this program benefits single parent households disproportionately. As noted in Baker and Milligan (2010) roughly 90 percent of children are born into two parent families in Canada, so this restriction is not as limiting as it might be in other countries.
As we turn our focus to children at older ages, the restriction to children in two parent families makes less sense. Due to family dynamics, at older ages children currently living in single parent families may have lived in two parent families when they were young. Likewise, children currently in two parent families may have been born into single parent households. We therefore sample children in all family types.
BGM report a limited set of results demonstrating that the main findings of the study extend to the children of single-parent households. We extend this point below in our re- examination of the contemporaneous impacts of the program on the outcomes of young children from all families. Milligan and Stabile (2011) report evidence that indicates the changes to child benefits had positive impacts on child development. Therefore, any bias from including children from single parent families in our sample will attenuate many of the impacts of the Quebec Family Plan we report.13

1 hour ago, bad_teammate said:

 The  paper you cite here isn't even about the quality of the external child care centers.

Process measures and intermediate outcome measures are useful proxies, but the core of quality assessment is long term outcomes.

 

[bad_teammate 13,566]

1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

I agree with this.

Cool, then what do you imagine a better solution is than increasing access to childcare?

[Anastasis 23,717]

20 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Cool, then what do you imagine a better solution is than increasing access to childcare?

Increasing access to child care is not an area of disagreement. The mechanism by which we effect it is. A few ideas in broad strokes, I think that we should incentivize employers of all sizes to offer on- and near-site child care. I think we should allow for tax advantaged child care and education accounts, similar to HSAs. I think that child and child care tax credits should be broadly available across income levels. I think that we should provide equivalent incentives for both family and non family based care. I don’t think that we should disadvantage women and families that want to provide in home child care over shipping off little tommy to a germ swap factory so that we can extract a few gdp points from moms labor. 

Edited June 13, 2019 by Anastasis

[bad_teammate 13,566]

5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

A few ideas in broad strokes, I think that we should incentivize employers of all sizes to offer on- and near-site child care.

Is employer-provided not-a-parent child care better for kids than government-provided not-a-parent child care?

Quote

I think we should allow for tax advantaged child care and education accounts, similar to HSAs.  I think that child and child care tax credits should be broadly available across income levels.

How would this help? It would make it easier for them to pay for child care, yes? Which... still has the parents working and the kid in child care.

Tax credit approaches require income to apply.

I like The Family Fun Pack (from People's Policy Project, they of American Solidarity Fund)

Specifically, Item #2 - Parental Leave:

The income benefit will be based on the highest earning year from the last three years of the recipient’s Social Security earnings record. The benefit will replace 100 percent of earnings up to the minimum wage (currently $15,080 per year) and 66 percent of earnings that exceed the minimum wage. The maximum benefit will be capped at the national average wage as measured by the national average wage index (currently $50,321.89 per year).22 All new parents will be eligible for benefits equal to at least the minimum wage even if they have no earnings on record.

[Bateshorn 9,991]

She’s got a ways to go,  but she definitely found some mo. I get shit wrong like the rest of you chucklefucks. 

[406W30th 1,111]

8 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

The thing about Warren I want to believe is once people get on her team, it’s really hard to get off because she keeps impressing and widening the gap between her and whoever your second choice might be.  

Assuming there is any truth to the above it’s nice to not have to worry about her peaking too early.   “She persisted” is really the perfect campaign slogan for Warren.

 She is cultivating a powerful base that isn’t going to go away regardless if she wins.

 

Anecdotally, I'm pretty confident in this theory. I've always been Warren-curious, but at the same time skeptical. Once I got onboard, there's been no turning back. Sorry, Mayor Pete.  

Additionally, I think she's at worst palatable enough to the dirtbag left, and more optimistically she'll also win back a bunch of the Obama --> Trump voters.   

I really think the winning ticket is Warren/Pete. 

[henrygandorf 29,229]

24 minutes ago, 406W30th said:

Anecdotally, I'm pretty confident in this theory. I've always been Warren-curious, but at the same time skeptical. Once I got onboard, there's been no turning back. Sorry, Mayor Pete.  

Additionally, I think she's at worst palatable enough to the dirtbag left, and more optimistically she'll also win back a bunch of the Obama --> Trump voters.   

I really think the winning ticket is Warren/Pete. 

from your mouth to god's ears.

[BLKNSTY 290]

Warren/Mayor Pete are basically the same person, I don’t know what you get with one that you don’t get with the other.

You know what’s missing from this list of Warrens’ proposals?

Immigration. And the fat fuck in office ran on one single thing - build that wall! I don’t see how anyone who’s from the NE or Midwest can even speak to immigration frankly.

Give me Warren/Beto and have homeboy out there speaking Spanish, talking about how crime in El Paso is at an all time low, the local economy is booming and I’m the only person in Congress outside of the Castro brothers that knows what the fuck I’m even talking about.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

2 hours ago, 406W30th said:

I really think the winning ticket is Warren/Pete. 

 I think that would win but strategically I’d go with Warren/Beto simply to put Texas in jeopardy.  

[texastough 1,142]

Warren/Yang 🔥

[henrygandorf 29,229]

i'm gonna tell you guys a secret...it'll be harder to find a combo that won't win.

[bad_teammate 13,566]

Looking at that big list of policies... Where are the two biggest issues: climate change and healthcare?

[Underdog 29,213]

9 hours ago, 406W30th said:

I really think the winning ticket is Warren/Pete. 

....

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

1 hour ago, bad_teammate said:

Looking at that big list of policies... Where are the two biggest issues: climate change and healthcare?

Climate Change is intertwined in the economic policy ideas that are Green New Deal friendly.  She’s been pushing the Green New Deal idea on the campaign trail.  Any government approach to climate change has to be either regulatory or investment based.  Warren’s policies do both. 

Healthcare?  She’s probably saving that one for when she’s the front runner. 

[406W30th 1,111]

7 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

 I think that would win but strategically I’d go with Warren/Beto simply to put Texas in jeopardy.  

I don't know that it would put Texas in play for the presidency, but I do think Beto would help the Dems down ticket, which is just as important. It'd also be funny to see Republicans have to spend resources campaigning for the president in Texas.

[6th Street 6,693]

Warren would make a good Sec of Interior or HUD in Biden's cabinet given the opportunity.

[bad_teammate 13,566]

38 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Healthcare?  She’s probably saving that one for when she’s the front runner. 

Let's not start the 4D Chess bullshit with our own people.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

20 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Let's not start the 4D Chess bullshit with our own people.

I know for a fact Elizabeth Warren has more plans to roll out.  It would be crazy to think healthcare isn’t among them. 

[Fozzz 152]

I can't wait for her plan showing how marketized healthcare is actually superior to universal healthcare.  

[Dnaguy 12,711]

17 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Increasing access to child care is not an area of disagreement. The mechanism by which we effect it is. A few ideas in broad strokes, I think that we should incentivize employers of all sizes to offer on- and near-site child care. I think we should allow for tax advantaged child care and education accounts, similar to HSAs. I think that child and child care tax credits should be broadly available across income levels. I think that we should provide equivalent incentives for both family and non family based care. I don’t think that we should disadvantage women and families that want to provide in home child care over shipping off little tommy to a germ swap factory so that we can extract a few gdp points from moms labor. 

 

17 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

Is employer-provided not-a-parent child care better for kids than government-provided not-a-parent child care?

How would this help? It would make it easier for them to pay for child care, yes? Which... still has the parents working and the kid in child care.

Tax credit approaches require income to apply.

I like The Family Fun Pack (from People's Policy Project, they of American Solidarity Fund)

Specifically, Item #2 - Parental Leave:

The income benefit will be based on the highest earning year from the last three years of the recipient’s Social Security earnings record. The benefit will replace 100 percent of earnings up to the minimum wage (currently $15,080 per year) and 66 percent of earnings that exceed the minimum wage. The maximum benefit will be capped at the national average wage as measured by the national average wage index (currently $50,321.89 per year).22 All new parents will be eligible for benefits equal to at least the minimum wage even if they have no earnings on record.

Just for reference:

Most employers offer childcare flex spending accounts.

You can set aside a max of $5K ($2K max for just one kid I believe) every year for daycare, summer camps (just no sleep away camp), and after school programs.

Anything > $5K spent or if your employer doesn’t offer a FSA then you get into the childcare tax credit which starts at 35% credit and slides down to 20% credit depending on income.

There are already tax accommodations to help with childcare.

That being said, I’d like the idea of a true savings account that isn't a use-it-or-lose-it proposition.

In addition, I also believe that from age 3+ we need universal childcare. Universal pre-k is a start, but really we need to have all kids ages 3+ in an all-day school. 

The cost burden relief to middle and lower income people would be HUGE. Like others have pointed out, it would free up so many more people to be in the work force. The amount of $ spent by the populous to offer this is <<<<<<<<<<< than the rise in economic output now that you’d get.

I also have to believe people (in my socioeconomic sphere at least) would be more willing to have more kids if the cost of taking care of them wasn’t so dramatic. You still need to tackle the cost of post-secondary education, but anecdotally I have a lot of peers who want to have more kids but can’t justify it with the salary they make vs the cost to care for them while they are at work  

Edited June 14, 2019 by Dnaguy

[bad_teammate 13,566]

President/VP superteam right here

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

50 minutes ago, 406W30th said:

I don't know that it would put Texas in play for the presidency, but I do think Beto would help the Dems down ticket, which is just as important. It'd also be funny to see Republicans have to spend resources campaigning for the president in Texas.

If Beto is VP on the ticket, I would have him campaign in Texas non-stop.  Anything to turn Texas bluer.  Without Texas, the Republican movement becomes almost irrelevant. 

[bad_teammate 13,566]

17 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I know for a fact Elizabeth Warren has more plans to roll out.  It would be crazy to think healthcare isn’t among them. 

If it's like her No-Child-Left-Behind-But-For-Hospitals idea, she can keep it in the incubation chamber.

Medicare for All isn't hard. Just promote that.

[bad_teammate 13,566]

If a politician starts talking about tax-deferred savings accounts and tax credits as solutions to major problems that is a politician you can safely discount and ignore.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

3 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

If it's like her No-Child-Left-Behind-But-For-Hospitals idea, she can keep it in the incubation chamber.

Medicare for All isn't hard. Just promote that.

Did you know Elizabeth Warren is a CO-SPONSOR on Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All Bill?