I have an explanation for why Bernie Sanders' form of Democratic Socialism is catching on.
Many Americans have enjoyed the benefits of Socialism -- nearly free health care, pensions, paid vacations, etc. In post-World War II America, most people have received these benefits not from the government but through their employers. Until recently there wasn't a lot of political pressure for the government to provide such benefits because most of the people politicians care about were getting these benefits through work.
These benefits may not have equaled what people in other advanced countries received, and many, especially low-income workerss were left out of this system, but for the most part it worked for the majority.
Until 2008. When the great recession hit, many Americans lost their jobs, and many more felt their employement threatened in a way they never had before. And when Americans' jobs are threatened, so are their health care, their retirement, and their kids' higher education.
Our coporate social safety net is no longer big enough and strong enough to stave off the demand for government to step in.
Not the full explanation for the rise of democratic socialism, but a big part of it, I think.
Monday, May 16, 2016
Sunday, May 15, 2016
The Nevada Democratic Convention
I attended the Nevada Democratic Convention Saturday, not as a reporter but as a delegate for Sen. Bernie Sanders. This was a new experience, and it felt awkward. I felt a little like a neutral observer and a little like an advocate for Bernie, whom I support, but not without reservations.
If anything surprised me about the covention, it was the strong feelings of antipathy between the Sanders and Clinton camps. The national news media may consider this race over, but the Bernie people do not, and seem willing to fight to the finish.
I was able to talk with only a few of my fellow Bernie delegates, but I was surprised that two of them said without being asked that they would not vote for Hillary. One said, "The lesser of two evils is still evil."
This strikes me as crazy. Clinton certainly has her faults, but she is infinitely preferable to Donald Trump, who is utterly unqualified to be president. I hope the Bernie people come to their senses and, if Hillary gets the nomination, devote their energy to pushing her and the party to adopt the most progressive positions possible.
The state convention was the third step in Nevada's process for electing delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Each step of the process could not have been made less conducive to participation by average citizens.
The first step is the caucuses, which require personal attendance. This process took more than two hours and accomplished nothing more than a primary election. The next step was the county convention, which elected delegates to the state convention based on the numbers for each candidate who showed up. This somehow took all day. The state covention was basically a repeat of the same process, with votes on candidates for positions with the party as well as delegates to the national covention. I felt that my participation was not meaningful in any way except as a showing of support for my candidate. After 12 hours the convention was still going but I called it quits. If I ever choose to get involved in politics again, it be working for a candidate and not as a participant in the nominating process.
If anything surprised me about the covention, it was the strong feelings of antipathy between the Sanders and Clinton camps. The national news media may consider this race over, but the Bernie people do not, and seem willing to fight to the finish.
I was able to talk with only a few of my fellow Bernie delegates, but I was surprised that two of them said without being asked that they would not vote for Hillary. One said, "The lesser of two evils is still evil."
This strikes me as crazy. Clinton certainly has her faults, but she is infinitely preferable to Donald Trump, who is utterly unqualified to be president. I hope the Bernie people come to their senses and, if Hillary gets the nomination, devote their energy to pushing her and the party to adopt the most progressive positions possible.
The state convention was the third step in Nevada's process for electing delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Each step of the process could not have been made less conducive to participation by average citizens.
The first step is the caucuses, which require personal attendance. This process took more than two hours and accomplished nothing more than a primary election. The next step was the county convention, which elected delegates to the state convention based on the numbers for each candidate who showed up. This somehow took all day. The state covention was basically a repeat of the same process, with votes on candidates for positions with the party as well as delegates to the national covention. I felt that my participation was not meaningful in any way except as a showing of support for my candidate. After 12 hours the convention was still going but I called it quits. If I ever choose to get involved in politics again, it be working for a candidate and not as a participant in the nominating process.
Sunday, May 1, 2016
A different approach to income stagnation
It isn't exactly news that the incomes of most Americans have been stagnant or slipping for the past couple of decades. Politicans, including all the candidates for president this year, promise to reverse this trend. Although trade has entered the debate this year and undoubtedly has played a part in the problem, the debate between Democrats and Republicans centers on how to expand the economy. Republicans believe that smaller governnment and lower taxes will spur growth, leading to an improved labor market. Democrats believe that government investments in education, training and infrastructure will make American businesses and workers more competitive, and that measures such as increasing the minimum wage will increase demand and stimulate the economy.
Maybe they're both wrong, for two reasons:
1. Economic growth alone no longer lifts all boats. The benefits of what growth we have had in recent decades have flowed mostly to the top. I will leave this topic for another day, except to say that it is in part due to worldwide economic trends that seem to be beyond anyone's control, and to U.S. tax and economic policies during the past generation that have favored the rich and large corporations.
2. No one really knows what government can do do spur significant economic growth. We last saw strong growth in the late 1990s, and that was due in no small part to the Internet and stock market bubbles. Since then, growth in both the United States has been unspectacular at best. In most other advanced countries it has been worse.
So maybe our government's approach ought to center on the idea that for the foreseeable future, our economy isn't going to grow enough to raise most people's incomes significantly. I know that sounds pessimistic, even un-American, and is not what people want to hear. But it is, most likely, the truth.
The good news is that there are many things, other than goosing the economy, that the government can do to improve people's economic lives. One approach is redistribution. Traditionally this is opposed at least in theory by most Americans. But there seems to be growing support for steps such as increasing some taxes on the rich and for expanding Social Security. And of course, resdistribution is often an effect of programs that are not explicitly for that purpose, such as Obamacare.
But here's another idea, one I have never heard any politician expouse: Helping Americans improve their economic status by cutting their cost of living. One example of how this could work is directing more infrastructure spending to mass transit. If improved transit allows a household to make do with one less vehicle, the savings could amount to thousands of dollars a year.
Based on the experience of other advanced countries, moving to a single-payer health insurance system could eventually save our country four our five percent of GDP, translating to thousands of dollars in reduced costs to each U.S. household. Bernie Sanders has tried to make this argument but hasn't been able to overcome Republican demoguery that rails about the additional costs to the government without admitting to the savings in premiums paid to private insurers.
There are numerous other examples where changes in laws and governement programs could put more money in people's pockets without incraeasing their incomes. This might not be the easiest idea for a politican to sell to most Americans, but it's more honest than saying "I know how to grow the economy and when I do, your income will grow as a result."
Maybe they're both wrong, for two reasons:
1. Economic growth alone no longer lifts all boats. The benefits of what growth we have had in recent decades have flowed mostly to the top. I will leave this topic for another day, except to say that it is in part due to worldwide economic trends that seem to be beyond anyone's control, and to U.S. tax and economic policies during the past generation that have favored the rich and large corporations.
2. No one really knows what government can do do spur significant economic growth. We last saw strong growth in the late 1990s, and that was due in no small part to the Internet and stock market bubbles. Since then, growth in both the United States has been unspectacular at best. In most other advanced countries it has been worse.
So maybe our government's approach ought to center on the idea that for the foreseeable future, our economy isn't going to grow enough to raise most people's incomes significantly. I know that sounds pessimistic, even un-American, and is not what people want to hear. But it is, most likely, the truth.
The good news is that there are many things, other than goosing the economy, that the government can do to improve people's economic lives. One approach is redistribution. Traditionally this is opposed at least in theory by most Americans. But there seems to be growing support for steps such as increasing some taxes on the rich and for expanding Social Security. And of course, resdistribution is often an effect of programs that are not explicitly for that purpose, such as Obamacare.
But here's another idea, one I have never heard any politician expouse: Helping Americans improve their economic status by cutting their cost of living. One example of how this could work is directing more infrastructure spending to mass transit. If improved transit allows a household to make do with one less vehicle, the savings could amount to thousands of dollars a year.
Based on the experience of other advanced countries, moving to a single-payer health insurance system could eventually save our country four our five percent of GDP, translating to thousands of dollars in reduced costs to each U.S. household. Bernie Sanders has tried to make this argument but hasn't been able to overcome Republican demoguery that rails about the additional costs to the government without admitting to the savings in premiums paid to private insurers.
There are numerous other examples where changes in laws and governement programs could put more money in people's pockets without incraeasing their incomes. This might not be the easiest idea for a politican to sell to most Americans, but it's more honest than saying "I know how to grow the economy and when I do, your income will grow as a result."
Welcome
I am a former journalist who has been following the political scene in the this country for decades. Like many others today, I am frustrated by the vapidness of much of our political debate and much of the news coverage of politics and policy. In this blog, I will comment and raise questions about the issues of the day, our politicians' responses to them and the media's coverage.
I have a particular interest in economic issues (but no particular expertise in economics). Candidates of both parties constantly address economic issues, but rarely in honest or productive ways. Republicans are generally worse than Democrats, mostly because of their obsessive belief in the magical power of tax cuts at all times, under all circumstances, especially for the rich. Republicans claim to be for expanding opportunity, and they might be sincere in this belief, but their policies tend to do more for those who have made it than for those struggling to make it.
I heard a good example of this kind of trickle-down economics on the satellite radio today during a broadcast of a town hall with Sen. Ted Cruz. A student citing Sen. Bernie Sanders' proposal to make public colleges and universities tuition-free asked Cruz what he would do to make higher education more affordable and help young people with college loans.
Cruz first pointed out that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Fair enough. But then he went full disingenuous, suggesting that the only way cover the cost of free tuition would be to raise taxes on small business, which would result in fewer jobs being available to new graduates, making it harder for them to repay their loans.
Unless I missed it, Cruz offered the student nothing that would directly address the cost of higher education or the burden of student loans. Instead, he called for the conservatives' all-purpose remedy of lower taxes and less regulation of business. This is a new application of trickle-down, which is classicly applied to tax policy. The basic concept is directly helping business and the rich, with the promise that the people with the problem in question will benefit in time.
Of course, the problems with Cruz's response are that raising taxes on small business isn't the only way to pay higher education costs, and that the student in question could be bankrupt before Cruz's remedy is enacted and has the desired effect, if it ever does.
A basic rule of evaluating politicians' promises: If his or her answer to your problem is something that helps someone else more than it helps you, that politician doesn't think you have a problem that government should be solving.
I have a particular interest in economic issues (but no particular expertise in economics). Candidates of both parties constantly address economic issues, but rarely in honest or productive ways. Republicans are generally worse than Democrats, mostly because of their obsessive belief in the magical power of tax cuts at all times, under all circumstances, especially for the rich. Republicans claim to be for expanding opportunity, and they might be sincere in this belief, but their policies tend to do more for those who have made it than for those struggling to make it.
I heard a good example of this kind of trickle-down economics on the satellite radio today during a broadcast of a town hall with Sen. Ted Cruz. A student citing Sen. Bernie Sanders' proposal to make public colleges and universities tuition-free asked Cruz what he would do to make higher education more affordable and help young people with college loans.
Cruz first pointed out that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Fair enough. But then he went full disingenuous, suggesting that the only way cover the cost of free tuition would be to raise taxes on small business, which would result in fewer jobs being available to new graduates, making it harder for them to repay their loans.
Unless I missed it, Cruz offered the student nothing that would directly address the cost of higher education or the burden of student loans. Instead, he called for the conservatives' all-purpose remedy of lower taxes and less regulation of business. This is a new application of trickle-down, which is classicly applied to tax policy. The basic concept is directly helping business and the rich, with the promise that the people with the problem in question will benefit in time.
Of course, the problems with Cruz's response are that raising taxes on small business isn't the only way to pay higher education costs, and that the student in question could be bankrupt before Cruz's remedy is enacted and has the desired effect, if it ever does.
A basic rule of evaluating politicians' promises: If his or her answer to your problem is something that helps someone else more than it helps you, that politician doesn't think you have a problem that government should be solving.
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