[Beren]

What does that have to do with whether they had a good economic policy? Some left I hate too, by the way.

[Sivad]

What does that have to do with whether they had a good economic policy?

They have a great economic policy for the 1%. They're economic policy is deindustrialization, financialization, privitization, tax cuts, and cuts to social spending.


Obama gave the 1% a bigger tax cut than Trump.

Trump’s tax cut is only the eighth largest — and is even smaller than two of Barack Obama’s tax cuts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... 96eb738446

President Barack Obama passed a larger tax cut by making most of President George W. Bush's cuts permanent.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/15/politics ... index.html

[Beren]

They have a great economic policy for the 1%.

The Clintons increased the average federal tax rates for the top 1% actually.

In proposing a plan to cut the deficit, Clinton submitted a budget and corresponding tax legislation that would cut the deficit by $500 billion over five years by reducing $255 billion of spending and raising taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of Americans.

Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 into law. This act created a 36 percent to 39.6 percent income tax for high-income individuals in the top 1.2% of wage earners.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Trump’s tax cut is only the eighth largest — and is even smaller than two of Barack Obama’s tax cuts.

"While it is not the largest tax cut ever, it is the most poorly timed giant tax cut in history," said Leonard Burman, institute fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. "The economy is near full employment and the national debt is at a postwar record and rising fast."

[Sivad]

Clinton submitted a budget and corresponding tax legislation that would cut the deficit by $500 billion over five years by reducing $255 billion of spending

So he enacted neoliberal austerity. He did raise taxes slightly on the 1%, but nowhere near to what they were before the Reagan era. And his deregulation, privatization, and free trade policies more than made up for what the 1% lost in taxes. He also raised taxes on social security and imposed an extremely regressive gas tax. His social spending cuts more than doubled extreme poverty and the free trade policies were a direct assault on labor.

[Sivad]

[Beren]

So he enacted neoliberal austerity.

This pattern of raising taxes and cutting spending (i.e., austerity) in an economic boom coincides precisely with the advice of John Maynard Keynes, who stated in 1937: "The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury."

[Sivad]

This pattern of raising taxes and cutting spending (i.e., austerity) in an economic boom coincides precisely with the advice of John Maynard Keynes, who stated in 1937: "The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury."

So? Clinton wasn't a Keynesian, he was trying to keep inflation at zero for the 1%. His policies were pure fiscal conservatism.

[center-img]http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/061715clinton1.jpg[/center-img]

[Sivad]

The Nation reporter Zoe Carpenter explains what phony populism is, Democrats who embrace watered down trickle down economics, President Obama's praise for some of America's worst CEOs, repackaging Rubinomics, the pseudo solutions offered by some in the technology sector, why real solutions to inequality would involve stopping the flow of wealth upward, the globalization and technology myth of inequality, why Democrats need to get real on the class warfare defining America today...

[Beren]

So? Clinton wasn't a Keynesian

He had an anti-cyclic fiscal policy as Keynes suggested. It's also not hard to prove he wasn't a Socialist. He was a Social Liberal, which was progressive in his time and it's still progressive compared to Republican vampirism (as Red_Army put it so eloquently).

[Negotiator]

America doesn't need a new Party. Just a new leader with big ideas.

Well ... what "big ideas" are you talking about, exactly, anyway ?

Its not like any of the things that need to be done are specifically original. For example:

- Tax the rich
- "... feed the poor" aka improve social security, like for example medicare for all and free schools and universities for all
- Raise wages, especially the minimum wage
- Reform the US election system into something modern; introduce US wide plebiscites for all important issues
- Dissolve the petrodollar concept by introducing an international currency (Bancor from Keynes), thus making US industry competitive again
- Remove the shareholder concept - if you hold parts of a company you are hold responsible for its welldoing
- Regulate the banks so the taxpayer doesnt have to pay for them in the next crisis
- Reduce military spending (massively) and bring the troups home
- Make friends with old enemies, especially the BRICS countries except China (since China so far decides to stay a corrupt suppressive anti-democratic hellhole)

[B0ycey]

Well ... what "big ideas" are you talking about, exactly, anyway ?

Its not like any of the things that need to be done are specifically original. For example:

Perhaps 'big ideas' was the wrong phase. Maybe 'revolutionary thinking' would have been better. And I think you had that with Bernie Sanders - who could have easily been President had he won the Democrats nomination. So perhaps America isn't a lost cause actually.

So no, you don't need a new Party. Just social reform bringing in some of the things you have highlighted. The wealthiest nation on the planet shouldn't have any poverty either. How is it that Europe doesn't have the same scale of inequality of America but still maintains a larger GDP collectively as a continent than America?

America is run by big business and the wealthy elite. When someone breaks into a nomination that doesn't have to return any favour to the Cartel and is also ready to alter the system to benefit the masses, that will be the day America becomes a true nation. Until then it is bankrolled by the 1% and an elitist nation who are leachIng off inequality and demoting their fellow man into poverty. But such scenario creates the conditions for change. And change will be more liberal. So perhaps greed will be the reason for its downfall. And I don't think that is that far away either. Perhaps only another economic crash away.

[Sivad]

[Sivad]

[Hong Wu]

I think the Democrats messed up on this one. They had a plausible argument for a blue wave because there was no countervailing narrative on the right besides "Trump is doing good" but that isn't exciting. The Kavanaugh thing has probably not made Democrats any more upset than they were before (I don't think there is a single sane person out there who genuinely believes in even the less serious allegations) but they have upset the Republicans when they might have let sleeping dragons lie or whatever the phrase is.

[Sivad]

God bless Jimmy Dore.

[Libertarian353]

Fuck Jimmy Dore he has only himself to blame for not voting for hillary and let her nominated a Justice that wasn't a rapist. Fuck him, he is just to blame as you and the rest of the democrats. You wanted this.

[skinster]

^

FUCK THESE ASSHOLES FOR HAVING PRINCIPLES AND NOT SUPPORTING AND VOTING IN WAR-MONGERING SCUM.

[Sivad]

If I was a liberal I would be working to implement a half-assed social democracy like what they got in the UK, the liberals could remain relevant for another decade or two if they drag it out.

That's probably what they're planning to do anyway, they'll milk lesser evilism for all it's worth and then slowly bring in the SD programs. The older dems in congress will continue to oppose it because they're at the end of their careers and they don't care about politically surviving the transition, those in mid career will begin to support it in order to stay viable, and the up and comers will make their bones on challenging the status quo.

They'll all be corrupt soulless ghouls but they will save capitalism from itself once again. The system will still be rigged and the oligarchs will still dominate, but the working classes will get a few more perks.

And that's pretty much how it will go until either the species evolves or we hit the great filter.

[Red_Army]

@Hong Wu, you are plenty proof that people are capable of believing sincerely asinine things. Believing a blind drunk frat boy was sexually inappropriate in the 80s doesn't challenge a cogent mind.

[Sivad]