2020 Democratic Primary

Exactly... if you are a billionaire... vote for Trump or Bloomberg. It's in your interests.

If you are a middle class or lower you should consider the Medicare for All course.

The billionaires own the newspapers and the cable companies. They are the reason you believe we can't afford to pay for healthcare.

You are a sucker duped into being a pawn for the wealthy if you aren't rich and supporting these policies.

It's as absurd as serfs and peasants rooting for the King to keep themselves in line.

 

Income inequality

http://rossblocher.com/hosted/candidatewealth.html

 

A lot of you simply don't get that Bernie's policies are going to destroy the economy if implemented. It's like you guys just think, "Oh hey, take their money and then we can use it for all these freebies." That's not how this works. Every policy he makes will have a profound effect on the economy. Wealthy people aren't dumb and won't stick around in a country investing as much $ into it when the reward isn't as high. This is why Andrew Yang actually understands how the game is played and why I felt he was the most sensible Democratic candidate running. Yang understood that wealthy people are much smarter than the politicians so instead of fighting against the wealthy people, he wanted to change the system of how money flowed in the economy. Bernie wants to change how the wealthy invest and create jobs. What you'll see is less investment into our economy and when the money stops flowing in, Bernie will have no idea how to continue funding these programs and this leads to a declining economy. Increasing the capital gains tax is the best way to tax the rich. But when you start offering free everything, you're affecting the marketplace in ways that Bernie hasn't simply accounted for. And before you guys start using countries like Norway, Denmark, etc., as examples, bring it. I'm prepared to destroy your argument.

 

Can we take a look at the $ taxed and donated from Bloomberg? I can guarantee you it's in the high billions. What has Bernie done in any economy that is close to what Bloomberg has provided? Bloomberg has created thousands of jobs. What has Bernie created? Yes, Bloomberg is wealthy. The great part of this is he didn't grow up wealthy. He earned every dollar he had by creating Bloomberg Terminal. So why penalize Bloomberg when the fault lies on the politicians who are responsible for the tax rates? And who elects these politicians who end up accepting large donations from people to vote a certain way? It's not Bloomberg's fault. His goal is to earn as much money as he could and he did it within legal means.

 

I think everyone will have to pay higher taxes under Bernie to be honest. This was done in 2016 by Vox and I don't think much has changed from his point of view since then.

 

That doesn't address the problem. No one is making $200 million in salary. In fact, guys like LeBron, Curry, etc., are probably the highest earners in terms of salary. The extremely wealthy are earning their money through capital gains that are taxed at a 20% tax rate. I disagree with taxing the poor and middle class even higher. That is absurd. Increase capital gains tax rate to 30-35% for those earning $1 million+ in capital gains and increase the marginal tax rates for those earning about $200k Single, $300k MFJ. Athletes like LeBron should honestly be taxed higher. A rate of 50% would be sufficient, though. Taxing them 62% becomes an issue because more than half their money will be going towards the government. There is just really a lack of incentive there to want to EARN more. They provide very little in terms of redistributing that money into the economy. Most likely that money goes into purchasing expensive cars and homes. You can already make a case that these individuals are earning too much from entertainment. Target the Hollywood actors who are earning 9 figures. There are ways to do this in a way that the rich can still earn a lot of money and continue wanting to do so without making them the villains here.

 

We could choose to have smaller government or keep them accountable for their terrible spending, but that never seems to be a priority.

 

Don’t fairly tax the wealthy because they’ll take their ball and go home? Sounds like Stockholm syndrome to me. Trickle down doesn’t work. Lots of hyperbole in here. Universal healthcare and tuition-free public universities isn’t free “everything” and it’s not going to “destroy” the economy.

So sure, I’ll bite. Why is it that so many other major countries can provide healthcare and/or tuition free colleges, yet we can’t? Are we just incompetent?

 

It's so we can maintain our sterling record as being the nation that ranks 35th in life expectancy or 38th in math.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/

 

That's not what I said. If you want to tax them fairly, you would tax them the same flat rate that everyone pays. What you're asking for is proportional taxing and there comes a point where the tax rate applied doesn't generate the tax revenue you desire due to the laffer curve demonstration. You want to tax them high but not to the point where it becomes detrimental to tax revenue.

What you're asking has been explained in the other thread.
1) U.S. subsidizes the rest of the world's prescription prices. Most of the drug innovations come from the U.S. = other countries ignore their patents = forces these drug companies to accept their pricing or they will create a generic product.
2) Nearly half of American's do not pay federal income tax = that doesn't happen in other countries. So the obvious equation means, U.S. has less people contributing into the system than any of these other countries you are describing. Less people contributing = lower tax revenue. In many of these European countries, you'll notice that they pay a VAT tax on top of sales tax. In Denmark, these taxes can reach 35% just for the VAT and sales tax. In short, these countries are taxing their citizens far greater than America does. And yes, that means the middle class as well.
3) Go check Germany's college enrollment rate. It's much lower than the United States despite "free college." Do you know why? Because college isn't for everybody + the government rations the free college to only those who can pass their requirements. United States doesn't ration and they have a problem where too many unqualified individuals go to college. If you're talking about Norway, etc., you'll notice that their population is significantly lower than many of our states. Smaller population = fewer individuals needed to fill a position = less competition to fill a job = higher wages = a more diverse economy. This is why you can survive in Norway working jobs that you normally can't in America. They don't have a population problem. Why do you think China and India struggle in terms of wages? Because you have so many people fighting for the same job.
4) Rationing in the health care industry in this healthcare for all policy is common. If you need to have a procedure done, you're going to have to wait longer than Americans for the same procedure. But these countries offering such care are significantly healthier, to begin with, so there is a lower cost overall in treating a patient.

Well, I can go on-and-on but why waste my time explaining what has been explained before. These countries you are quoting have a small population. These Scandanavian countries Bernie and his supporters quote life in countries with 3-8 million people. All of those populations combined = fewer than California's population. Norway has an oil fund that they rely on heavily to support its citizens. They are neutral and stay away from war because they are a small nation with nothing to gain. Tough to do when you're America when we have 300 million people and are the target of many countries trying to dethrone us. Americans pay more for healthcare than these other countries per capita. That has a lot to do with corruption, I agree. But we can't afford to treat 300 million Americans when half of the employed individuals are not paying federal income taxes. We can't afford to treat our own citizens when over 15+ million illegal immigrants are in our country with kids being born as Americans = higher cost to our government with again, a few people ultimately contributing. Do you see a lot of illegal immigrants in Norway? How many black or Asian people do you see in Norway? Trying to compare America to these other countries is a mistake. Primarily, because these countries don't deal with the same issues and circumstances that we deal with.

 

Another empty answer with just links but no context involved. You're actually proving the point... We spend the most per capita on education yet, achieve subpar results. Doesn't that tell you that the government running things with more money isn't the answer? Yet, your solution is free college. No, the solution is more affordable college to those who earn it. Not everyone should attend college.



Andrew Yang is a far more competent individual than these Democrat loonies such as Bernie - who's silly proposition of free college doesn't solve a single problem for anyone. Many graduating college students don't find employment that resonates with their degree. Why? Because their degrees are worthless. Why does Bernie want the government to fund the education of individuals who are choosing stupid degrees? Only in the USA can you get a degree for gender studies and pay six figures for it. Yang's solution is the best yet. Transition away from college and focus on more vocational/training schools in which 60% of Germans attend and end up in a far better situation than Americans who attend college.

But hey, you're incapable of researching any of this and just post nonsense on Google. How does posting links even help educate anyone when you're not even explaining the pros/cons of everything?

 

Only an ignorant individual would think you can replicate Norway's way of running things to America.







It's like you guys think you can just offer free healthcare and free education and nothing would happen to the economy. Keep dreaming. And 5 million to 327 million people... For Christ's sake, NYC has 12 million people... We have more illegal immigrants in America than the entire population of Norway, Denmark, and Finland... COMBINED. But go ahead with your simplistic approach in thinking everything can be replicated. You guys wanna know funny math? You can tax all the billionaires in America 100%. You still wouldn't have enough money to fund free college/healthcare. But hey, "tax the rich" am I right?

 

We ranked as high as 17th in late seventies for life expectancy but by the early 2010s we fell as low as 43rd

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_life_expectancy

Meanwhile costs of medical care continue to skyrocket to a higher percentage of GDP beyond what it was in seventies.

So we are spending more, with less benefit to our life expectancy

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org...a-percent-of-gross-domestic-product-1970-2018

I have no problem with cutting inefficiency and fat to achieve our goals but the reality is that countries which use the democratic socialism model have better outcomes in terms of health and education.

I also have no problem with the idea of encouraging people to follow more practical occupations with the paradigm shifts

But the bottom line is that we spend more money to mediocre results... and a lot of our expenditures are on parasitic middle men which give an inflated cost of the services we actually need

 

We all agree that healthcare costs are way too high for mediocre results. But you keep implying that it must be the Democratic Socialist of these countries that are very capitalist when those same policies simply cannot be replicated in the United States. Denmark doesn't have an illegal immigration problem. They don't have military expenditures because they aren't the superpower of the world. They have a very homogenous group of people with an ingrained standard of living that it wouldn't be easily replicated in America due to racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds. I don't have a problem with how Denmark and Norway live their lives. In fact, it's preferable. But regurgitating what they have been able to do is not as simple as you and others are making it seem. Go tell 47% of Americans they will now have to pay federal income taxes for a medical system that is corrupt in a country where illegal immigrants are also able to be treated... America is the only modern country that offers birthright citizenship even to illegals. Do you know how many Americans born into the system aren't contributing to the economy? That doesn't happen in these other countries. So we need to change everything about this country to transform it into Denmark, Norway, etc., and that means the military, our immigration reform, how much doctors are paid, etc., And that to me is something no one ever talks about. Think about it: Something as DIFFICULT as the BORDER WALL being built is divisive. Now you're expecting our politicians to discuss something like Medicare for all? Even Democrats are fighting against each other. Please tell me how you would expect America to ever achieve what you are expecting. Simply stating that Denmark, etc., have this or that is not evidence that it works for America. It's evidence that it works for Denmark... a country with 5 million people.

 

I'll add to BangBoomPow's point. Norway and Denmark aren't "socialist" states. They are welfare states. Which is a step below full blown socialism, and very similar to what we already have right now. So Bernie wouldn't be starting a "revolution" if he adopted their model. Which should make any person capable of critical thinking wonder what Bernie's true motivations are.

 

If you take the whole of the European union, then it does compare with the scale of the United States. Including some of the issues with illegal immigration

It's not perfect but I simply believe we can achieve better results investing in actual healthcare as opposed to subsidizing the medical, insurance, and pharma industries and the idea that it is not achievable is nonsense propaganda perpetuated by those who would charge ten to twenty times the price of the cost of insulin.

 

Pete Buttigieg just dropped out two days before Super Tuesday. This is heading towards a brokered convention. Pete doesn't have the friends in the DNC to sway delegates in his direction.

 

Klobuchar just dropped out too. Her and Pete are specifically endorsing Biden. By all indications Warren is staying in the race.

They’re really trying to steal this thing. It’s going to be fascinating to watch play out.

 

Steal? They ran on platforms closer to Biden than Bernie. This isn't stealing. It's two people who think Biden is a better choice because they don't trust Bernie's policies.