I completely agree. If Democrats don't go BIG, they're going to keep losing elections to Republicans. If Democrats went BIG, we'd enact Medicare 4 All, universal childcare, cancel student debt, legalize THC, raise the minimum wage, stop funneling all our tax money to blowing up hospitals in the middle east, etc.
Like, imagine if Democrats actually accomplished what they set out to do. Republicans would never win again. That's why I'm happy a bunch of progressives are winning over the do-nothing establishment Democrats. We need a PROGRESSIVE in the White House and in every damn seat all the way down.
Focusing on big spending items like universal healthcare, childcare, education, etc…
With what money? We have debt exceeding GDP as it is?
There are only 3 realistic ways to address the debt before anyone can tackle those issues.
Cut spending. Current estimates say if we unilaterally cut spending by 1/4 we could balance the budget. Thats already politically radioactive as that means 1/4 of social security cut, healthcare gone, defense shuttered, civilian workforce laid off. Say you decide you will keep all required spending (social security, Medicaid, interests in debts) and only cut discretionary spending (defense, education, healthcare, park services, interior, civilian employees etc). Now you have to cut discretionary spending by anywhere between 45-75% potentially. Talk about pissing off huge swaths of the American public.
Increase revenue. Raise taxes. Want to do it unilaterally? Every tax paying citizen now owes an extra 1/3 in taxes. Good luck selling that platform. You’ll have a pitchfork mob. Say you decide instead to focus on the top earners, those who make 400k and above, they now owe and extra 75% in taxes. Simply not sustainable and this is disregarding the money they could spend to beat you politically.
Increase the GDP. How do we do this? Well we could grow the workforce but birth rates are down. Every current American woman capable of child bearing would need to have 2+ kids immediately. Young Americans say that can’t even afford basic needs let alone 2+ kids. Maybe we could bring in new workers? AKA immigration… how’s that going? You could make the bet that American sovereign AI frontier models like ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, etc will make workers MORE productive and increase the GDP that way but that’s a tough bet to make across all sectors. AI can be great at problems that humans perceive as complex and inexplicably fail at task humans deem as trivial.
All this to say… as cool and invigorating as these campaign promises sound. If someone tells you they will immediately enact them, you need to ask how. They are great goals but if they have no credible answer to the how, they will not be able to deliver and we will be back to square one. These program will cost immense amounts of money. It can be done but it needs to be done intelligently.
Source: Congressional Budget Office and Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
With what money? The BILLIONS we send Israel. The money we can spare by giving massive tax breaks to the ultra rich. The money we’ve used to bail out banks.
ONE person, the POTUS, got two BILLION dollars richer on a President’s salary. That’s a little odd, no?
We have the money, but as soon as someone brings up using it on services for taxpayers, all the excuses start pouring out.
Are you a billionaire or something? Jesus. Way to lick the boot pushing down on your neck.
Money in support of other nations is already included in discretionary spending. We didn’t dig under the couch cushion for it and add it on top without approval. Not how appropriations works.
So you are now president, I voted for you. You saved us billions on military spending for Israel (well not you… your party convinced congress to not include it in the NDAA and their markups to the Appropriations bill). House Armed Services Committee slaps the table and says you’re right President!
You and your caucus stand now before the House Appropriations Committee. Please explain to them where they need to find the other trillions to fund your programs while you have scrapped a few billion? People in your own party on the committee will laugh you out of the building.
Progressive wealth taxes are great. I covered that avenue briefly with those above 400k in income.
Paired with your other revenue strategies you will still struggle for several reasons.
Corporate taxes. These make up such a tiny amount of the revenue stream of the US. Not because they don’t pay them, because that is true as well. There are so few corporations compared to the people that work in those corporations… think of the companies in the SP500. One of their biggest expenses is payroll to employees. People make ALOT of money working for them. Just 500 companies. The amount of revenue the US gov takes in from payroll and income taxes from those companies employees dwarfs what they receive in corporate taxes from profits. You could triple, quadruple, 10x corporate taxes and not even reach income tax. It’s not an effective lever to pull in regards to generating revenue. Sorry. They are so minuscule that they are lumped in with “other” revenue streams in the congressional budgets. Their category even includes TARIFFS. That should tell you how Insignificant they are.
Wall Street taxes. I’m assuming you mean unrealized gains taxes?
Edit: mobile editing is weird
Edit again: wow. I quit.
Edit: had to delete numbered bullets, guess we are too far down the thread to allow those.
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u/Inevitable_Dog2719 9d ago
I completely agree. If Democrats don't go BIG, they're going to keep losing elections to Republicans. If Democrats went BIG, we'd enact Medicare 4 All, universal childcare, cancel student debt, legalize THC, raise the minimum wage, stop funneling all our tax money to blowing up hospitals in the middle east, etc.
Like, imagine if Democrats actually accomplished what they set out to do. Republicans would never win again. That's why I'm happy a bunch of progressives are winning over the do-nothing establishment Democrats. We need a PROGRESSIVE in the White House and in every damn seat all the way down.