Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Campaign 2020 First Bernie Sanders Thread 2020

Not at all. The two items are entirely distinct - a loss of American prestige is nothing at all like an Extinction Level Event. It would be like saying "sure, but Biden will lead to nuclear war with China".... and then a paragraph later saying "Biden would also have strong words for President Xi", and then later explaining that what I meant was a rhetorical nuclear exchange of words, and that I can't believe you would even think that when I said "nuclear war with China", what I meant was "nuclear war with China".


But whatever. Debates-about-the-debate are pointless. I accept your explanation that you meant to write that it is possible for both major party candidates to be unworthy of one's vote... unless it is possible that one of those candidates would preside over the decline of American leadership. In such a case, I would have to disagree. While the likelihood that a candidate would lead to an accelerated loss of American leadership is certainly a reason not to vote for him, that both candidates are likely to do so (or even that a candidate's major opponent is likelier to do so) is not a reason to vote for them if they are otherwise unacceptable.


We might get more stability in American foreign policy under Biden. Unfortunately, that stability would be locked in on the downward trajectory.



Trump is indeed a massive spender. Biden will be a bigger spender. It's like trading an extinction level event that wipes out all of humanity* for a nuclear extinction level event that wipes out all mammals

*by which I mean debt payment costs become so large that they squeeze out other federal spending, including important defense expenditures



I would have to disagree - take a look at the Democratic agenda and you will see that it is virtually nothing but expenditure increases from the Republican agenda. Even according to Biden's own campaign material, he intends to increase spending even more.

At CPWILL

Your nuclear war analogy is hyperbolic. But OK, let's not debate the debate.

About your other points: in relatively recent history the economy has been generally better under Democrats than under Republicans.

Yeah, yeah, Biden will campaign on increasing spending... but then either won't implement everything or if he tries, these won't pass Congress.

Like the panic around how much Medicare For All would cost under Bernie... while ignoring that the likelihood that Medicare For All would pass Congress, even if both chambers were Democrat with a supermajority, would be a virtual ZERO.

Biden at least would increase taxes again... I think they are dangerously low under Trump.

Now, you probably have access to these numbers better than me... but isn't the spending under Trump and the ballooning debt under Trump worse than in ANY previous Democrat administration?

Whoever wins the coming election is going to inherit a HUGE MESS! This is a given. Nobody talks about it but its a fact. Unemployment is going to be rampant. The last figures I saw said that regardless of what happens unemployment will be a minimum of 18% and probably more. That's just for starters. I have been, for some time, concerned about our national debt. After the election our national debt will probably be 2, or maybe even 3, times our GDP! When its even a little bit more its a disaster, what I am talking about is even worse. The only real thing we have going for us is that the rest of the world isn't going to be a whole lot better off.

There are many who figure that it all going bafck to the way it was. Just not true. Retail is taking a beating right now and that too is going to get a lot worse as people who have been buying on the net are not going to change their ways real quick. Now throw in the simple fact that Trump is very close to literally shutting down the post office. Don't hear a whole lot about that but its a fact. I can only wonder what happens when that happens.

A couple of fact that might be of interesting. When Hitler took over Germany his support was less than, or equal to maybe 30%. This is also true of the American Revolution. He currently owns 40% and there are a LOT of people who figure that even if he does lose the election he is not going easily or quietly.

All in all, if you consider just what is happening and what its going to be like when Covid-19 has been put to rest you should all be quaking in your boots!

One of the first undertakings that might be of value is that those who are playing the "my way or the highway" just stop it. I am really tired of TV and all the fighting and I am some of the same thoughts about the ongoing battles over this and that whilst the world is planning what might be called The Great Implosion.

Anyway..............

I remember that I liked to go to a local bookstore to leisurely browse books, and to a records store to look up CDs and listen to tracks with their headphones, talk to the store clerk who was knowledgeable, and all.

But one day I started buying books and CDs from Amazon... and was amazed at the ability to sample tracks, "look inside" books, and with the inventory that had literally thousands of options above and beyond the local brick stores... with better prices. Sorry, Mom and Pop brick stores, I never went back. I've been buying all my books (now, Kindle e-books) from Amazon and all my music from Amazon for several years.

Yes, this pandemic will enhance e-commerce and finish destroying the local stores.

And it's not only that. It's that with one in 5 American losing employment, it's already 20% of the market that went away. Plus, the new restrictions, social distancing, store capacity, and simply people afraid of going into stores even if the governors say it's allowed, will mean that stores will be doing slow business and won't be selling that much.

Restaurants... sure, there are the intrepid and irresponsible people who can't wait for orders to be lift, to flock the restaurants and bars... but there are many others saying, "no way, I won't be in an enclosed space, who knows who has the virus there, who knows if the cook is sneezing coronovirus onto my dish..."

People will continue to be afraid, disposable income is lower, and even those who remain employed had their consumer confidence shattered, because they don't know if their employers will remain in business or will downsize, etc.

No, the economy will take a looooooong time to recover. It will recover better when/if we get safe and effective vaccines, but especially if we don't, the economic effects may become long-term.

And all these stimulus packages? That's like printing money. It will result in bigger inflation, and with business being slow, people won't be getting raises so their income will be effectively shrinking.

Fair enough.


Like many things, much of that depends on how you measure. Somehow, for example, W gets the blame both for the popping of the tech bubble and the harm it caused during his first year or two, and the popping of the housing bubble, and the harm it caused during Obama's first year or two. Interestingly, W also tends to get the blame for the outflow of the initial loans made to the financial sector, which increased the deficit during his tenure... whereas Obama gets the credit for those loans being paid back, which decreased the deficit during his.

President's don't have a dial on their desk that reads "Economic Growth" which they can increase or decrease at will, nor are President's "in charge" of the economy, or even the Federal Government - and they are only nominally in charge of the Executive Branch. The policies they push - (generally) if championed by Congress - can indeed have major impacts, but Clinton is not responsible for people over-investing in the early Tech Hype any more than Bush is responsible for people lying on their mortgage applications, or Trump is responsible for Chinese labs.


Unlikely, given that the Democrats already hold the House, and, in that scenario, are likely to carry the Senate. Biden will have a much more amenable Congress when it comes to expanding funding on his priorities than Trump has. Furthermore, a platform is a statement of intent. Biden intends to dramatically increase spending when we already cannot afford to sustain the current expenditure projections.


I'd put it at a bit higher than zero, but certainly very low - explicitly because of the cost. Even Congress (at current, at least) can't close it's eyes and pretend that we can afford that.


I think they are destructively complex and what we need is code simplification.

It's additionally worth noting that changes in nominal tax rates do not produce commensurate changes in revenues.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704608104575217870728420184

None of the personal income or capital gains tax increases enacted in the post-WW II period has raised the projected tax revenues.

Prior to the shut down of the economy, we were bringing in record high revenues. We don't have a revenue problem - we have a spending problem.


Depends again on how you measure (raw dollars? as a portion of pre-existing debt? relative to GDP?). The last administration to dramatically increase our debt to these levels relative to GDP was a Democrat, but, it was about 75 years ago, so....

What we really need, instead of giving money away, is to start a jobs program. They did it in the great depression and we need to do it right now! Here is a link of the jobs program back then:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration

They did A LOT of stuff! They built highway 2, which now needs fixing. We have A LOT of infrastructure they could be working on. Its also a training ground for folks that have no skills. It is, basically, a LOT better than just giving money away.

At CPWILL: now you are simplifying things again. A lot of these economic bubbles that burst has to do with deregulation. Capitalism is overall a good thing and I'm for it, but predatory capitalism needs to be regulated.

Sure, a president himself can't be responsible for 100% of economic progress or failure... which doesn't stop DonDon from claiming credit regarding how the economy was good before COVID-19. Well, two can play this game. If the president is responsible for good times, then he is also responsible for bad times, and while an external factor destroyed our economy, the botched response to it has a large share of responsibility, too.

Two months ago the nation was at full employment. The economy was booming, corporate coffers were full, The stock market was hitting new record highs every day. CPWILL assures us that the US treasury was raking in record amounts of cash despite trillions in tax cuts for the wealthy.

And not a soul ever thought that anything would ever happen to slow it down. Not a soul saved a penny because the manna from heaven would never cease.

And then it did.

A president is responsible for anything that happens on his watch.

100%

Might or might not be his fault but most likely his policies had a lot to do with it.

When you get yourself elected to be the leader of the free world you take on a lot of responsibilities, at least up until now. Now it's not the poor dear man's fault, no one could have possibly predicted this...and no one could have reacted better!

If you read my post in context, I wasn't defending Trump. I despise Trump. I was saying, a president is not 100% responsible for everything, but if he claims the good, then he needs to put up with the bad.