Sanders can't win the general election--why are people so blind to that?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
Sorry, those dont support your point. |
Anonymous
And yet he has no plan for paying for such a plan. |
Anonymous
This is how I feel too. Even if I like Sanders better than Hillary, I'll take Hillary any day over Trump or Cruz. I don't think Sanders has a chance in a general election (unfortunately) so I will vote for Hillary. |
Anonymous
Yes. The economist by training has to get the kids to school and off to work. I didn't mean to open up the "why Bernie doesn't get Econ" convo right now. I was just answering the question of why I personally can't support Bernie. But very short answer is that he's made numerous statements that reveal he doesn't understand the impact of huge, economically relevant policy changes on the macroeconomy. I completely agree with him about income inequality. But he has no realistic path to solve that without throwing us into either a massive debt crisis or an inflationary crisis. Maybe he will put one forth soon, but he hasn't yet. |
Anonymous
It isn't comparable because they made a different decision forty years ago, The overwhelming majority of Americans like their health care and have no interest in changing. The issue is a political loser, most Americans still oppose Obamacare. |
Anonymous
There are plenty of economists who happen to believe Sanders does have a solid grip of economics and is on the right track. Here's a very recent one (of many) as an example: http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/08/news/economy/sanders-income-jobs/ Stiglitz and a few other Nobel laureate economists have also agreed with a lot of what Sanders has to say. They don't think he's all that far off base and are far more qualified to say so than you are. |
Anonymous
| ^ Greenspan initially refused to admit he was wrong when he was battling Sanders but several years later he turned around and recognized and acknowledged that Sanders was right all along. |
Anonymous
|
Everybody has an opinion about the economy and many economists are frequently wrong. For example, Greenspan apologized for his mistakes in 2008:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWen53eqmJo So when people question Paul Krugman, they may have a point too: http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/it-paul-krugman-who-lives-fantasy-world-not-bernie-supporters The jury's not out until all the evidence is heard. This hasn't even started yet. OP, your entire premise is belied by Bernie's big win last night and Iowa's photo finish! The same may very well bode true for the economy. |
Anonymous
If he is so good at economics, one would assume he could explain how he would pay for his signature programs. This far he hasn't been able to do so, being off by billions. |
Anonymous
Looks like you aren't listening carefully. Sanders is advocating free PUBLIC college as a right. Private colleges will not be free, and it's not clear how much a Sanders administration would push for legislation that provides grants to cover the expenses of room and board. Expanding social security benefits can simply be done by asking every one to pay the same percentage of their income into social security. My wife and I stop contributing to Social Security in April and we are not alone, in making an HHI over $118K! A phased in public option (Medicare for all who want it) will certainly cause a lot of pain to private health insurance providers, but a lot of money will be free'd up to do more productive things such as research into disease and cancer prevention. Sanders is correct that we can learn from other countries' successes and do better than the status quo. |
Anonymous
| Please point me to anything at all where Stiglitz praises Bernie specifically. He helped develop Clinton's economic plan and I thought he had raised concerns about a $15 minimum wage in all localities. |
Anonymous
When Nixon signed the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 to pay back his campaign financier Edgar Kaiser, he made healthcare or, lack of providing healthcare, big business. It has ugly incentives provided by a rigged, and now federally backed scam system, in which giving care is punished, while denying it is rewarded. We also spend over $60 Billion a year in excess administrative costs for by marketing and underwriting – costs that don’t exist in single-payer systems. |
Anonymous
|
I'm not an economist, but I know enough to know that Sanders proposals do not add up.
He proposes taxes on all financial transactions to pay for free college but does not account for the industry making adjustments in trading practices to reduce their tax burden, so (a) the plan exaggerates how much it will raise and (b) it adds inefficiency to financial markets by adding a non-market factor that will influence investment decisions. The college plan also would cost more than he says because it has very weak or nonexistent management and oversight details, so colleges would be able to increase tuition with no improvements in quality required. It is essentially a voucher program, the tried and true way for the government to pay more and receive less of something. Sanders' health plan replaces tax-exempt employer-paid health insurance premiums with a payroll tax and several other taxes, and incredibly he seems to believe that payroll taxes would not be taken out of employee compensation. Never mind that neither employers nor employees would want to do this. Even if it happened it would not work for many employees. Currently, the employer-paid premium and the employee share are the same for someone making $60K as it is for a coworker making $30K. Substituting a payroll tax would mean the employer would pay twice as much for the $60K worker as for the $30K worker. That would affect hiring and compensation all through the economy. |
Anonymous
|
5 unanswered questions about Bernie Sanders' health care plan
http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/25/news/economy/sanders-health-care-plan/ |
Anonymous
He does, actually. Repealing all the tax exclusions, deductions and the like for private and employer-provided insurance raises a shit ton of money. And a tax on Wall Street speculation (Tobin tax) would also raise a shit ton. But more to the point, it doesn't matter -- you have to take care of your people. That's a fundamental public good/duty of government. And, even MORE to the point, whatever it costs, it's still a fraction of the unfunded wars we've started in the last decade or so. |