2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumSimple question for everybody, two maybe...
1. Prefer medicare for all/single payer or ACA (acknowledging up front ACA is a vast improvement over what we now have and Obama is to be considered a GREAT president for passing ACA)
2. Prefer $15 an hour MW over $12 or no change
3. Want wall street legislation that taxes them on transactions and use that money to build our infrastructure, or dont do that?
One person wants this and is willing to say so over and over, so what is wrong if he cant actually accomplish it all or overnight?
Dont we want someone who at least talks about this stuff and you know he means it?
We have one chance to elect someone who is truly different from the status quo, one.
And of course we will support Hillary if nominated, but how about we nominate Bernie instead!
Blanks
(4,835 posts)How about Bernie stay in the senate and try to get that legislation on the president's desk.
Jackie Wilson Said
(4,176 posts)Blanks
(4,835 posts)Perhaps that's why I'm not a Bernie supporter.
We need new business start-ups. In some ways raising the minimum wage too high is a greater benefit to large companies. A smaller company may have to cut the number of hours that their few employees work, or eliminate positions. The McDonalds and WalMarts in this country will just raise their prices. It'll run out even more mom and pop shops.
We need a new technology revolution (like alternative energies) worse than a bump in minimum wage right now.
On health insurance, we will eventually get there. I don't imagine Bernie will get us there any quicker than Hillary.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)And is actually the single biggest issue on the table this year even if you prefer to put your head in the sand and ignore it by prioritizing business start-ups (!!??)
Hillarys support for fracking and her "incremental" approach to climate change dooms us.
Blanks
(4,835 posts)But I haven't heard his plan on global warming.
I'm a civil engineer with a secondary degree in environmental sciences. I hardly have my head in the sand on global warming, but just like the minimum wage, it's gonna take a slow transition to get to where we need to get and small businesses that are focussed on local sustainable alternative energies needs to be one of the plans, and we need to pay attention to the amount of 'food miles' we have on our food supply.
All I see Bernie talking about is bankers, education and minimum wage. I've not heard the kind of enthusiasm for alternative energies that Al Gore from anyone.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Here he is just today, less than 2 minutes with the international press and he includes it.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/15/bernie-sanders-vatican-capitalism-common-good
Honestly, forecasts are for a.5 - 9 foot sea level rise within 30 years. That means we're realistically looking at seeing measurable effects within the next 5 years.
The planet can't wait for incrementalism.
dogman
(6,073 posts)If we can get past Republican talking points on the minimum wage and look at facts, we see a larger consumer base to patronize these business start-ups. Walmart and McDonalds will not have their labor force subsidized by the taxpayer. Sounds like you have health insurance, since you have time.
Blanks
(4,835 posts)I recognize that the minimum wage has been dropping (compared to prices) and it needs to be brought up steadily, indexed to inflation and basically fixed in the same way that it has been in the past.
Bernie isn't going to do it unilaterally, the only way it's going to happen is if we get a congress controlled by democrats. If Bernie weren't running a campaign that distracts from the senate and house races by beating up on the only democrat running for president, it would likely increase the talk on the trail about working class issues and how democrats are going to fix those problems.
He's actually doing more damage in the battle to raise the minimum wage.
dogman
(6,073 posts)If Bernie weren't in the race they would have been swept aside a long time ago. Ole Bubba today said Bernie's supporters want to shoot every third person on Wall Street. The Clintons are merrily destroying themselves as they usually do. The minimum wage by the way should be $21.16 adjusted for income growth in the economy. If you think the American public is going to give Hillary a Democratic Congress, you are the supreme optimist.
Blanks
(4,835 posts)To control congress slips a little more through our fingers every day Bernie stays in the race.
There is some benefit to having more than one democratic candidate running for president, but that assumes they're both democrats, and it assumes that they have a plan. Bernie only has 'applause lines' and anyone who has followed politics for a couple of decades recognizes the difference between campaign trail promises and a plan.
What we have here is a movement embracing people who haven't been following politics, then they see a candidate who tells them what they want to hear so they support him. It's more like a pity party than a revolution.
Time that we spend explaining why Bernie isn't going to accomplish anything is time that would be better served forwarding the agenda for the democrats. Time that we could spend bragging about the record that democrats have compared to republicans. Particularly as it pertains to the working class.
It doesn't matter what minimum wage SHOULD be, as long as the republicans are controlling congress it's not gonna change.
The things that Bernie talks about needing fixed, need fixing, and if he gets the nomination I'll definitely vote for him. I just don't think he's our best bet moving forward.
amborin
(16,631 posts)B Calm
(28,762 posts)polichick
(37,152 posts)dubyadiprecession
(5,707 posts)arely staircase
(12,482 posts)at this point on history (during the first term of the next president anyway). I think that is unlikely event if the demo took both houses of Congress enough would be moderate purple district people with little interest in refighting healthcare
Jackie Wilson Said
(4,176 posts)One person is talking about them non stop, only one.
hellofromreddit
(1,182 posts)1: single payer
2: $15
3: FTT + investment in society
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)1. ACA transition to single payer
2. $15 in high cost of living areas, perhaps lower in areas with lower costs of living
3. Yes, but the tax won't be a cash cow--the more you raise the tax, the less trading that occurs
Recursion
(56,582 posts)You may well want that; I don't particularly care. I'm mostly electing a party apparatus, from my perspective (they have the same rolodex of Democrats they'll appoint to second- and third-level administrative positions, which is what actually matters most).