Senate The US Politics 2.0 Discussion Thread

I don't know why y'all are making fun of Mike for the one thing he's right to be skeptical on. Oakland's Universal Basic Income was, in fact, not Universal and only gave nonwhites the money. As if white poor people aren't suffering or can get the money from somewhere else.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/23/oakland-california-universal-basic-income-program

 

To overturn Obergefell has one of two implications: either you breach equality in rights between citizens (some are already married, some can no longer marry) or you don't (and you annul every same-sex marriage).

 

I'm not making fun of him. I'm pissed off that he's echoing the right-wing talking point of using it as an excuse to destroy all entitlement programs, then use UBI as propaganda about how minorities can't be trusted with handouts by curating specific cases where someone wastes their money, and then move to institute restrictions, exceptions and other rules to nickel and dime UBI down to nothing for 'undesirables', like they're already trying to do with welfare, food stamps, etc.
Also, he's made it clear that it has to involve less government, and 'revenue neutral' i.e. less money spent, for him to support it.

 

An excellent summation of that exact argument from a palliative care and hospice physician: https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/03/opin...ender-health-paxton-smith-drutchas/index.html

The medical profession is often at the heart of these disputes, and it's great to hear this position stated so eloquently from a doctor.

 

I don't see how anything you've written is contradicting my post. I also didn't quote you at all.

Once again, you've made a response to me on completely spurious reasoning. I don't understand why you keep doing this. I don't understand why you keep wanting to have a conversation with me about what I'm not talking about. Nobody else has to deal with this ****. I quoted two people, and my response was to them. What is wrong with you?

 

While a robust UBI could theoretically replace SNAP or Social Security, I don't see how that could apply to, say, public housing or government-funded healthcare, both of which need to be expanded massively in order to help relieve the ills of our society. Also the people who propose eliminating social programs in favor of UBI are cynical right-wingers like Andrew Yang who have little interest in the well-being of common people.

 

Exactly. It'll be loaded down with humiliating drug tests, administered by an agency with zero funding, force participants to use a card managed by a private company that will load it with a thousand hidden fees, and make sure that states can "opt out" if they don't feel it's necessary.

 

So.... where is all this money coming from then? I dont need the UBI and I suspect a huge number of people really dont need it either. Has anyone looked at where this enormous pile of cash is coming from? If it leads to higher taxes on most people or causes price increases or inflation then isnt that a bad thing? Or No?

Such as? $100K a month for everyone no matter what?

Yang "gets it"(sometimes anyways), Some of you dont seem to grasp that there is a limited amount of money that the Feds/Washington goobers can take from us to pay for this stuff. So, whats wrong with replacing all of the other handouts with a straight UBI? If its a neutral cost move then its a great idea and thats what I believe Yang sees as a good way to do it. It'd save burdensome administrative costs right off the bat. Just a direct deposit each month. Done. No paperwork or employees to pay.

So you want UBI, Free or subsidized housing, free health care, and, did I miss anything? Is there anything we'd have to pay for anymore? How much is a "Robust UBI"? How much per year or month?

BTW - This article from CNBC sort of lists out why UBI would be extremely expensive and sort of suck for a lot of people. Of course, those that get the fabulous prizes would love it. Yangs proposals arent so good either. A 22% VAT(he said 10% but his math is bad) Can you say get away from my wallet? Even the alleged "budget neutral" plan has a ton of hidden costs & it removes deductions that many rely on.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/bud...sic-income-plan-would-pay-1320-per-month.html

 

Yes, people have looked at where it's coming from.
Yes, a significant number of people need it.
Plenty of people have discussed it. But if you want to look as ignorant as possible by asking questions people have already answered numerous times, no one will stop you.

 

I have to say "healthcare", which, for complex and onerous treatments, would be far too painful to afford without a social safety net even at very high levels of UBI.

 

QGM hasn't pieced together that if, say, UBI was giving him 4k a month he totally doesn't need, then we could raise his taxes by 4k a month and he'd be fine still because it's no net difference. And then just those that are actually well-off would be getting taxed more than that to cover the people who actually need the money.

I don't think health care should be considered part of that just as much as UBI wouldn't replace fire fighting funding by leaving people to use some of that money to contract a fire fighting department.

 

"hand-outs"

 

A country that has the military juggernaut of a G.I. Joe clipshow and a C- rating by the American Society of Civil Engineers is clearly on its way out.

https://infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2021-Grades-Chart.jpg

 

crazed florida retiree attacking AZ Gov Ducey for vetoing a bill that would have outlated critical race theory, calling him a RINO.
orange unbalanced person also attacking the AZ AG for 'doing little on voter integrity'

 

Is it the Attorney General or secretary of state who’s running for governor? I can’t remember, but Derfattenorangefuhrer coming out of retirement to rant about it must mean that someone’s decided to run for office and without kissing his ring.

 

no he's a republican. Mark Brnovich. it's the Secretary of state who's running.

 

Jane Fonda suggested another in addition to the bloated military budget: End the oil subsidies that we pay. That a suggestion to pay for Medicare for All and Climate Change.

The point is rather simple: There is money to do these things. Our government is spending it wrong. If government invests in its own people, everyone wins.

And we have models of this working in other countries that prove this. But, we also see it just based on how the stimulus check impacted things for so many. I don't accept that we can't do these things. People are choosing not to and it is at the very real human cost that we see every day. Bottom line: We can do better. Joe Manchin and others who want to play politics instead of doing things are the reason we can't.

 

I think it's worth noting as it relates to lack of will, is that it reminds me of how the papers that have said COVID will never be eliminated often have the reasons largely as lack of will to do so, yet people like to point to that as proof we shouldn't bother rather than proof we should try more. It has gotten hugely self-fulfilling

 

The US government spends per capita more on health care than most other Western countries. So it becomes immediately apparent that this money is being grossly mismanaged, as a lot of it is clearly not going directly on helping sick people. How do we know this? Because health outcomes in the US often compare badly to other industrialised nations. We already know that life expectancy in the US is lower than most of those countries, for example:

https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/

Here's a breakdown of some of the main health indicators used to compare different health systems. It shows that in most instances, the situation in the US is bad and getting worse:

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org...ortality-rate-per-100000-population-1980-2017

To quote:
"While inconsistent and imperfect metrics make it difficult to firmly assess system-wide health quality in the U.S., a review of the available data prior to the onset of the pandemic suggests that in most of these measures, the U.S. continued to lag behind comparably wealthy and sizable countries. As rates of all-cause mortality, maternal mortality, and years of life lost have stagnated or increased over time, the gap has widened between the U.S. health system and those of its peers."

In short, the US needs to do better. It has the money to do so.

 

Unfortunately, a significant fraction of the country hold QGM's views of opposing the government spending money effectively

 

It wasn't so long ago that we could manage efforts to eradicate variola or nearly eradicate poliomyelitis...

 

it is rather incredible the oil subsidies are rarely brought up. Subsidies for anything else is labeled socialism by Republicans, but i've never heard a Democrat pose the question to an R why that isn't also true for the oil companies.