New Dem Proposed Policies- the Good, The Bad But Fixable, The Ugly

[funhusker]

20 minutes ago, MNBigRedNorth said:

The Green New deal is an absolute joke.  Anyone in the their right mind that thinks we can control our climate, has to have a god complex.  Our climate is controlled far more by the sun than us meager little humans.  Don't take this statement to say we should be responsible users of our natural resources and keeping our environment clean.  

I won't.

 

https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/science/effect-of-sun-on-climate-faq.html

[MNBigRedNorth]

5 hours ago, Nebfanatic said:

We can't control the environment but we can surely control our impact on it.

Yes we should be good stewards of our environment, but spending tons of money by government is not the answer.  Many politicians use this avenue as a means to gather more power.  Don't let yourself be fooled by this. We don't need a world government taking our rights away! The Paris climate agreement was nothing more than a scheme to take the wealth of our nation and give to the nations that are the high polluters.  We all know that once a government gets their hands on it the money will evaporate without going for it's intended use

[MNBigRedNorth]

16 minutes ago, Nebfanatic said:

 

How would we pay for Universal Basic Income?

It would be easier than you might think. Andrew proposes funding UBI by consolidating some welfare programs and implementing a Value-Added Tax (VAT) of 10%. Current welfare and social program beneficiaries would be given a choice between their current benefits or $1,000 cash unconditionally – most would prefer cash with no restriction.

A Value-Added Tax (VAT) is a tax on the production of goods or services a business produces. It is a fair tax and it makes it much harder for large corporations, who are experts at hiding profits and income, to avoid paying their fair share. A VAT is nothing new. 160 out of 193 countries in the world already have a Value-Added Tax or something similar, including all of Europe which has an average VAT of 20 percent.

The means to pay for a Universal Basic Income will come from 4 sources:

1.  Current spending.  We currently spend between $500 and $600 billion a year on welfare programs, food stamps, disability and the like.  This reduces the cost of Universal Basic Income because people already receiving benefits would have a choice but would be ineligible to receive the full $1,000 in addition to current benefits.

2.  A VAT.  Our economy is now incredibly vast at $19 trillion, up $4 trillion in the last 10 years alone.  A VAT at half the European level would generate $800 billion in new revenue.  A VAT will become more and more important as technology improves because you cannot collect income tax from robots or software.

3.  New revenue.  Putting money into the hands of American consumers would grow the economy.  The Roosevelt Institute projected that the economy would grow by approximately $2.5 trillion and create 4.6 million new jobs.  This would generate approximately $500 – 600 billion in new revenue from economic growth and activity.

4.  We currently spend over one trillion dollars on health care, incarceration, homelessness services and the like.  We would save $100 – 200 billion as people would take better care of themselves and avoid the emergency room, jail, and the street and would generally be more functional.  Universal Basic Income would pay for itself by helping people avoid our institutions, which is when our costs shoot up.  Some studies have shown that $1 to a poor parent will result in as much as $7 in cost-savings and economic growth.

 

 

 

 

 

Yangs plan seems pretty viable to me...

And every proposal that is shown there would destroy our now great economy evaporating the levels of tax revenue generate by any of those new taxes.  Why do people think that a tax has no effect on economic growth? It has huge effect.  This is just socialism on steroids, and look at what happened to Venezuela, and now most of Europe.  Their socialism is not sustainable.  

[Nebfanatic]

7 minutes ago, knapplc said:

So he's not proposing a full income, a replacement for a job's income, he's proposing something supplementary.

Ah yes that would probably be the reason for confusion. Other UBI programs I have seen weren't full income replacement either. That being said, I know people who made 11,000 dollars last year and an extra 1000 a month would most definitley free them up to pursue better options. I think it would be a beneficial program especially in the dawn of automated work forces.

[Ulty]

 

7 minutes ago, Nebfanatic said:

1.  Current spending.  We currently spend between $500 and $600 billion a year on welfare programs, food stamps, disability and the like.  This reduces the cost of Universal Basic Income because people already receiving benefits would have a choice but would be ineligible to receive the full $1,000 in addition to current benefits.

 

If someone receiving welfare assistance already is ineligible for the UBI benefits, or if it replaces these programs, then who is UBI designed to help? It doesn't sound like a program that is meant to pull people out of poverty, and if it doesn't do that, what's the point?

[Moiraine]

2 hours ago, funhusker said:

Gerrymandering is bad, but how does it effect the Presidential election?  The EC votes go to the popular vote of the state, not by congressional districts....Right?

 

 

Gerrymandering can only affect the presidential election in Maine and Nebraska.

 

But if someone hasn’t mentioned it already, the law capping the # of representatives affects how many points each state gets in the electoral college, and it causes people in highly populated states to have their votes count for less. 

[Nebfanatic]

Just now, MNBigRedNorth said:

And every proposal that is show there would destroy our now great economy evaporating the levels of tax revenue generate by any of those new taxes.  Why do people think that a tax has no effect on economic growth? It has huge effect.  This is just socialism on steroids, and look at what happened to Venezuela, and now most of Europe.  Their socialism is not sustainable.  

No its not bro did you even read? Alot of the money is already there and most of the other revenue would be created by taxing industries that either aren't taxed now(tech companies) or will benefit greatly from going to an automated workforce.

 

1 minute ago, Ulty said:

 

 

If someone receiving welfare assistance already is ineligible for the UBI benefits, or if it replaces these programs, then who is UBI designed to help? It doesn't sound like a program that is meant to pull people out of poverty, and if it doesn't do that, what's the point?

It gives people freedom to pursue higher education and training, especially those in industries in line to be replaced by automation.

[MNBigRedNorth]

5 minutes ago, Nebfanatic said:

No its not bro did you even read? Alot of the money is already there and most of the other revenue would be created by taxing industries that either aren't taxed now(tech companies) or will benefit greatly from going to an automated workforce.

 

It gives people freedom to pursue higher education and training, especially those in industries in line to be replaced by automation.

I respect your opinion, but every time more taxes are added, our economy declines or becomes stagnate. Obama Care was a huge tax, and what did we get, stagnation.  Sure there is a lot of the stuff already out there being spent, but if you think for one second that they will let those give away go away your kidding yourself.  Once a social program starts, it will never just go away and be replaced.

[MNBigRedNorth]

11 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

 

 

Gerrymandering can only affect the presidential election in Maine and Nebraska.

 

But if someone hasn’t mentioned it already, the law capping the # of representatives affects how many points each state gets in the electoral college, and it causes people in highly populated states to have their votes count for less. 

Have you forgotten that high population states are continually getting more representatives.  Changes every 10 years with the census.  Meaning there is no way to stop changing congressional districts.  There just need to be none political people drawing the lines without regards for who lives where, as long as there are the proper number of people voting in each district. Find a nation wide way of drawing these lines up from a non political view point and that will solve it.  Wow that was pie-in-the-sky!

[Moiraine]

13 minutes ago, MNBigRedNorth said:

Have you forgotten that high population states are continually getting more representatives.  Changes every 10 years with the census.  Meaning there is no way to stop changing congressional districts.  There just need to be none political people drawing the lines without regards for who lives where, as long as there are the proper number of people voting in each district. Find a nation wide way of drawing these lines up from a non political view point and that will solve it.  Wow that was pie-in-the-sky!

 

 

 

High population areas are underrepresented. Meaning they have less representatives per person. And you may be unaware but there is a law that prevents the total # of representatives in the country from increasing, so it gets worse for high population areas every decade. I can explain the math if you’d like. 

 

In fact I’ll just do that now.

 

Wyoming is the lowest population state with 578,000 people. They get 1 vote in the House. That means, as close as it’s possible, every 578,000 people should get 1 representative. Obviously if you have another state with 867,000 people, they still only get 1 rep or maybe 2, because you can’t have 1.5 representatives. 

 

Then there is California. It has 39,250,000 people. 39,250,000/578,000 = 67.9. So California should have either 67 or 68 representatives. 

 

They have 53.

 

We’ve found something we agree on though - maps should not be drawn with political motivation.

[TGHusker]

13 minutes ago, MNBigRedNorth said:

Have you forgotten that high population states are continually getting more representatives.  Changes every 10 years with the census.  Meaning there is no way to stop changing congressional districts.  There just need to be none political people drawing the lines without regards for who lives where, as long as there are the proper number of people voting in each district. Find a nation wide way of drawing these lines up from a non political view point and that will solve it.  Wow that was pie-in-the-sky!

Bold - agree 100%    This can't be as difficult as brain surgery.   

[Nebfanatic]

22 minutes ago, MNBigRedNorth said:

I respect your opinion, but every time more taxes are added, our economy declines or becomes stagnate. Obama Care was a huge tax, and what did we get, stagnation.  Sure there is a lot of the stuff already out there being spent, but if you think for one second that they will let those give away go away your kidding yourself.  Once a social program starts, it will never just go away and be replaced.

Did the economy stagnate under Obama? All charts I have seen show steady improvement of the economy under Obama.

[knapplc]

4 minutes ago, Nebfanatic said:

Did the economy stagnate under Obama? All charts I have seen show steady improvement of the economy under Obama. 

 

Those are fake charts from the msm and the liberal groupthink campuses across America you can't trust them use your eyes here is a chart that shows the obama economy it was a disaster wake up sheeple its right in front of you

 

[Nebfanatic]

1 minute ago, knapplc said:

 

Those are fake charts from the msm and the liberal groupthink campuses across America you can't trust them use your eyes here is a chart that shows the obama economy it was a disaster wake up sheeple its right in front of you

 

Maybe if I tell him evil CIA Soros Google is tax exempt and is in line to get taxed in this plan that would help.  But probably not because taxes=bad

[Landlord]

1 hour ago, knapplc said:

 

For UBI to be a viable thing, there would have to be a revenue generator that is entirely independent of a human workforce. The money to pay me and you and everyone else a free salary has to come from somewhere.

 

Others pasted resources about where the money would come from, but another element of this would be that the cost to live would also drop substantially in a scenario like that. It won't be too long until everyone has free internet from solar planes, people can 3D print their own cheap food, and we might have cheap, clean driverless cars everywhere (I imagine plenty of private companies but also I can't see how there wouldn't be a public transportation version of this). I'm not all that well versed on this stuff but cutting just those three costs in half over the course of a year would be several thousands of dollars no longer needed to live.

 

1 hour ago, MNBigRedNorth said:

The Green New deal is an absolute joke.  Anyone in the their right mind that thinks we can control our climate, has to have a god complex.  Our climate is controlled far more by the sun than us meager little humans.  Don't take this statement to say we should be responsible users of our natural resources and keeping our environment clean.  

 

You say that, yet here we are with compelling and conclusive evidence that we're not 'controlling' our climate but dramatically effecting it. But even if you're right, the climate is still changing in a direction that is dangerous and bad for humanity. So....we should at least try, right?

 

59 minutes ago, knapplc said:

So he's not proposing a full income, a replacement for a job's income, he's proposing something supplementary.

 

I think that's what most people proposing UBI are suggesting. Something about as easy to live on as working for minimum wage.