Our Next President?

[dcarrigg]

Re: Our Next President?

Just spitballing, but something tells me tax credits to the bottom third isn't going to be a winning campaign issue-item. Not even in the coming Democratic primary, and certainly not in the general. It's more 2000 thinking than 2020 thinking. These kind of means-tested, conditional, tax-transfer proposals didn't really sell for Clinton in 2016, and I suspect they won't sell again in 2020. Partly it's because it's confusing as hell. So kludgy. Ask anyone on the street if they qualify for the EITC, and they have no damned clue. From a policy perspective it may look like a good idea. But it's not super-effective politics. And I actually think on the street-level, it's less effective policy than most wonks assume. The problem is nobody can count on it, so nobody can plan on it. It becomes more like a weird mercurial annual bonus than an income stream. Then the vultures come out. Cash advances on tax returns with 900% interest, etc. Anyways, even the bulk of the people who'd benefit from it probably don't want that style of handout. Not when the real split point is more 80/20 and heavily overweighted at the right tail of the distribution. The 3rd & 4th quintiles have not done well these past 20 years either. If you're going to be offering things that leave them out, they won't have much to be jazzed about.

[dcarrigg]

Re: The Real Problem

never said i was optimistic. i was just trying to think of how the political world might split along an axis orthogonal to the one that's punching us in the face. your comparison of ma and va brought a "states' rights" axis to mind. no new civil war; instead it would be live and let live. what a concept!

Sorry if I extrapolated on you there. I realize we're all just taking stabs at what we think may possibly come to pass in this thread.

[EJ]

Re: Our Next President?

Good call, on the surface. A newcomer with a relatively blank slate onto which bits and pieces of voter preference can be written as the campaign goes on, ala Obama, starting with "opposite of Trump" positioning of "love for each other and for our country." Ideal as a marketing campaign president for more of the same policies as Bush and Obama but without the Trump crazy.

Almost everyone will welcome a return to the regular scheduled programming, except for this: Kamala Harris’s Trump-Size Tax Plan

Warren lawyers the question of taxes: How high does Elizabeth Warren want to raise taxes? Her challenger wants to know.

It is on the question of taxation that electability hinges.

The reality of mounting federal government debt resulting from unrealistic tax policy will remain in the periphery of the conversation until after the election.

Warren if she continues to play her cards this way could win, and at least won't have to got back on a "read my lips" pledge when she's forced to raise taxes.

[vt]

Re: The Real Problem

The states are the laboratory of democracy. They try different ways to serve their voters. The results give the Federal governmnent a survey of what works best and what doesn't.

[jk]

Re: The Real Problem

Sort of wish I was as optimistic as you about the prospects of interstate divergence putting the reigns on the imperial presidency.

never said i was optimistic. i was just trying to think of how the political world might split along an axis orthogonal to the one that's punching us in the face. your comparison of ma and va brought a "states' rights" axis to mind. no new civil war; instead it would be live and let live. what a concept!

[jk]

Re: Our Next President?

Attacking the banking system doesn't play because there is no "crisis" like 2008-2011.

i think there's a fair chance the next crisis will have begun by nov 2020.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Our Next President?

it is possible you are right in these predictions, poz, but i sincerely hope you're wrong. both sanders and warren, neither of whom are likely to get the nomination imo, are very focused on the banking system and shadow banking system. it is my hope that their efforts will help the democrats keep economic realities as a focus, albeit certainly not their only focus.

Attacking the banking system doesn't play because there is no "crisis" like 2008-2011. They will focus not on the banking system but on the economy being "controlled by white males keeping everyone else out of jobs and power."

They need a face to point to, stating the banking system is corrupt has no value because there is nothing attached to the banking system, it is abstract.

[dcarrigg]

Re: The Real Problem

one thought you stir up, dc, is that the new direction that is already happening is more devolution of issues to the states, i.e. instead of the federal gov't picking paths, just have the federal gov't step back and say leave it to the states. divergences will probably increase but maybe that's ok. i'm not sure of the implications of this trend, besides low tax states trying to poach businesses from higher tax states. i haven't thought it through. but it sure is a change from the march to the ever more imperial presidency.

Sort of wish I was as optimistic as you about the prospects of interstate divergence putting the reigns on the imperial presidency. Reminds me of Tocqueville in 1830 pointing out interstate political divergences and how they're fundamentally irreconcilable. How long will Yankee moralizers sit back and accept 5 million uninsured people in Texas or 6 million disenfranchised felons throughout the south? There's some folks already calling it the New Jim Crow. The 14th amendment must be interpreted and enforced one way or the other. There's little room for a grey zone once you start drawing lines in the sand there.

In 20 more years, if (I mean this as a hypothetical) a new generation in the northeast grows up that has never known work with non-compete agreements or without paid sick leave or family leave or health coverage; that has never known criminal charges for marijuana or mandatory minimum sentences, or disenfranchisement for felons, or the death penalty; that looks south and sees a 500% to 1,000% higher incarceration rate all under the stars and stripes, US history suggests they probably won't just mind their own business and butt out.

And that's if things stay copacetic. If the divergences accelerate, it'll be even more glaring. California and Mass et all already have adopted everything from stricter vehicle emissions packages to tighter definitions on what constitutes an employee. Here's one small example of what we have to look forward to in the immediate term. So that's playing out in courts now. When the career Uber drivers in some states get social security and minimum wage etc, but not in others, the long game outside of the corporate poaching gets more obvious. Will those in states not receiving these benefits under the FLSA truly be receiving substantive due process and equal protection under the law? Stay tuned.

For now, this is all mostly framed in material terms. So it's prone to stat and cost-benefit policy analysis. And America can handle that debate. But what happens when it gets recast in terms of freedom? Then it comes with absolute moral certitude. Material arguments fall to a support role behind spiritual ones. Politics overtakes policy. I can already see it coming.

[jk]

Re: The Real Problem

one thought you stir up, dc, is that the new direction that is already happening is more devolution of issues to the states, i.e. instead of the federal gov't picking paths, just have the federal gov't step back and say leave it to the states. divergences will probably increase but maybe that's ok. i'm not sure of the implications of this trend, besides low tax states trying to poach businesses from higher tax states. i haven't thought it through. but it sure is a change from the march to the ever more imperial presidency.

[dcarrigg]

Re: The Real Problem

There is no evidence to support the claim that a third party candidate can be elected president of the United States.
Ross Perot got less than 19 percent of all individual votes, got zero electoral college votes, and won zero states.

The old Duverger's Law. FPTP, winnter-take-all, plurality wins, single-member-district elections end up a 2 party system. Very occasionally third parties pop up and do somewhat well in the electoral college. But this tends to be a sign of realignment more than anything. And often 4th parties come with them.

Sometimes it's a sign of things to come. The 1824 election was bananas and led to the rise of Jackson and the Democrats in 1828. In that one, 4 people split electoral votes. John Quincy Adams won, but Jackson was the candidate with the most popular vote AND the most electoral votes and still did not win. In 1860 we had a similar bananas election that led to the rise of Lincoln and the Republicans. In this one Lincoln was the clear winner, but 4 candidates won electoral votes again. 1912 was the next one with 4 major candidates, Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs. Roosevelt had previously been a Republican, but his Progressive Party got more electoral votes and popular votes than Taft's under the GOP banner. Don't see another real game-thrower until 1968 with George Wallace (previewed by Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrats in 48), and that really gives way to the rise of Nixon, the South flipping from solid Dem to solid GOP, the end of the New Deal Era, and the beginning of a more conservative era both for the GOP and for the nation in general. Nixon and Humphrey both got 43% of the vote. Wallace was the spoiler who had the other 14% locked up. And that year was a wild ride that included assassinations and convention riots.

We might be due for one of these again. I suppose it can't be totally ruled out. But here's the thing: In the 2 instances a third party candidate won, another party had to die (basically Federalists & Whigs to make room for Democrats & Republicans respectively). But each time there was also a driving structural issue. Expanding the franchise to men with without property in the first case, and slavery in the second. I can't clearly identify that issue this time. The electorate is quite polarized right now and the media's increasingly national/international. So it's hard to see a regional third party rebellion brewing. If anything, moderates in both parties are losing elections across the board, so if it does happen, it's not going to be about brave defenders of whatever people think "the center" is now. Definitely not boring, milquetoast both-siderism or debt fretting. It would need it's own raison d'etre. One that struck deep or had deep regional resonance. Cutting social security and kicking grandma off Medicare so you can cut more taxes for Apple and Amazon, but doing it politely, just ain't gonna make the cut on this one. Neither is the kinder, gentler machine gun hand.

So maybe tomorrow Charlie Baker breaks off and makes the Northern Republicans or Jim Webb breaks off and makes the General Lee Democrats. But even if they did, they'd be hard-pressed to answer "Why?" You know what they call someone with Charlie Baker's exact politics in Virginia? An unelectable Democrat. You know what they call someone with Jim Webb's exact politics in Massachusetts? An unelectable Republican. I think that's not only the truth, I think that's the nature of the electorate at the moment.

What seems progressive to a Virginian seems reactionary to a Bostonian: Just think about it, a $10 minimum wage is a $3/hour increase in the Old Dominion and a $2/hr decrease in the Bay State. Has the spread ever been this wide? And it's like this on issue after issue. The "common sense middle ground" is now a huge 30% jump in Richmond and a huge 20% cut in Worcester. So I can all but be certain that to the general electorate, advocating a $10/hr federal minimum wage seems boring and conservative in one place, but it seems radical and sharply progressive in another. In the last 20 years, Virginia's minimum wage has only increased by $2/hr, Massachusetts' has by $6/hr. It's like this on issue after issue. State laws have drifted far apart, and it's accelerating.

Let me spin this up another way: Would you have thought in 2000 that by about election-time 2020, Massachusetts will certainly have legal recreational marijuana stores (it already does), but probably also cafés where adults can smoke it, civil rights guarantees and constitutional marriage for LBGT etc. groups (probably saw this coming), a $13.50/hr statewide minimum wage (maybe that if you were optimistic), 25% lower CO2 output than 1990 levels (seemed fringe), free community college (already free for Pell-Grant recipients in Boston), casinos everywhere (not just Connecticut), criminal justice reform including the elimination of mandatory minimums for low-level drug charges and bail for the poor (fringe again), labor reforms including limitations and bans on non-competes and non-disclosures and other tools employers use to suppress wages, 12 weeks of paid family leave, 20 weeks of medical leave, and 5 days of paid sick leave per year for all employees, etc (huge shift). On the other side you'll have to be 21 to buy tobacco products, homeschooling and gun purchases have a lot of restrictions, drivers' licenses have more restrictions, there's a state health insurance mandate regardless of the elimination of the federal one, etc.

I only wrote all that out to illustrate some of the range of how far MA and VA's laws have spread apart in the past generation. The further apart they get, the more likely it is that it will become impossible to ignore the differences, and the federal government will have to pick a path rather than sit on the fence.

[vt]

Re: The Real Problem

I'm not just suggesting a third party candidate can win, but that a third party could replace one of the other two parties, as when the Whigs were
replaced by Republicans.

https://qz.com/813355/2016-president...he-presidency/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politic...rty-candidates

[jk]

Re: The Real Problem

There is no evidence to support the claim that a third party candidate can be elected president of the United States.
Ross Perot got less than 19 percent of all individual votes, got zero electoral college votes, and won zero states.

perot provided a means for conservative to moderate voters to exercise their franchise but to NOT vote for george hw bush. this allowed clinton to win.
i can't think of an example in which a 3rd party candidate was not either an irrelevancy or a spoiler.
the most important 3rd party possibility would be a conservative anti-trumper, giving disaffected republicans a way to not vote for trump. perhaps mike bloomberg would fulfill this role.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: The Real Problem

There is no evidence to support the claim that a third party candidate can be elected president of the United States.
Ross Perot got less than 19 percent of all individual votes, got zero electoral college votes, and won zero states.

[sunpearl71]

Re: The Real Problem

I disagree. An excellent third party candidate can win. Perot showed the possibilities.

I agree. However, isn't that only part of the solution? Even after winning, can a third party candidate govern and lead the nation? Can they work with the two houses effectively to get the reforms through?

[Slimprofits]

Re: Our Next President?