This makes electoral sense and probably none of this will actually happen even if she's elected, but I insist on my right to be morose here.
I'm worried something big is happening here. The big problem the left in the US has always had is that middle-class taxes are way too low to support a European or Canadian-style welfare state, and th…
This makes electoral sense and probably none of this will actually happen even if she's elected, but I insist on my right to be morose here.
I'm worried something big is happening here. The big problem the left in the US has always had is that middle-class taxes are way too low to support a European or Canadian-style welfare state, and the tax increases necessary would be toxic. Implement a double digit VAT on all items? Might as well propose poisoning all the ice cream. Bernie "solved" this problem in 2016 by simply promising a huge welfare state without any plausible plan to pay for it, and eventually this became mainstream thinking in the party. In 2020 the moderates wanted to throw $X trillion at every problem, Warren wanted $3X trillion, Sanders wanted $5X trillion. It was just nuts. But interest rates were low, inflation was a distant memory, and you could make a wrong-but-not-transparently insane argument that we could massively ramp up borrowing or even printing with no ill effect.
The fiscal environment is no longer hospitable to giant spending plans, even MMTards are admitting the deficit is too high, and so the left hasn't really had anything non-Gaza related to talk about. But I'm told that "neoliberalism is dead" these days so I think there will be a big push for hamfisted price regulation and micromanagement of the economy. Harris is at the moderate edge of this, but this could be the new direction for bad leftwing ideas.
We're extra screwed, because not only is all our *old* borrowing now coming up for renewal at higher interest rates, but once we experience a level of spending we seem small-c constitutionally unable to reduce that. Politicians brag if they reduce the yearly deficit just a little bit.
Even our "one time" COVID spending has become the new baseline.
For the annual spending to go from $3T to $4T took from 2008 to 2017.
Then $4.1T and $4.4T in 2018 and 2019. 2020 it exploded, obviously, to $6.5T.
It was arguable to keep in going in 2021 to $6.8T. In 2022 we came back down to $6.2T, and then in 2023 around $6.1T.
The Republicans used to talk about reform and suffer electorally while not delivering. Trump realized that was electorally stupid so he just said he'll fix everything and got votes.
This makes electoral sense and probably none of this will actually happen even if she's elected, but I insist on my right to be morose here.
I'm worried something big is happening here. The big problem the left in the US has always had is that middle-class taxes are way too low to support a European or Canadian-style welfare state, and the tax increases necessary would be toxic. Implement a double digit VAT on all items? Might as well propose poisoning all the ice cream. Bernie "solved" this problem in 2016 by simply promising a huge welfare state without any plausible plan to pay for it, and eventually this became mainstream thinking in the party. In 2020 the moderates wanted to throw $X trillion at every problem, Warren wanted $3X trillion, Sanders wanted $5X trillion. It was just nuts. But interest rates were low, inflation was a distant memory, and you could make a wrong-but-not-transparently insane argument that we could massively ramp up borrowing or even printing with no ill effect.
The fiscal environment is no longer hospitable to giant spending plans, even MMTards are admitting the deficit is too high, and so the left hasn't really had anything non-Gaza related to talk about. But I'm told that "neoliberalism is dead" these days so I think there will be a big push for hamfisted price regulation and micromanagement of the economy. Harris is at the moderate edge of this, but this could be the new direction for bad leftwing ideas.
We're extra screwed, because not only is all our *old* borrowing now coming up for renewal at higher interest rates, but once we experience a level of spending we seem small-c constitutionally unable to reduce that. Politicians brag if they reduce the yearly deficit just a little bit.
Even our "one time" COVID spending has become the new baseline.
For the annual spending to go from $3T to $4T took from 2008 to 2017.
Then $4.1T and $4.4T in 2018 and 2019. 2020 it exploded, obviously, to $6.5T.
It was arguable to keep in going in 2021 to $6.8T. In 2022 we came back down to $6.2T, and then in 2023 around $6.1T.
The Republicans used to talk about reform and suffer electorally while not delivering. Trump realized that was electorally stupid so he just said he'll fix everything and got votes.
This is a great comment.