The Second Democratic Debate Featured Big Ideas For The Economy And Jobs, But Lacked A Clear Plan

The second Democratic debate was loud, feisty, fierce and informative. Thursday night’s spectacle dealt with economic and jobs-related themes to a greater extent than night one. A similar trend emerged where the presidential hopefuls called for bold changes and new initiatives, but seemed naive and disinterested in how to find them. The issues of sky-high college costs, loan forgiveness, taxes, health insurance and benefits for immigrants were heatedly debated. Most of the candidates called for more taxes, free college, loan forgiveness and all were in favor of health insurance benefits for undocumented immigrants. They were also against the wealthy and anti-corporations. When it came time to address how they would be paid for, there was mostly rhetoric and they disappointingly danced around the subject.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) responded to a question about college by saying, “I believe that we must make public colleges and universities tuition-free and eliminate student debt and we do that by placing a tax on Wall Street.” Doubling down on his anti-capitalist stance, Sanders added that he plans to “take on Wall Street, to take on the fossil fuel industry, to take on the big money interest who have unbelievable influence over the economic and political life of this country.” The moderator directly asked Sanders if he would raise taxes on the middle class. He tried to evade the question, but when pressed to answer it plainly, in terms of “yes” or “no,” Sanders said, “Yes, they will pay more in taxes.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden stated that “Donald Trump has put us in a horrible situation.” He added, “We do have enormous income inequality. And the one thing I agree on is we can make massive cuts in the $1.6 trillion in tax loopholes out there, andI would be going about eliminating Donald Trump’s tax cut for the wealthy.” Biden asserted, “That’s why there should be free community college, cutting in half the cost of college. That’s why we should be in a position where we do not have anyone have to pay back a student debt when they get out, they’re making less than $25,000 a year. Their debt is frozen, no interest payment until they get beyond that.”

SenatorKamala Harris (D-Calif.)was asked, “There’s a lot of talk in this primary about new government benefits, such as student loan cancellation, free college, healthcare and more. Do you think that Democrats have a responsibility to explain how they will pay for every proposal?” She replied, “I am proposing that we change the tax code, so for every family that is making less than $100,000 a year, they will receive a tax credit that they can collect up to $500 a month, which will make all the difference between those families being able to get through the end of the month with dignity and with support or not.” When asked about the economy, she mocked President Trump, “This president walks around talking about and flouting his great economy. My great economy. My great economy. You ask him, well how are you measuring the greatness of this economy of yours? And he talks about the stock market. Well, that’s fine if you own stocks. So many families in America do not.” While Harris looked like she stole the show on Thursday, it was frustrating that Harris is unaware that a vast majority of the population does own stocks. For example, any city, state or government employee most likely has a retirement plan. The retirement funds own stock, bonds, hedge funds, private equity, alternative investments and other securities. The same holds true for employees with 401k plans and small business owners who have similar retirement vehicles that own stocks.

Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper stood apart from the pack and verbalized his concern about his party’s pivot toward socialism. “Well, I think that the bottom line is, if we don’t clearly define that we are not socialists, the Republicans are going to come at us every way they can and call us socialists. And if you look at the Green New Deal, which I admire the sense of urgency and how important it is to do climate change. I’m a scientist, but we can’t promise every American a government job if you want to get universal healthcare coverage. I believe that healthcare is a right and not a privilege, but you can’t expect to eliminate private insurance for 180 million people—many of whom don’t want to give it up,” he advised the panel.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) angrily proclaimed that what they’re trying“to change is when companies care more about profits than they do about people.” Representing New York City, the home of capitalism in the U.S., her statement sounded uninformed—at best. The sole goal of corporations is to generate profits for their shareholders. It's nice for them to treat their employees well and engage in social causes, but that's not their mandate.

Peter Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Ind., seemed reasonable. He affirmed, “I also believe in free college for low-and middle-income students for whom cost could be a barrier. I just don’t believe it makes sense to ask working class families to subsidize even the children of billionaires. I think the children of the wealthiest Americans can pay at least a little bit of tuition, and while I want tuition costs to go down, I don’t think we can buy down every last penny for them. Now there’s something else that doesn’t get talked about in the college affordability debate. Yes, it needs to be more affordable in this country to go to college. It also needs to be more affordable in this country to not go to college.”

Andrew Yang, an attorney, entrepreneur, philanthropist and founder of Venture for America, was the only candidate with different ideas. His signature policy is to give every adult in the U.S. $1,000 a month—no questions asked. When asked by the moderator, “I think that’s like $3.2 trillion a year. How would you do that?” Yang answered with a cringeworthy, “I’m sorry?” He regained his composure and called for a value-added tax (VAT), similar to the one used in Europe. A VAT is basically a tax that is paid whenever a person purchases a product. Usually, this tax replaces traditional taxes. Yang contended that it would generate over $800 billion in new revenue. He was the only candidate that showed concern about technology automating away millions of American jobs. Moreover, he argued that automation helped make Donald Trump the president. Yang said, “Donald Trump is our president for one simple reason: We automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, all of the swing states that Donald Trump needed to win."

For the coming stages, my humble suggestion for the candidates is that, while it's great to have ambitious, aspirational goals, you must have a clear plan to pay for them—without highly taxing the public—and a strategy to make it work.

Source: Forbes.com

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