The big winner of the Ohio Presidential debate this past week seems to many to be Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, who is seen as on the rise as a moderate alternative to Joe Biden.
Mayor Pete has been successful in raising large amounts of money in the third quarter, and his debate performance demonstrated his intelligence, his knowledge, and his perception of what Americans want, similar in his understanding of what Americans were looking for as when they voted for Barack Obama in 2008.
He is not promoting “pie in the sky”, massive changes in four years, as Bernie Sanders, and even Elizabeth Warren are doing, knowing full well that the nation is not going to elect a Democratic Congress large enough in majority to do the kinds of path breaking changes that Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson were able to bring about in 1935-1936 and 1965-1966, respectively.
As Pete has said, we first need to recover from the chaos and anarchy of Donald Trump, and to expect the nation to go to the far left, and support a required end of all private health insurance, is simply not reality.
This blogger takes the view that Americans should have a choice of keeping the health care coverage they have, or move toward government control through Medicare, but not force it on everyone over a four year period, and always allow private health insurance as an alternative, left up to the decisions of individual Americans and their families.
A long range goal is extend Medicare in stages, first to those between 50-65, then those in their 40s, then those in their 30s, and continuing on, but again with private insurance allowed if preferred.
And in foreign affairs, Mayor Pete would offer a revival of American respect and responsibility, veering away from the disastrous and reckless diplomacy of Donald Trump, and would restore American rationality and respect among our allies, and recognition that he would not be pushed around by authoritarians as has been occurring with Donald Trump.
A young, dynamic President is needed, and Mayor Pete fills the bill, following in the Democratic Party tradition of John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. A new generation of leadership is required.
Ronald,
This is one of your blog topic writings for which I disagree almost in its entirety.
For what he has to offer…Pete Buttigieg is not worth considering.
I find Mayor Pete is worth considering.
D, sorry we do not agree, but we are still friends, and can agree to disagree agreeably! 🙂
Time will tell, ultimately, what happens!
Ronald,
I have no problem with having an issue here or there on which we disagree.
The same is applicable with other posters here at “The Progressive Professor.â€
This is politics. We would not be real if every person were to think and feel the same.
D, I love your comment, as I totally agree with you, as we cannot all think and feel the same.
Politics is all about trying to achieve a good end, and none of us are perfect or always right, oh, except for Donald Trump, hahaha LOL!:)
Warren To Release Plan To Pay For ‘Medicare For All’
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/warren-to-release-plan-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all_n_5daca531e4b0422422c6ff00
Mayor Pete is surging in Iowa polls, closing in on Biden and Warren.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/21/20924623/pete-buttigieg-surge-iowa-suffolk-usa-today-poll
Elizabeth Warren Unveils Education Plan To Fight Segregation And High-Stakes Testing
The sweeping plan also takes aim at charters, suggesting they divert precious resources away from traditional public schools.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-education-plan_n_5dacfaffe4b0422422c73a78
Does anybody on this list honestly and sincerely believe that a gay man has even a snowball’s chance in Congress of getting elected President in this country in 2020? If You do, on what basis?
Only evangelical Christians, hard line Catholics, and Orthodox Jews are anti gay, not a majority in thenation, with a younger generation much more tolerant.
We elected a Catholic and a mixed race President, when there was strong opposition, and it is time to break another barrier!
Only? You’re sure about that?
Has any pollster ever asked anybody: “Would You NOT vote for a candidate because he is gay, regardless of his positions on political issues?”
Breaking the barrier of getting a Woman elected President will be a lot easier than getting a Gay.into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Beware, Pete Buttigieg Is a Sharp Corporate Tool
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/10/21/beware-pete-buttigieg-sharp-corporate-tool? by Norman Solomon, founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.
“With the mutual alignment of Buttigieg and his corporate healthcare-industry donors, Mayor Pete’s approach seems to be a case of a flimflamming candidate who poses as a forthright leader…. .”
Actually, Jeffrey, I think electing a gay man would be easier than electing a woman President, as there is a much larger number of people who are misogynists, than anti gay, as I see it.
And as far as Pete being a “corporate tool”, there is no one who is able to be truly separated from corporate influence, who could be elected, and I think Medicare For All would never happen unless the Democrats had a 60 percent majority in both houses, as they did in the New Deal of FDR in 1935-1936 and the Great Society of LBJ in 1965-1966, when amazing social and economic reforms occurred.
Since there is no chance of that, a slow evolution toward Medicare for All, but allowing people who want to keep their private insurance to keep it, makes sense, as we move toward, in stages, Medicare for those 50-65, then later the 40s, and so on over a period of ten or more years, and assuming the Democrats have control of Congress and the Oval Office!
Jeffrey Moebus,
Your second post is why I dismiss Pete Buttigieg.
I also wrote, at some point in 2018 (if I recall correctly, it was in November): The Democratic Party will not win back the presidency of the United States without a nominee who truly supports—and is determined to deliver—Medicare for All. (Those were not necessarily the exact words.)
Pete Buttigieg opposes Medicare for All. And he will not be president of the United States.
I agree with the Professor. To get Medicare For All passed we will need a super majority. Since that is unlikely to happen, it’s best to gradually reduce the age eligibility of Medicare.
Of course, if Trump gets back in, and, God forbid, Republicans get control of both houses of Congress, Medicare will be on the chopping block, as well as Medicaid and Social Security, as the goal of the Republican party is to get rid of all progress created by the New Deal and the Great Society.
Republicans Are the Party of the Wealthy Elite
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/10/22/republicans-are-the-party-of-the-wealthy-elite/
Frankly, I’m not interested in hearing from people who suggest that the Democratic Party doesn’t pay enough attention to the pocketbook issues faced by most Americans. Regardless of the fact that they have adopted different strategies, you would be hard-pressed to find a Democrat who wasn’t in favor of:
-Providing more affordable access to health care,
-Raising the minimum wage,
-Expanding living wage jobs via investments in infrastructure and sustainable energy,
-Making college more affordable,
-Expanding access to child care and pre-K, and
-Protecting and strengthening Social Security.
The other thing Democrats agree about is that, in order to address those issues, we need a progressive tax system in which the wealthy pay their fair share.
By way of contrast, Republicans—including Donald Trump—are opposed to all of the above. For decades now, the GOP has been lying to middle class American by pretending to be their champion, while attempting to paint Democrats as the party of the elite. That is a lie and anyone on the left who promotes it should be called out.
To demonstrate the gulf that exists between the two parties on these issues, conservative economist Peter Morici appeared on Fox and Friends Monday morning to discuss Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax. As a reminder, here is how Matthew Yglesias describes her plan.
[The basic plan is to levy a 2 percent tax on fortunes worth more than $50 million, and a 3 percent tax on fortunes worth more than $1 billion. According to the post, Saez estimates this tax would hit approximately 75,000 families and raise $2.75 trillion over a 10-year period.]
Here is the discussion between Steve Doocy and Morici.
[Fox guest Peter Morici on Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax: “$50 million is big, but it’s not as big as you think.” pic.twitter.com/TZx8z2a6sl — Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) October 21, 2019]
It is important to note that under Warren’s proposal, the 2 percent wealth tax doesn’t kick in until after $50 million. But Morici says that $50 million is “not as big as you think it is.â€
I would suggest that just the opposite is true. Most of us have a hard time grasping how big it is. Someone on twitter helped us with that by providing this example: “Imagine being given $5k per day every day for more than …27 YEARS!†Another twitter user pointed out that if the $50 million were invested with a return rate of 4 percent, it would provide “$2 million in income per year without ever touching the principle, while allowing it to keep getting bigger.â€
Getting back to the description from Yglesias, there are 75,000 Americans whose wealth is actually higher than $50 million. We now know that, thanks to Republican policies, the wealthiest among that group pay a lower tax rate than the rest of us.
[For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group, according to newly released data.
That’s a sharp change from the 1950s and 1960s, when the wealthy paid vastly higher tax rates than the middle class or poor.
Since then, taxes that hit the wealthiest the hardest — like the estate tax and corporate tax — have plummeted, while tax avoidance has become more common.
President Trump’s 2017 tax cut, which was largely a handout to the rich, plays a role, too. It helped push the tax rate on the 400 wealthiest households below the rates for almost everyone else.]
Republicans are the ones who have been pushing to repeal the estate tax, which they re-named the “death tax.†They are also the ones who made a reduction of the corporate tax rate a centerfold of their most recent tax cut.
When it comes to the cumulative effect of Republican policies, we’ve seen this play before. The next act will feature warnings about the ballooning federal deficit, with demands that services be cut for every group of Americans except the military. Meanwhile, they will insist that we can’t contemplate raising taxes on the people who are worth more than $50 million dollars, because that’s not as much as we think.
Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax is just one Democratic proposal that would make our tax system more progressive, while providing funds for the kinds of programs and services that help working Americans. Talking about it has already brought at least one conservative out from behind the curtain to defend the uber wealthy. More of that, please.
Princess Leia, and Pragmatic Progressive, totally in agreement on your last posts!
New York Times is mentioning that party leaders are getting fatalistic about Democrats’ chances in 2020 are musing about possible late entrants to the race.
Rachel Maddow show’s take on it –
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/anxious-dems-ask-familiar-question-there-anybody-else
CNN has new polling. Joe Biden is the No. 1 choice for the Democratic presidential nomination, with 34% of voters backing him. That’s up significantly from 24% last month.
Biden leads Elizabeth Warren (19%), Bernie Sanders (16%), Pete Buttigieg (6%), Kamala Harris (6%), Amy Klobuchar (3%) and Beto O’Rourke (3%). No one else is above 3%.
Biden, Warren, Sanders, and Buttigieg all beat Trump in general election matchups.
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/cnn-poll-10-23-2019/index.html
538 is saying that Biden, Sanders, Harris and Buttigieg supporters all have something in common – their supporters all like Warren.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-2020-candidates-have-something-in-common-their-supporters-also-like-warren/