What are the biggest threats to the American Dream right now, to our unity and prosperity, our happiness and civic health?
First, an economic stagnation that we are only just now, eight years into an economic recovery, beginning to escape — a stagnation that has left median incomes roughly flat for almost a generation, encouraged populism on the left and right, and made every kind of polarization that much worse.
First, an economic stagnation that we are only just now, eight years into an economic recovery, beginning to escape — a stagnation that has left median incomes roughly flat for almost a generation, encouraged populism on the left and right, and made every kind of polarization that much worse.
.. And if the Democrats, having blown up the insurance system once to implement Obamacare, really rallied around a Bernie Sanders-style proposal to do it all over again but on a bigger scale? Then not only would 2020 be a health care election, but if the Democrat won, the next two years would be consumed by outlandish single-payer expectations.
Where would that leave our two big problems, stagnation and the social crisis?
.. But when your main challenges involve men who aren’t working, wages that aren’t rising, families that aren’t forming and communities that are collapsing, constantly overhauling health insurance is at best an indirect response, at worst a non sequitur.
.. Democrats, meanwhile, could let single-payer dreams wait (or just die) and think instead about spending that supports work and family directly. They could look at proposals for a larger earned-income tax credit, a family allowance, and let the “job guarantee” and “guaranteed basic income”factions fight things out. If they want to go big in 2020, they could run on wage subsidies and public works, not another disruptive health care vision.
.. The country has bigger problems than its insurance system. It’s time for both parties to act like it.
Why a Universal Basic Income Would Be a Calamity
How long before the elites decide the unemployed underclass shouldn’t have the right to vote?
Finland has been testing a basic income for 2,000 of its unemployed citizens since January, and UBI proponents say the Nordic country is providing an example for the U.S. It will be interesting to see the Finnish results, but Americans shouldn’t read too much into the outcome of a small-scale, early-stage trial. Look instead to Saudi Arabia, which for decades has attempted the wholesale replacement of work with government subsidies. Perhaps more than half of all Saudis are unemployed and not seeking work. They live off payments funded by the country’s oil wealth... Regular citizens lack dignity while the royal family lives a life of luxury. The technocratic elite has embraced relatively liberal values at odds with much of the society’s conservatism. These divisions have made the country a fertile recruiting ground for extremists... At the heart of a functioning democratic society is a social contract built on the independence and equality of individuals. Casually accepting the mass unemployment of a large part of the country and viewing those people as burdens would undermine this social contract .... It would also create a structural division of society that would destroy any pretense of equality... UBI supporters would counter that their system would free people to pursue self-improvement and to take risks. America’s experience over the past couple of decades suggests that the opposite is more likely. Labor Department data show that at the end of June the U.S. had 6.2 million vacant jobs. Millions of skilled manufacturing and cybersecurity jobs will go unfilled in the coming years.This problem stems from a lack of skilled workers. While better retraining programs are necessary, too many of the unemployed, or underemployed, lack the motivation to learn new skills. Increasingly, young unemployed men are perfectly content to stay at home playing videogames.
.. Perhaps it could work as only a supplement to earned income.
..In the same Harvard commencement speech in which Mr. Zuckerberg called for a basic income, he also spent significant time talking about the need for purpose. But purpose can’t be manufactured, nor can it be given out alongside a government subsidy. It comes from having deep-seated responsibility—to yourself, your family and society as a whole.
Pope Francis Shocks Workers With Pro-Capitalism Pitch
“There can’t be a good economy without good businessmen, without their capacity to create and to produce,” he said, shattering his reputation as an enemy of the free market economy.
.. Moreover, only an economically healthy society can keep a democracy afloat, he suggested... “A monthly check from the state that allows you to keep the family afloat doesn’t solve the problem. It has to be resolved with work for everyone,” he said... “When it’s a system of individual incentives that puts workers into competition among themselves, you can obtain some advantages, but it ends up ruining the trust that’s the soul of any organization,” the Pope argued. “When a crisis comes, the company falls apart. It implodes, because there’s no longer any harmony.”.. The Pope said that it is “the many thousands of men and women who strive each day to do an honest day’s work, to bring home their daily bread, to save money and – one step at a time – to build a better life for their families” who “sustain the life of society.”.. The Pope’s most remarkable words came when speaking about the ability of the free market to lift people out of poverty... “Business is a noble vocation,” the Pope continued, “directed to producing wealth and improving the world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good.”
Trump’s Bob Kerrey Budget
Without entitlement reform, everything else gets squeezed.
think of it as the vindication of Bob Kerrey. The former Nebraska Senator and a few other brave Democrats warned repeatedly in the 1990s that failing to reform entitlements would eventually squeeze other progressive programs. Well, here we are.
.. There is no way the U.S. can afford its entitlement commitments without 3% growth, much less balance the budget.
.. But that merely takes defense up to 3.2% of GDP, before declining to 2.3% in 2027. This is hardly Ronald Reagan’s defense buildup—which peaked at 6% in 1986—reflecting how entitlements now eat up so much more of the federal fisc.
..The White House also wants to reform programs that have ballooned during the Obama years and effectively become a guaranteed national income. The budget cuts $193 billion over 10 years from food stamps, mainly by letting states impose a work requirement; $72 billion from the Social Security Disability Insurance program; and $12.5 billion by requiring a Social Security number to receive the earned-income tax credit or child tax credits.