Yves here. Readers know I have a weakness for righteous rants…
By Beverly Mann. Originally published at Angry Bear
Hillary Clinton’s performance wasn’t as clean or as crisp as her last one. Among other things, she invoked 9/11 in order to dodge a question about her campaign donors. But she effectively made the case that, though Sanders speaks about important questions, his solutions are ultimately simplistic and hers are better. Instead of railing about breaking up the big banks, focus on identifying and moderating the biggest risks to the financial system. Instead of making college free for everyone, increase access to those who need it and decline to subsidize wealthy kids’ tuition.
– Can anyone really imagine Bernie Sanders in the White House?, Stephen Stromberg, Washington Post, Nov. 15
Stromberg, a Washington Post editorial writer who also blogs there, is an all-but-official Clinton campaign mouthpiece who last month, in a blog post and (unforgivably) a Post editorial (i.e., commentary with no byline, published on behalf of the Post’s editorial board) baldly misrepresented what Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon on Tuesday misrepresented about Sanders’ single-payer healthcare insurance plan, but from a different angle: Stromberg said that the cost of the single-payer plan would be in addition to the cost of healthcare now. Actual healthcare, not just insurance premiums.
According to Stomberg and the Post’s editorial board then, hospitals, physicians and other healthcare provides would receive full payment from private insurers and also full payment from the government. And employers, employees and individual-market policyholders would continue to pay premiums to private insurers while they also paid taxes to the federal government for single-payer—double-payer?—insurance.
A nice deal for some but not, let’s say, for others. Also, a preposterous misrepresentation of Sanders’ plan.
Fast-forward a month and Stromberg, this time speaking only for himself (as far as I know; I don’t read all the Post’s editorials) and for the Clinton campaign, picks up on Clinton’s invocation of the horror of the public paying college tuition for Donald Trump’s kids. But since he probably knows that Trump’s kids no more went to public colleges than did Clinton’s kid, he broadens it.
Instead of making college free for everyone, increase access to those who need it and decline to subsidize wealthy kids’ tuition. Good line! At least for the ears of voters who are unaware that public universities, like private ones, quietly skew their admissions processes to favor the kids of parents who likely can pay full tuition simply by switching the funds from a CD or other savings account into a checking account at the beginning of each semester, thus removing the need for the school to dig into its endowment fund to provide financial assistance. Or to worry about whether the student will have that loan money ready at the beginning of each semester.
Which is why Jennifer Gratz, salutatorian at her working class Detroit suburb’s high school, whose extracurriculars included cheerleading but probably not a summer in Honduras assisting the poor, was denied admission to the University of Michigan back in 1995. And why she sued the University in what eventually became a landmark Supreme Court case challenging the constitutionality under the equal protection clause of UM’s affirmative action program.
She did not challenge the constitutionality of the U’s almost-certain, but unstated, admissions policy that would ensure that the freshman class had a substantial percentage of students from families wealthy enough to pay the full tuition.
Y’know, the ones wealthy enough to pay for SAT tutoring, SAT practice courts, and if necessary more than one SAT exam.
What especially angers me about this let’s-not-subsidize-wealthy-kids’-college-tuition canard is that it uses disparities in ability to pay the tuition as a clever way to ensure the admissions status quo. Or something close to the status quo.
In her and her campaign spokesman’s statements in the last several days—most notably her “Read My Lips; No New Taxes on the Middle Class, Even $1.35/wk to Pay for Family and Medical Leave” declaration, but other statements too—she’s overtly declaring herself a triangulator. And some progressive political pundits are noticing it. Yes!* They!** Are!*** And Sanders needs to start quoting these articles, in speaking and in web and television ads.
I said here yesterday that Clinton is running a Republican-style campaign. But it’s not only its style–its tactics–that are Republican. Watch her edge ever closer on substance as well. Which is the way she began her campaign last spring and early summer, until it became clear that Sanders’ campaign was catching on.
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*Hillary Clinton Attacks Bernie Sanders’ Progressive Agenda: Why is she talking like a Republican?, Jonathan Cohn, Senior National Correspondent, Huffington Post, Nov. 17
**Hillary Clinton Hits Bernie Sanders on Taxes, Paul Waldman, Washington Post, Nov. 17
***Under attack at the Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton plays EVERY POSSIBLE CARD, Alexandra Petri, The Washington Post, Nov. 14
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Her campaign is about pushing KNOWN emotional buttons.
That Sanders is unable or unwilling to do what it takes to win against these tactics is why I, and I never thought I would say this, agree with the New Republi: he lacks the instincts to go for the win by going for the jugular.
I’m still desperately looking for people on the left who can combine their being right on the issues, solutions and compassion with the personality and tactical smarts of the Neoliberals.
Instead we get a choice between right on policy versus tactical smarts as if the two are mutually exclusive. The left continues to neuter itself
Survival of the Fittest politics is a huge factor in how the last 50ish years of history came to be….
Skippy…. be careful what you pine for…
Thank you for once again conflating tactics with policy outcomes, and thus illustrating the point.
Thank you for your inability to grasp the sociopolitical concept… and its larger ramifications…
I don’t know how to talk to irrational people
you keeo conflating
Link for me the rational connection between why sanders can’t go after Clinton for her leadership and character failures as a means of demonstrating why she can’t be trusted on say Medicare for all or education ?
The truth is I know you can’t link why the tactic is a bad idea
Instead you strangely start to bring up non tactical info
You will just keep trolling me for hurt feelings over pointing out that sanders makes the same mistakes that have been resulting in loses for a long time
You want to discuss loses that no longer need to be happening bc you can’t emotionally figure out that you are fighting old battles rather than the current primary
We can’t, in good conscience, continue to pay for public works projects knowing that The Donald’s kids are driving on these roads, getting their electrical power from these lines, sourcing water from the same pipes and so forth. A few (moderate) tax rebates to impoverished families to allow them to build out their own infrastructure ought to do the trick.
rusti, I just updated the original post at Angry Bear to add your comment. And added a comment of my own after it: “Perfect. Question to self, though: Why didn’t YOU think of that, Beverly??”
Thanks for that.
Thank you for this, randi. I updated my original post on Angry Bear to quote your comment.
no but perhaps we can’t pay for things that primarily benefit those better off until fast food and retail workers earn a living wage. That I could understand.
There are several problems with the ‘living wage’ concept, particularly as it gels around $15.00 per hour. First, it favors the blue states, because it discourages employers from leaving blue states to set up facilities in red states, where wages are typically lower. It would increase unemployment in red states more than in blue states. We don’t need more friction between the regions.
Second: it will only encourage automation. Europe’s high mandated wages and rigid work rules have resulted in the death of the entry level job. This is one reason that the Europeans are going to have trouble with all the Syrian refugees: there are no entry level jobs for them to take: these jobs have been automated away.
Third: many professionals don’t clear $15.00 an hour by much, and some make less. Did you see the WSJ article about lawyers reading contracts in NYC for $12.00 an hour with no benefits? They’d be better off at Chik-Fil-A if the minimum goes to $15.00. Tenured college professors make about $20.00 an hour, but lecturers and adjuncts make far less. Some of them are lucky if they make $10.00 an hour. Is producing fast food so important that we want McDonald’s to be staffed by moonlighting lawyers and college professors? Not to mention the people struggling to make a living in welding and carpentry.
Income inequality has many causes, but one of the most important is not how much one is paid per hour, but how many hours one works.
First, I’ll assume you’re not snarking here and point to some contradictions. Blue states are losing jobs to red states (hmmm…south carolina) which doesn’t seem to bother you, why does jobs going the other way ( assuming your logic which is in itself faulty). Next you set out to set a relativism of scale (ism as in belief system) essentially saying high paying is $20, lawyers, doctors, you probably, only make $20/hr so $15/hr is sooooooo greedy…..in a word bullmalarkey. Set aside the fact that you browsed around your mind for the various sweatshops that some people, but definitely not all (lloyd blankfein $20/hr? not saying he’s worth more than that mind you) are forced to submit to. The workforce in america has long been highly educated, go find a job in these industries you have so little respect for and you will find many many accredited individuals. But really it’s your last line that roused me to speak
“Income inequality has many causes, but one of the most important is not how much one is paid per hour, but how many hours one works.”
So lloyd became a billionaire by working 70 hundred thousand hours a day? If I had a dime for all you self described type A’s (ever notice how they all self describe?) who claim you are so smart and work so hard i’d be the billionaire. The earth spins around once in every 24 hrs for everyone on it. Go back to school.
America is a tournament where everybody wins because markets!
It doesn’t bother me that blue states are losing jobs to red states. I consider the blue state social model to be a failure. It relys on ever higher taxes and ever higher payoffs to select groups, and is not sustainable. I’m happy for blue staters to come to red states, except that they bring their failed policies with them.
Professionals and managers work longer hours than they did in the ’50s and ’60s. Unskilled and semiskilled laborers work fewer hours. In addition, the professional and managerial ranks have been opened to women, and they tend to marry other professionals and managers (they rarely marry down in terms of educational attainment). This helps worsen inequality in household incomes. These trends mean a lot more in terms of creating income inequality than does Lloyd Blankfein’s paycheck.
Red states are actively subsidized by blue states. Your argument is null and void.
http://aattp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/red-state-socialism.jpg
This claim doesn’t stand up to analysis. Federal expenditures are primarily for defense, then farm subsidies, retirement programs, and infrastructure projects (which, where the Interstate Highway System is concerned, is defense). Red states are where more military bases are, plus more farms, farm to market highways, and more retirees. Of course Red states get more money from the federal government. It’s not welfare money, it’s common good money. Money that would put blue states at risk if it were not spent in the red states.
Sounds like it favors working people. Isn’t that more important than favoring regions?
I think opinions differ about whether it is better to have a high price for labor, then cater to the needs of those who are unemployed by that high price, or to have a market clearing price for labor, so that everyone who wants to be employed can be. I think the latter is more just and efficacious for the good of society.
Why does Jim in SC think a $15/hr. minimum-wage requirement would not apply to lawyers and adjunct professors who make $12/hr. or $10/hr.?
And, like tegnost, I’m sorta wondering why Jim in SC thinks workers who are paid $10/hr. have the power to lengthen the day from 24 hours to, say, 200 hours so that they can make as much each week as a first-year trader at a hedge fund.
You’re a genius, Jim!
Thank you, Beverly.
Doctors, lawyers, and teachers ‘enjoy’ the learned professional exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act. There is no minimum wage or overtime for them. Adjunct professors are sometimes treated as independent contractors and sometimes as employees. To find out what you are, you typically have to sue.
First year pay on Wall Street is not necessarily huge. It may be higher than an average salary, but that is partly compensation for the brevity of the value of one’s specialized knowledge in that arena. Careers are often short.
My point is that paying fast food workers the same thing or more than people who have spent time and effort developing specialized skills will lead the learned to abandon their learning, and that can’t be good for society. Meanwhile, fast food workers will lose their jobs thanks to both automation and stiffer competition.
“Stromberg said that the cost of the single-payer plan would be in addition to the cost of healthcare now. Actual healthcare, not just insurance premiums.”
This is actually what we have now: our “health care” costs just about double, per capita, what countries with good single payer programs pay, with one little hitch: we don’t get the comprehensive, universal health CARE that people in those other countries get. (Free bonus: at double the per capita cost, our results are demonstrably worse.)
That’s probably what gave Stromberg the idea.
Pretty crafty: deny a toxic reality, then put forth the lie that your opponent’s policy would create that horrible reality.
This is the distorted house of mirrors in which we live.
^^ Zactly! ^^
I’m glad I missed that editorial as ACA is the very health care system he describes- you pay thousands upon thousands of dollars to a rentier and then must pay thousands more before that rentier coughs up a portion of the costs. Meanwhile the healthcare providers game the system by providing multiple prices for the same work depending on who is paying for the service and how. You know, the system to which Clinton demanded Democrats declare fealty in the same debate where she pretended 9/11 had anything to do with the fact that she is Goldman Sachs’ handmaiden.
Let’s be honest, Clinton is just like most of the Republicans in that education is only for the deserving, and who is deserving is determined by either having money or connections who have money.
Progressives always shoot themselves in the foot, when they stray away from the principle of universal benefits.
Keep it simple…. universal benefits and steeply progressive taxation. This third way, means tested stuff just gnaws away and rots the soul out of any worthwhile public initiative.
Like the lady says, the rich don’t use public services anyhow. As if they would be seen dead on a bus or in a public toilet.
Social welfare must be universal, and not means tested, within the class of eligible recipients. That’s what social democracy means: every one of us, as a matter of right, enjoys the benefits of programs meant to offset, ameliorate, or counteract the horrible outcomes of our *Free* Markets system. Discriminating (whether positively or not) on the basis of income and wealth insures that divide and rule, the devil take the hindmost, remain the Social Order of the day.
Love the rant.
But at the same time, it seems to fall into similar pitfalls. By far the biggest education-related socioeconomic divide in our society happens in secondary school, not higher education. This embedded assumption that college – whether free or not – solves our problems is itself part of the problem. Higher education as it exists today is largely irrelevant. It is not a public good; virtually all of the benefit accrues to the individual employees and students, not society at large.
And there are important ways to stop subsidizing wealthy kids, like stop giving tax breaks that undermine progressive income taxation, such as tax-exempt status for universities and tax deductability of contributions.
Means testing higher education “benefits” is akin to the notion of means testing what you receive in SSI upon retirement.
No and no.
That’s not how it works. It’s a slippery slope towards making both part of the “welfare” system of “entitlements” that the rightwing have been carefully propagandized to HATE and see as dramatically unfair (it is unfair but not all that dramatically, but I digress).
Offer the benefits to all who qualify with no means testing, while at the same time improving the progressive tax system (making that more fair) and increasing capital gains taxes (for starters; there’s loads more).
This suggestion is patently foolish and should be avoided at all costs.
Fordlandia, The Doctrine of Proportion, & War
Legitimate, suitable, necessary and reasonable.
So, Pollyanna is brought to trial of fact on medical neglect, upon failure to consent to failure to advise, in violation of parental order, against medical advise, and the critters representing themselves as medical professionals are shielded from cross-examination, let alone standing trial for their actions, upon expert assumption, Obamacare. Instead, the evidence presented is being politically incorrect, too damn positive to heed the advice of charlatans, optimistic and cheerful, scoring too high on the test.
What does a 98% conviction rate over decades tell you?
The golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, works both ways, saying one thing and doing another, from thine own mouth, creates the geometry of lies in the black hole. Labor doesn’t waste its time playing games with pawns. And the communists kill each other accordingly.
Whether the positive feedback loop between a market wed to government and war is a problem or a solution depends upon perspective. The empire falls on reversion, only to repeat itself, with such stupid human tricks. Space travel is a psychological, not a physical or intellectual problem.
The majority votes for the Dark Ages every time, and the length of depression is a function of time to discovery, that the isms are symbiotic, that freedom from personal responsibility is not freedom. Whether the monkey or the ape came first is irrelevant, because both are trapped in the prison of sinking real estate inflation, as their resulting demographics hit the wall. Delivering a baby isn’t rocket science, regardless of what the experts have to say on the matter, always creating a problem to fix it.
The counterweight is growing and falling, but surprise surprise, it’s not lifting the 1%, at each other’s throats. Of course the nazis are all in, up to their neck. Funny thing about the conveyance business, real estate and Germans…
Replacing the majority with a program is far easier than the majority assumed, including the programmers and politicians. The answer of course is to be yourself, to thine own self be true. Do your own research, instead of listening to the carnival barker and following the herd into the tent.
If you cannot maintain what you have, reaching for something more is not the answer. War is an artificial emergency, of communism falling into fascism, representing itself as socialism. Keep bombing poor Syria, complaining that lives don’t matter, in a University built for the purpose.
Count me as a proud alum of the University of Michigan. I went there during the 1970s, when working class kids were still quite commonplace on campus.
Not anymore.
It seems like the U-M is more about perpetuating privilege than it is about educating the people of Michigan. Including the ones who aren’t so affluent.
What angers me about it is how fundamentally dishonest and dopey the argument is. (See rusti’s comment above.) The same with Stephen Stromberg and the Washington Post editorial board’s comments about single payer. They might work—unfortunately—as campaign tactics but they’re a value-subtract in the political discourse.
“The United States and our allies must demonstrate that free people and free markets are still the hope of humanity.”
Hillary Clinton, speaking yesterday before the CFR, The Council on Foreign Relations, at length and in detail, on her policy for dealing Daesh and Jihadist Terrorists in general. It is her summing up on the largest scale of analysis her policy allows for, the last sentence from the 3rd to last paragraph. It was a long speech, and there is video and this transcript.
Free people are a transnational polity and free markets are transnational capitalism. The union of the state and the market to create the social order upon the principle of profit seeking enterprises.
http://www.cfr.org/radicalization-and-extremism/hillary-clinton-national-security-islamic-state/p37266
There is a reason why Hillary can be seen as talking like a republican, and that is because both parties are in agreement about free people and free markets, they are both in agreement about capitalism. And that is why here on this site and among conversations privately and in the media we hear that there is not a dimes worth of difference between both parties. At the largest unit of analysis that is true. The Post WWII vision of the world demands nations, not kingdoms or caliphates, and a United Nations to reconcile conflicts and begin the arduous task of social reconstruction of a world where people are never again organized by their governments for total war that could blow up civilization for a very long time, maybe forever. They are to be organized for participation in the global system, the world order of trade and commerce, not military invasion and territorial absorption. And the US, until it lost its wars in the past few decades, was the hegemonic arbiter of this world system.
At other units of analysis or even simple policy, there is wide and hostile disagreement. Without going into the agonizing details of the hunt for Universal Medicare, that’s Lambert’s job, God Bless Him, better him than me, the repeated lawsuits taken all the way to the US Supreme Court, to kill anything possible from any kind of government sponsored health care, under the guise of FREEDOM from despotic power overreach, is just a typical day in the office for the republican party. So, there are differences that can be seen between the two parties, or else the republicans would just go along with most of what the democrats do, because, you know, not a dimes worth of difference so why bother?
Treaties and bi-lateral agreements are the ties that bind nations and by the very logic of nation to nation relations, some sovereignty is waved for the sake of the deepening relationships. That’s why Boeing or Airbus jets from The Emirates or Russia land at international airports all over the US and the EU, without being shot out of the sky. We don’t think twice anymore about such things. But Hillary is talking about military responses to military attacks around the world not commercial air flights. So, among the many ways she can sound like a republican, is in the use of military might to deal with some problems. It does not seem to me that there will be a Paris Peace Conference with Jihadist Terrorists as part of a two pronged effort to cease the warfare. And that is what nations do when dealing with transnational security threats that do not involve a nation. Of course, nations that are recognized as such, Syria for instance, can be negotiated with, in conjunction with diplomatic partners, such as Russia. This is a good thing.
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From the Q&A at the CFR policy speech:
“QUESTION: “So, no fight against Assad for now?”
CLINTON: “There — we have to prioritize, and we had an opportunity, perhaps, I won’t say that it would’ve worked. But right now, we’ve got the Russians in protecting Assad, the Iranians and Hezbollah protecting Assad.
“We need to get people to turn against the common enemy of ISIS, and then we need to figure out how we put together a political outcome that provides enough autonomy, so that the separate communities within Syria will be able to re-create a Syrian state, even though it probably is unlikely it will be controlled by the Alawites from Damascus the same way it was before the civil war started.”
http://www.npr.org/2015/11/19/456666913/hillary-clinton-says-allies-should-prioritize-fighting-isis-over-assad
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So here, she is talking about the use of force in conjunction with partners, Russia especially. And here also, is a change in policy, for Hillary, no regime change by force of arms against Asaad, but some sort of negotiated social order after Daesh is destroyed. And of course any use of the military by a democrat makes them sound like a republican even if they are not prepared to escalate to Viet Nam levels of invasion. But then, Nixon was the Peace Candidate in ’68 with a secret peace plan. It’s still a big secret to everyone today, along with Bush’s WMDs.
And Barack Obama spoke of HOPE AND CHANGE. And he did offer hope and change and he did deliver some hope and some change. Some people felt bamboozled because they thought that was code for people’s revolution or capitalist defenestration. No, it just meant hope and change with capitalism not displaced, but then, who would ever think hope and change would mean a socialist takeover? Not me! Compare that with Bernie Sanders who uses the explicit phrase over and over again: POLITICAL REVOLUTION!
And DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM! Not hope and change but far more pointed, don’t you think. I can tell the difference between capitalism and its defenders and someone who is going to displace the dominance of the markets and replace it with conscious and deliberate democratic decision making on big, important policy issues that directly secure me and my community from economic want, fear of illness due to lack of money to pay off the remainder of the bills and loss of income when aged and/or infirmed.
So Hillary sounds like a republican by clearly being a defender of capitalism, with a small measure of kicking sand in the face rich people’s kids, who should not have tax payers subsidizing their college educations. This is little more than pseudo-sensitivity to the plight of the working man’s resentments of the spoiled rich, getting gravy on their feast while the working stiff gets a fried bologna sandwich. President Obama, if you remember, has proposed free community college, to go along with free public grade and HS. Bernie wants the public colleges to be free. Of course, private universities, the Ivies and other such private high caliber educations would not be a part of this, but they can pay the tuition of most people who can’t pay out of pocket. At least as long as their endowments hold up and as Yves reveals, they have a quota of the well off who can afford to pay the full freight.
And Bernie Sanders wants free university educations for all who can be admitted to the standards of the university system. And he wants Universal Single Payer Medicare. I can certainly tell the difference between that and some hope and some change. That’s a whole lot of structural changes to civil society and US Government policy. And that’s before we get to taxation and campaign finance reform and well, that would be a revolution in politics, which is the power over who gets what they want.
Hillary is only talking about sharing a bigger slice of the pie, Bernie is talking about sharing the power that decides what flavor the pie is or maybe we don’t want a pie at all, but an organic, nutritionally dense smoothie! And fighting over the slice of the pie is the only vision that democrats and republicans offer, austerity vs. an affluent society, on their terms, not political revolution. That’s why she can sound so much like a republican and Bernie contrasts this with demanding some real power sharing for a change.
The difference between buying politicians and sending your kid to college is that the more money you have the more politicians you can buy, but when it comes to sending a kid to college there is only the cost to send that kid to college.
To put it another way, the top 0.1% can own as much wealth as the bottom 90%, but the cost to send the the top 0.1%’s kids to college is about 0.1% of the cost of sending all kids to college. We aren’t going to make it tough on the 99.9% of kids to get free tuition just to save the money that the top 0.1% would use if they thought they wanted to send their kids to public colleges and universities rather than send them to Ivy League private colleges. Does Hillary Clinton ever listen to the words she speaks? They are ridiculous on the face of them.
Indeed, Steven.
What’s amusing is that Ms. Mann speaks about the democratic candidates as though one is coming up with more sensible policies than the other! As if focusing on and identifying the risks is going to somehow manage to make disappear the fact that all the major banks are insolvent and only the unlimited funds from the fed and the complete regulatory capture by the banks of the entities that who are supposed to regulate them allows them to continue to function and pretend as though they are really making profits.
And whether tweedle dee thinks education should be free and the tweedle dum thinks increasing access to education for everyone, the reality is that they are both equally asinine solutions given the fact that there is no competition in the education sector leading to useless degrees and price inflation well beyond the capacity of any but the most wealthy individuals being able to afford the useless paper chase.
Then you move on to healthcare. Another captured industry by this time the pharmaceutical companies and the allopathic doctors who in their selfish self serving interests have managed to leave Americans as having the most expensive healthcare in the world that delivers the least benefit.
Really who in their right mind would even bother to discuss such vapidity unless they actually believed that the tinkering proposed by the two democratic candidates could actually deliver some value to the public! That in and of itself is sad because it rather than being clear and honest with the public in showing how neither one of them offers any viable solution, the writer is here, pretending that one solution is actually more viable than the other!?! I guess this is what America has turned into.
The rich are a tiny fraction of the population, even of that part that desires a college education. To adopt a means test for weeding out the unworthy – the rich – transforms a public utility – the production of an educated citizenry – into a welfare program. Welfare programs are vulnerable to the hatred that some in public life have for people with low incomes. Think of the provision of Social Security that was damned by Reaganites as welfare and then abolished by Clinton. That act created lasting poverty for many women and children.
I’m sort of curious, Erwin. Sanders’ proposals actually work quite well in several other countries, in keeping costs of healthcare and costs of a college education well within acceptable levels. So why do you presume that the effect would not be at least somewhat similar here?