Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin has been asking Democratic presidential candidates about their positions. Their answers help to illustrate the differences among liberal, progressive, centrist, socialist, etc.
One annoying feature of the forum software is that it doesn't quote stuff that's already in quote tags. This makes it difficult to respond to quoted citations, since they don't appear when you quote the post they came from. Next time, try using the INDENT tag to cite material you wish to discuss.
Elizabeth Warren:
In a well-functioning market, companies compete by providing better products, better service, or better prices. That kind of competition benefits customers and rewards businesses that out-innovate or out-work their competitors.
But when companies can deceive their customers about the quality or price of their products, that’s cheating — and the market stops working. Companies that are willing to deceive their customers are rewarded with more business, while honest companies struggle to keep up. That’s bad for customers and bad for the companies that just want to do the right thing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...l_manual&utm_term=.fb6730951547&noredirect=on
Enforcing contracts and prosecuting fraud is solid small-government conservative stuff, in my book.
Eric Garcetti:
A debate over being “pro-trade” or “anti-trade” is out of touch with today’s economy. The fact is, there are far more customers for American products outside of the U.S. than there are here at home. With open markets and a level playing field, American workers can out-compete workers anywhere in the world.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...&noredirect=on
Weasel words: "with open markets and a level playing field".
You out-compete when you have a competitive advantage. Whether is more endurance, more natural resources, more education, whatever. You succeed at competition when you find a place on the field that tilts in your favor. Sometimes, governments try to tilt the field in their own favor, or level out a tilt against them. Is Garcetti arguing for global
laissez-faire, and may the best competitive advantage win? Or is he arguing for global mercantilism, and nobody sells anything to anybody without strict competitive parity between all parties?
Either way, I don't think American workers really can out-compete all other workers. American workers have some competitive advantages in some areas, due to history and geography. They have some other advantages due to artificial trade restrictions.
Garcetti needs to be clear about what his actual plans are, for "open markets and a level playing field", and what competitive advantage he intends to preserve for American workers on such a field.
Chris Murphy:
1. What is the right balance of taxes, debt and spending?
The answer to this question is almost completely dependent on what government is buying with its spending, and what activity the government is taxing. In general, without the specifics, government should roughly approximate budgetary outputs with inputs, while leaving room to create debt for spending projects that will provide a return on investment in a longer term window. Most smart economists I know suggest that deficits in the range of 3 percent of gross domestic product are responsible and manageable.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...&noredirect=on
Sounds reasonable to me. Dunno where exactly it's supposed to fall on the progressive-conservative continuum, so I'll just mark it as "moderate centrist" for now.
John Delaney:
The right balance of taxes and spending would produce deficits of about 2 percent across the long term. Under my economic policies, I believe the economy can consistently grow at least 2.5 percent per year, and if we can manage long-term annual deficits to be less than the level of annual economic growth, then the debt as a percentage of our economy will go down, which is what matters. The key metric is debt as a percentage of gross domestic product, and I would like to start slowly lowering that ratio to be more in line with historical averages. To achieve this, we need to increase revenue, which I would do by: (1) implementing a form of the “Buffet rule,” which involves synchronizing capital gains tax rates with ordinary income tax rates. We do not need a lower capital gains rate; that is an outdated incentive and contributes meaningfully to the structural unfairness in the tax code as investors pay lower taxes than workers, (2) by rolling back the tax cuts on high earners from the GOP tax reform, and (3) by raising corporate tax rates — not to where they were — but to about 27 percent. On the spending side, we have to lower long-term spending growth, which should be focused on fixing health care.
Interesting. This the most detailed of the responses, with the most specifics. I don't see anything to hate, but I'll want to think about this a bit more.
