Yet Another Attempt to Make the World a Better Place by Writing Things
After a great deal of prodding from both centrist and lefty critics, Elizabeth Warren finally put out her Medicare-For-All plan. The problem is that the plan is both unrealistic on its own terms and openly pretend. Let me show you how.
Continue reading “Elizabeth Warren’s Medicare-For-All “Plan” is Pretend”
I have a new piece out at New Republic on the president’s tariffs. You can read it here:
https://newrepublic.com/article/154852/real-stakes-trumps-trade-war-china
They have edited it to sync up with their preferred style, so it reads a bit differently from the rest of my work.
When a politician is caught out for taking the wrong position or constructing their proposals poorly, they often try to cover their tracks. If they change what’s on their website or in their policy white paper and remove all traces of the previous language, most voters will never know they’ve flip-flopped. Andrew Yang does this in an especially flagrant way. It’s a game of hide and seek. Let me give you two examples. Continue reading “Andrew Yang is Playing Hide and Seek With the Left Press”
Tonight I found myself looking over and old post–“Who is the Most Qualified Presidential Candidate Ever?“, from September 2016. It was shortly before the presidential election, and Americans were arguing about whether Hillary Clinton was the “most qualified” candidate in history, in the sense of “most experienced”. To answer that question, I devised a formula I thought was cute. So tonight I’ll score the 2020 Democratic nominees.
Continue reading “Which 2020 Democrat is the Most Experienced?”
Yesterday, I wrote a post highlighting the regressive effects of Andrew Yang’s UBI proposal, especially its impact on our poorest and most vulnerable. Yang promises to pay for his UBI (of just $1,000 per month–far lower than the living wage) with a combination of spending cuts and a regressive VAT, or national sales tax. Yang writes openly of fooling poor people into exchanging lucrative benefits with spending-restrictions for smaller lump sums:
Andrew proposes funding UBI by consolidating some welfare programs and implementing a Value-Added Tax (VAT) of 10%. Current welfare and social program beneficiaries would be given a choice between their current benefits or $1,000 cash unconditionally – most would prefer cash with no restriction.
The post has been picked up by parts of the basic income community and has been circulated in Yang subreddits. But to my horror, many people in these circles seem to be untroubled by these features. This leaves me deeply concerned about whether rank and file Yang supporters care about poor people on any level.
Continue reading “Have the UBI People Turned to the Dark Side?”
Benjamin Studebaker 