We’ve finally got the full text of the Republican healthcare plan. Unfortunately, the plan is likely to leave everyone dissatisfied–the right will be frustrated, because it leaves the basic structure of Obamacare intact, while the left will be furious, because the changes the Republicans have proposed weaken that structure rather than reinforce it. Here’s what the new bill does and why it works so poorly.
Continue reading “Why the Republican Healthcare Plan Doesn’t Work”
The 2016 election has been full of lies and falsehood. Candidates routinely say things that are not true or make misleading and fallacious arguments. But not all lies are equal–some are more damaging than others, some may even appear justifiable. So today I’d like to break down the different kinds of lies in politics and think about which ones are the most objectionable. To spice things up, we’ll include examples from the campaign of each kind of lie. Are you ready? Let’s go.
Too often, opponents of Donald Trump discredit themselves by distorting or exaggerating his statements in an effort to damage him. Don’t mistake my meaning–there are a lot of serious problems with Trump as a potential president. But by focusing on made up garbage instead of hitting Trump with hard policy arguments, we end up giving Trump a pass in all the areas that really matter and encouraging people to disbelieve us when we are pointing at something that’s truly important. So today I’m going to establish myself as not one of those people by picking apart 5 bad anti-Trump arguments, followed with 5 anti-Trump arguments that really should be convincing.
Continue reading “5 Best and 5 Worst Reasons to Oppose Donald Trump”
As some of you may know, I am an avid reader of Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman’s blog. He is a stalwart opponent of austerity and has written some brilliant pieces on it. However, I find myself in disagreement with his latest column about the 2016 Democratic Party primary election in the United States, where Krugman argues that because Bernie Sanders’ single payer proposal is unlikely to be passed by congress it is a distraction rather than a meaningful point of distinction between himself and Hillary Clinton.
Continue reading “Paul Krugman is Wrong about the Democratic Primary”
Since the Democratic Party debate, folks have been talking about Bernie Sanders‘ desire to make the United States more like Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. One of the most common responses to Sanders I’ve heard is the idea that the United States is too big to successfully imitate the Nordic countries. During the debate, Anderson Cooper himself said:
Denmark is a country that has a population — Denmark is a country that has a population of 5.6 million people.
I’ve seen the same thought echoed by many people, even people who are otherwise quite sympathetic to Sanders. This is very odd, because if we subject this thought to even the tiniest amount of scrutiny, it collapses.
Continue reading “Misconceptions: The United States is Not “Too Big” to be More Like Denmark”
Benjamin Studebaker 