Reparations, income handouts, guaranteed jobs: Dems tilt hard left

[anatta]

Free tuition, minimum wage hikes and "Medicare for all" are so 2016.

As Democrats look ahead to the midterms and the 2020 presidential race, lawmakers and candidates are pushing the agenda even further to the left -- with bigger promises of sweeping government welfare programs ranging from guaranteed jobs to universal income.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the standard-bearer for the party's left flank in 2016, once again is helping to lead the charge. He reportedly is set to announce a plan that will guarantee a $15-an-hour job -- and health-care benefits -- to every American “who wants or needs one.” The plan, first reported by The Washington Post, would fund hundreds of government projects such as “infrastructure, care giving, the environment, education and other goals.”

Sanders’ office said they have not yet done a cost estimate or devised how they would pay for the massive government commitment. A spokesman for Sanders did not respond to a request for more details from Fox News.

But while Sanders once represented a fringe on the Democratic Party’s left, his views are becoming more mainstream in the party, with at least two other presidential prospects adopting similar policy proposals that would make Roosevelt’s New Deal look like old hat.

“I think Senator Sanders’ performance during the presidential campaign was much better than other Democrats expected, and this has given him a higher profile and greater standing in the campaign,” Stan Veuger, economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told Fox News.

“Hillary [Clinton] losing to Trump has probably also convinced some people within the Democratic Party that a more populist platform would be electorally successful in general-election settings,” he said.

As the Democratic Party aims to win the House in November and has an eye on the 2020 presidential election, it is looking a lot more like Sanders’ party than it did in 2015, at least when it comes to economic policy.

Last week, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., tweeted support for a jobs guarantee plan, saying it would help "regular Americans who are unemployed and willing to work to better their local community." She also called for "big, bold ideas to fix our economy."

On Friday, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., announced the Federal Jobs Guarantee Development Act, which would call for the Department of Labor to select up to 15 areas to institute a job guarantee. According to Vox, which first reported on Booker's plan, those jobs would pay the higher of $15 per hour or the prevailing wage and offer paid family leave and health benefits.

"The federal jobs guarantee is an idea that demands to be taken seriously," Booker said in a statement. "Creating an employment guarantee would give all Americans a shot at a day’s work and, by introducing competition into the labor market, raise wages and improve benefits for all workers."

While Democrats decry last year's GOP-backed tax overhaul as a giveaway to wealthy families, others are countering with their own tax credit plans aimed at low-income Americans. In an interview with The Atlantic, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he was proposing a bill that would boost the Earned Income Tax Credit to almost double the current payout for families and tenfold for childless workers. He urged Democrats to go bold with big visions in response to the election of President Trump.

"The progressive wing of the party should not be afraid to lay out their vision of where do they want to take the country and what would an ideal society look like,” he said. “Then we can negotiate the details.”

Meanwhile Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur and a Democratic presidential hopeful, told Fox Business Network Monday that he is proposing $1,000 a month for all citizens between the ages of 18 and 64 as part of a universal basic income program -- even as Finland announced it is scrapping a similar proposal after a two-year test period.

he economic push appears to be part of an embrace of more radical positions by the Democratic Party in the wake of Clinton's defeat by Trump in 2016.

A number of Democrats have floated the idea of impeaching Trump should they take the House in November -- a move that has some more mainstream Democrats jittery.

he Washington Free Beacon also reported that a wealthy Democratic donor club used an event attended by Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe to call for “reparations” -- presumably to black people for slavery -- along with other big spending projects.

"It's 2022 and we are celebrating policy victories across the nation: Medicare for All and Free College, and next on the agenda is Reparations," Democracy Alliance said in invitation to the event.

On immigration, while more Democrats have endorsed the “sanctuary” movement by which local authorities limit how they cooperate with federal immigration authorities, others have outright called for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to be abolished.

ICE operates as an unaccountable deportation force,” former Clinton spokesman and Democratic consultant Brian Fallon tweeted in January. “Dems running in 2020 should campaign on ending the agency in its current form.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018...-projects.html

[anatta]

well i always say they have no ideas..guess i'm wrong

[anatta]

next on the agenda is Reparations,"
“sanctuary” movement
Medicare for All and Free College
ICE operates as an unaccountable deportation force,”
proposing $1,000 a month for all citizens between the ages of 18 and 64 as part of a universal basic income program

Federal Jobs Guarantee Development Act,

[anatta]

next on the agenda is Reparations,"
“sanctuary” movement
Medicare for All and Free College
ICE operates as an unaccountable deportation force,”
proposing $1,000 a month for all citizens between the ages of 18 and 64 as part of a universal basic income program

Federal Jobs Guarantee Development Act,

[Dirt McGirt]

I'm torn. As much as I would like to see them run on a platform like this because it all but guarantees the leftists getting crushed, part of me wishes that they would actually win and make all this nonsense happen so that when we finally crawl out of the post apocalyptic hell hole that they've created it will be several lifetimes before any of these notions are ever brought up again.

[anatta]

I'm torn. As much as I would like to see them run on a platform like this because it all but guarantees the leftists getting crushed, part of me wishes that they would actually win and make all this nonsense happen so that when we finally crawl out of the post apocalyptic hell hole that they've created it will be several lifetimes before any of these notions are ever brought up again.

the $1000 guaranted a month was McGovern idea. Nixon crushed it

[Cypress]

He reportedly is set to announce a plan that will guarantee a $15-an-hour job -- and health-care benefits -- to every American “who wants or needs one.”

That is hardly Kenyan Marxist-Socialist economic theory.

That is standard practice in most civilized countries and western liberal democracies.


Our corporate overlords and the affluent investor class have been heavily favored and catered to ever since Bedtime for Bonzo Raygun's trickle down economic schemes of the 1980s.

Going down that road ultimately almost led to the Second Great Republican Depression in 2007-08...and hollowed out, if not nearly destroyed the middle class over a period of three decades.

Republicans have no solutions for working Americans other than to give rich people more tax cuts and claim it will trickledown.

I do not see your assertions being supported that this is some kind of radical, Bolshevik shift in the paradigm. It sounds like people advocating for a return to sanity and a center-left, progressive type of economic justice.

[Bourbon]

It's Whiny Wednesday ... right on time.

[anatta]

center-left?? WHY IS THE GOVERNMENT GUARANTEEING JOBS? -Federal Jobs Guarantee Development Act.

This isn't even a minimum wage issue -it's cradle to the grave socialism. MAcron is reforming France against just such notions ( public emplolyees) and unemployment is at record lows.

I can go for Medicare for all in lace of insurance companies -since we are constantly expanding Medicare as it is

[Irish Exit]

Instead of job guarantee we can get to the same end cheaper by incentivizing the hiring of unemployed people over those currently employed via tax deductions, etc.

[Darth Omar]

The working class want jobs and a healthy economy so Democrats can continue to write them off if they are serious about going full bore Bernie.

Reparations? Wow lol.

Every time I think Democrats have gone as far to left as they would dare, they fool me and keep going.

[Cancel 2020.1]

What a misleading thread title, and dishonest approach. Andrew Yang? Who?

And "a # of Dems pushing for impeachment?" The fringe of any opposition party at any given time is "pushing for impeachment." Let me know when there are actual measures that a majority of Democrats support.

It's like me saying that conservatives want to secede because there is a secessionist movement in TX.

[anatta]

What a misleading thread title, and dishonest approach. Andrew Yang? Who?

And "a # of Dems pushing for impeachment?" The fringe of any opposition party at any given time is "pushing for impeachment." Let me know when there are actual measures that a majority of Democrats support.

It's like me saying that conservatives want to secede because there is a secessionist movement in TX.

The nearly 60 Dems who voted for impeachment
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-actio...or-impeachment

[Cancel 2020.1]

The nearly 60 Dems who voted for impeachment
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-actio...or-impeachment

Someone doesn't know what a majority is....

[Nordberg]

Instead of job guarantee we can get to the same end cheaper by incentivizing the hiring of unemployed people over those currently employed via tax deductions, etc.

Does not work that way. You hire to meet demand. Cheaper labor is still a cost.If you are keeping up with demand, you are not hiring.