SUBSTANTIVE POLICY (BIPARTISAN) THREAD

[caulfield12]

Why not try to have a more productive discussion here, lol? And typing in all CAPS will definitely help!!!

 

 

Trump has announced his three "first 100 days" priorities as immigration, jobs and health care.

 

 

These are the pertinent questions:

 

1) How does one go about cutting capital gains taxes, corporate taxes, individual rates (especially for the Top 10%, as its impact will be disproportionately felt), estate taxes and not blow up the Federal deficit even more?

 

Bill Clinton was the last president with a Federal budget surplus, and that was largely due to the successfully economy/stock market and incoming revenues from 20% capital gains taxes (that were largely felt by the rich).

 

Trump has promised 4% growth, whereas it has been in the 1.5-3.0% (range) over the last 2-3 years.

 

Has this ever worked successfully in a traditional 1st world economy that incoming revenues were decreased, significant growth/expansion occurred AND the government didn't need to create stimulus/utilize quantitative easing/initiate jobs training and shovel ready projects?

 

 

2) Let's assume for the sake of argument that much of the "cost savings" will come from taking back or tearing down Obamacare completely.

 

Which private insurance companies are going to take on those with pre-existing conditions and add them to their risk pools when many Americans are likely to change or dump insurance altogether?

 

 

3) One of the other "likeliest" solutions to the economic malaise is bringing in new talent from overseas, especially in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) areas, which are obvious current weaknesses in the American public high school and middle school systems.

 

If you make it harder for talented/qualified immigrants to enter the US and fill tech jobs...what are you going to do to offset that? What types of education/training reform would be necessary? Is it realistic for those workers between ages 40/45 and 65/70 to retrain/make career changes so late in life? Let's look at PA, MI, WI and OH in particular.

 

 

4) If you slap a 45% tariff on all incoming Chinese goods or a 35% tariff on goods imported from Mexico, how exactly is that going to do anything but raise prices for consumer goods (lowering disposable or real income) and how will that result in those lost blue-collar/manufacturing/factory jobs coming back to the US?

 

Is Donald Trump going to FORCE all American companies to bring back their production/manufacturing facilities back to the US? And their offshore corporate profits? And the Republican Congress will agree with this philosophically? Even if that was possible, unless workers were willing to accept lower wages (and most of the labor unions are dying already), the costs of doing business in America are already 2X-3X times higher...how is this anti-globalism/protectionism thing actually going to work? I just read where the average wage in Bangladesh is something like 28 cents per hour, so how can you possibly compete with those labor rates when you could get two or three day's worth of work in SE Asia for the cost of one util/labor unit in the United States?

 

Realistically, how long would it take for a "jobs/training/education" program to even produce demonstrable/quantifiable results? This isn't House of Cards with America Works...after all.

 

I hope the answer doesn't come back to building a wall between the United States and Mexico, or making Lou Dobbs the new head of the Department of Homeland Security.

Edited November 11, 2016 by caulfield12

[bmags]

Jobs training - these have just not been effective, but they make people feel good because it theoretically supports work and not just welfare.

 

But, gotta say I'd prefer pork infrastructure spending like bridges to nowhere than something that promises work that can't deliver.

[caulfield12]

well, it's certainly possible....but weren't a lot of those shovel ready infrastructure projects taken off the table because they were considered financially inefficient and would add to the deficit?

 

still don't see how that will address the long-term undeniable endemic structural unemployment issues

 

especially as the rumor is they want to lower or at least freeze the minimum wage...so how do you balance out the price rises caused by tariffs on imported goods with equivalent wage growth?

Edited November 11, 2016 by caulfield12

[bmags]

Well teaching them how to be a plumber in a low-density neighborhood isn't solving structural unemployment. Best case you make mobility as easy as possible but likely case its only marginally effective because people stay in places for lots of reasons.