If you're really not a troll and genuinely believe that the Democrats have the key to a better America for ALL, provide the facts and evidence that they and their policies have what it takes to achieve that

Politics
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As Doc Holliday said “I’m your huckleberry and that’s just my game.”

Bring it, tell me using know facts and evidence. I’ll happily have that conversation. I’m no ■■■■■■■ shill for the Republican Party and am no fan or Trump as everyone here knows, and clearly no fan of the Democratic Party either. On this forum I’ve been the biggest proponent of a third party. That being said I’m sure as hell not someone who thinks there’s some special person with the “answer” to making life better for everyone.

So, let’s have that conversation about the future of America. Personally, I’m not all that optimistic as indicated here:

Now that doesn’t mean I believe that America is going to fall apart tomorrow, nonetheless there are numerous concerning signs that I’ve pointed out in my other thread here. Now I assume you and others here disagree and will tell me if Democrats win big in November that everyone’s life here in America (except the very rich) will become substantially better. But here’s my problem, I want to see the evidence. Is that acceptable? Is it okay if I look at California for example, which is as blue and liberal a state there is?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/newsom-s-california-sets-the-bar-for-poverty-in-the-u-s/ss-AA1qsSp9?ocid=msedgntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=69efe19dfb9d43279763fb83008dbf20&ei=29

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/top-10-reasons-residents-are-leaving-california/ss-AA1pkGQK?ocid=msedgntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=69efe19dfb9d43279763fb83008dbf20&ei=24#image=1

How about looking at how most Americans have fared under Harris/Biden:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/only-24-of-democrats-say-they-are-better-off-financially-under-biden-poll-says/ar-AA1jSuyG

Personally I think @WuWei summed it up very well:

I offer that the current policy portfolio as determined by the DNC and executed by first Brandon and no doubt to be continued by Harris is unsustainable and immiserating the citizens of this country.

That much of it is a hologram.

The government is taking more and more and we just don’t have it to give.

The critprog immigration policy is damaging vast swaths of this country and we will pay for it for generations.

They are pissing away billions in foreign policy with zero return on investment.

They pushed EVs and that is a fiasco and a hologram.

The results of DEI hiring are self-evident.

They have destroyed the US military as a fighting force.

They’ve had their 4 years of policy and we are not better for it.

BY NO MEASURE IS AMERICA BETTER OFF OVERALL BECAUSE OF HARRIS/BIDEN.

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From my other thread:

For the first time since the wartime economy of the late 1940s, U.S. debt is roughly equal to the value of all the goods and services our economy produces in a year. When World War II ended, all that spending on tanks and aircraft came to a quick end. But the major drivers of today’s debt crisis are Medicare and Social Security, and their price tags are set to keep rising. So what does President Joe Biden promise to do about this looming crisis? Absolutely nothing. And Republican lawmakers have cheered him on.

We already spend more on paying interest on the federal debt than we do on Medicaid and defense. Even if rates remain at 4 percent for the next few decades, annual interest payments are projected to surpass what we spend on Medicare and Social Security.

Interest rates are like a time bomb. If they rise to 5, 6, or 7 percent, the cost of borrowing will increase so much that federal debt would be on track to surpass 300 percent of gross domestic product—or three times higher than World War II levels. Eventually, interest costs would consume nearly all of annual U.S. tax revenues.

Social Security and Medicare have special revenue sources, but if nothing changes by 2034, these two programs will be collecting $2.6 trillion annually in payroll taxes and related revenues while spending $4.8 trillion in benefits and associated interest costs.

Republicans like to talk about slashing social spending, but to balance the budget we’d need to completely eliminate all funding for veterans’ benefits, child credit payments, the earned income tax credit, school lunches, disability benefits, K-12 schooling, health research, unemployment benefits, food stamps, homeland security, infrastructure, embassy security, federal prisons, border security, and much more.

The most basic progressive narrative is that deficits don’t matter and that taxing the rich can eliminate the deficit. But approximately 70 percent of the 2001 and 2017 tax cut costs and subsequent extensions went to the middle and lower classes. If you size up their fiscal impact, only a tiny sliver can be attributed to “tax cuts for the rich.”

Seizing every home, yacht, business, and investment from America’s 800 billionaires would fund the federal government for just nine months. And then the money would be gone. So would your 401(k), given that most of this wealth would be seized from the stock market, causing the S&P 500 to crater.

There simply aren’t enough millionaires, billionaires, and undertaxed corporations to close Social Security and Medicare’s projected $124 trillion cash shortfall over three decades or—as some Democrats propose—to finance a generous social democracy for 330 million Americans.

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From one of the threads:

It’s a political impossibility that middle- and lower-earning American families would accept tax rates anywhere close to these Nordic levels. And it is a mathematical impossibility for America to finance a Nordic system on the backs of the rich, as some U.S. politicians claim to want. Even assessing 100 percent tax rates on all income over $500,000 would raise just 5 percent of GDP, assuming (generously) that affected families continued working and investing essentially for free. Even seizing and liquidating every dollar of billionaire wealth—every business, investment, home, and asset—would finance the federal government one time for only about eight months (while draining the stock market and thus nearly every 401(k)).

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Harris/Biden supposedly created an amazing economy yet their running deficits like no one else before and are even on their way to surpass Trump, which included the ridiculous levels of COVID spending:

Biden left out that the debt under his watch is on pace to exceed Trump’s one-term debt accumulation by the end of his current term, Jan. 20, 2025. During his first three years, Biden already accumulated $6.32 trillion in debt. For his final year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected a deficit of $1.582 trillion. Add those two figures together and you get $7.902 trillion as Biden’s four-year total.

Treasury Department data shows the gross federal debt rose by about $7.8 trillion on Trump’s watch.

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Good luck.

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Is crime really down?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/violent-crime-has-increased-under-harris-biden-admin-after-abc-s-david-muir-disputed-trump-s-claim-that-crime-is-through-the-roof-doj-report/ar-AA1qxLzl?ocid=msedgntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=d6554ef7198940b9be019b388f01bb2e&ei=47

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There are actually a number of issues in which I’m somewhere in the middle, and even lean left on health insurance/care issue. There are definitely things we can and should do differently. I’m more than happy to have a real discussion on Democrat politicians and their policies with @tnt, @FreeAndClear, @TheDoctorIsIn, @PurpnGold, etc. I don’t want just “pie in the sky” though. Show some evidence, numbers, etc. Is that too much to ask for?

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Yes. What you have to realize is there is no vision, just piecemealing from silos with no concern for consequences. A buffet.

It’s the fatal flaw of progressivism.

Crit theory ignores complexity and system theories. It has to.

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Your thread seems to be a bit of everything so is there something you want to discuss?

Taxing the rich into oblivion isn’t a solution. But neither are continuous tax cuts for them either.

The progressive view or at least mine is

Universal healthcare
A safety net that protects not just the work shy but people that are using as a hand up which is many.

A complete revamp of the education system to stop basing it on per student cost and figure out something that actually works.

Across the board spending cuts that do not gut safety net but that do cut spending in the social spending sector as well as everywhere else.

Thats just the general gist of it

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Yes in the article. They are specifically discussing the end of 2023 and the argument it’s less now than in 2023. It is down 15.6 percent but is brushed off because crime is being unreported :joy:

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I’ll chime in next week. Won’t be in front of the computer for the weekend (thankfully!)

Have a good one.

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A discussion that genuinely considers the hard realities that US faces as a nation:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/what-the-debate-didn-t-mention-the-coming-crisis-of-the-u-s-deficit/ar-AA1qxC3Y?ocid=msedgntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=3b66c33948fa431c897bb6fb4f501dc6&ei=53

But the big problem now is that Uncle Sam can no longer get away with paying nearly 0% interest on his borrowings. Interest expense is running at over $1 trillion a year with the normalization of interest rates, and exceeds the military budget. The implications of that go beyond the budget. As economic historian Niall Ferguson observed on X, “Any great power that spends more on debt service than on defense will not stay great for very long. True of Habsburg Spain, true of ancien régime France, true of the Ottoman Empire, true of the British Empire, this law is about to be put to the test by the U.S. beginning this very year.”

Along with the specifics within proposed policies. For instance (from the same link):

As for Harris’ ideas that would hit investors most directly, the CRFB sees them raising a relatively small $900 billion from fiscal 2026 through 2035. That would include a so-called billionaire’s tax that would involve taxing unrealized capital gains, a notion fraught with problems. Among them, Silvia wonders, would there be a credit during bear markets when assets lose value? How would the Internal Revenue Service value posh residences, classic auto collections, or art? It all seems unworkable.

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One thing is for sure, as @Axxowiz consistently points out, you can’t get a Norway/Denmark type entitlement society by importing 10 million of the world’s impoverished citizens every year:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/illegal-border-crossers-total-over-10-million-since-biden-inauguration/ar-AA1j5gwR

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/border-crisis-costs-american-taxpayers-451-billion-annually-house-gop-report-claims/ar-AA1jSbz0

Can we agree that countries like Norway & Denmark (populations of about 5.5 million each), don’t do things like that?

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Correct. The system would have to preclude illegals.

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They got in bed with Dick Cheney for crying out loud. :man_shrugging:

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Can’t if they’re here. 14th.

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Any immigration policy that is serious about fixing the many, many, many problems the US faces would have to be 100% merit based, like what Norway and Denmark have.

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Is it beginning to sink in just how bad your nominee is to have lost Dick Chaney.
Thoughts and prayers and all that.

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What’s really sinking in is how pathetic you people get when these memes rustle your jimmies. :rofl:

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Dick Chaney endorsing Harris isn’t a meme.
Reality can be a bummer sometimes.

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