sophie wrote: ↑Sat Dec 12, 2020 10:52 am
Let's revive this thread, now that the election results are put to rest and we can start to forecast the events of the next four years.
The NRP as I've described it prioritizes policies that support the existence and health of the American middle class, and American prosperity in general. It also forswears identity politics, in which certain self-selected or racial groups are elevated to an artificially high status, whereas other groups are denigrated - essentially, a new form of discrimination, just with the major players shuffled around.
Biden appears to be sympathetic to some of these concerns, most notably his take on global trade agreements. That is promising. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to realize that the plan to open the floodgates to illegal immigrants will have a large negative impact on the American lower and middle classes, by suppressing wages at the low end of the scale and increasing state/local expenses resulting in increased taxes and reduced services. Nor does he realize that banning contract work removes a critical financial pillar from the middle class - who often use extra gigs to make ends meet. For example, Uber drivers who pick up passengers on the commutes to and from their regular jobs, or full time employed people doing side jobs as handymen or car mechanics.
The issue here is that if the so-called "New Republican Populism" actually gave a tinker's damn about the middle class (which it doesn't seem to me to do one bit.....most of their policies that would supposedly help the middle class are just window dressing...populist lipstick on a plutocratic-friendly pig, if you will) then they would support policies that actually HELPED the middle and working class in America at the expense of the top 1 or 2%.
Why should the middle class NEED to take extra gigs to make ends meet? Given our productivity growth over the past 45-50 years why was it possible for one breadwinner to support a family back in the early 1970s but now (after decades of economic growth) it typically requires two (or one who works a regular job then has to cobble together enough gig work--or perhaps a second part-time job--to make ends meet)?
I'm not in favor of "banning" contract/1099 work at all (although employers shouldn't be allowed to misclassify actual employees as independent contractors just to avoid paying FICA and benefits) but what the middle class needs is not more opportunities at contract work; what it needs is a much higher minimum wage (if the minimum wage had kept up with productivity it would now be north of $20 per hour), unionization rates on par with Scandinavia's (or at least the European average), 50% worker representation on large company corporate boards and on works councils (like in Germany), sharply higher tax rates on high incomes in order to flatten the income distribution, universal affordable healthcare separate from employment, lower-cost housing (esp in big cities and their immediate suburbs), refundable child and dependent tax credits, a retirement pension system that provides a higher replacement rate than the current Social Security system, free or very cheap higher education (and this would include trade school, vocational education, apprenticeships, community college, etc as well as traditional four year college), a massive infrastructure rebuilding plan, and a decent UBI/BIG/citizens dividend (or if that is too much of a political long shot then at least a job guarantee....or at the
very least a massive expansion of the EIC starting from $0 income and this time including childless adults and those from 18-26 years old as well).
If a political party combined the above with a policy of equal rights for all but special privileges for none, being against actual real discrimination but also standing up against the excesses of political correctness and woker-than-thou culture, legalization/decrim of (at least) soft drugs, the US ceasing to be the world's policeman and generally doing our best to avoid foreign conflicts/entanglements unless we are attacked, and being in favor of legal immigration that helps America (i.e. those who can at a bare minimum at least speak English and have a high school diploma--or at least could pass a test showing they had the intelligence to get said diploma even if they don't have one....and of course higher priority would go to those with more education/skills/wealth/business experience/scientific knowledge/etc) while securing the borders and minimizing further illegal immigration....well, that would be a true populist party and they'd stand a decent chance at a win in 2024 or 2028.
The likelihood the GOP will actually adopt much of the above (except for maybe the immigration part of the proposal)? Well....let's put it this way: English is a very strange language; in English a "fat chance of that happening" and a "slim chance of that happening" are exactly the same thing!