• dragontamer@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    He’s literally running as a socialist.

    Free housing, free health care, free everything. It sounds good until you look at Venezuela.

    When we point out… oh… I dunno… how Venezuela collapses because of government takeover as private entities or their other socialist policies (which directly have similarities to Bernie’s discussion points), yall just ignore us.


    We’re seriously having issues coming up with a budget where Social Security does fine over the next 20 years, and Bernie over here is reaching to the far, far, far extreme and going “Not only Free Social Security, but Free Housing and Health Care on top of it”. Okaaaaaaayyyyyyy. Lets talk about the taxes needed to get that funded.

    Hell, can we even start with the taxes we need to keep Social Security going?

    And you can see the problem right after that. Bernie is fully unrealistic. Its the benefit of being on the flank, Bernie can promise the world because he doesn’t actually have to worry about the details of his proposals.

      • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Lets put it this way.

        Do you know how Elon Musk tricks his dumbass followers that they’re all going to Mars? And its so ridiculous that no one actually seriously talks about the overall plan?

        That’s Bernie Sanders. No one seriously debates him because its so far out. Seeing a couple of followers get strung up in Bernie’s moonshots is whatever, its going to happen. But nothing will come from it, and Bernie knows that. (Much like how Elon knows all the bullshit he spews is nothing either).

        I get that its a popular way to get a niche following. But when we’re talking about a real Presidential candidate, hopes and dreams aren’t quite good enough. You’ll need to talk about things that are ya know, at least close to political reality.


        Or if Elon Musk is a bad example, consider how the Abortion debate played out. Back 10 years ago, it wasn’t really a real discussion point. Today, it is, and now its suddenly a problem for Republicans because the implementation details of Abortion bans are really fucking stupid.

        Same thing with Bernie. By the time Bernie is in office, its too late to realize that it was all bullshittery and the numbers simply don’t line up.

        • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          On healthcare: removing the profit incentives of private health insurance drives down costs as well as frees up money to pay for universal coverage. It’s not free Healthcare and has never been referred to as such unless people are debating in bad faith. He wrote the Medicare for All bill and just because you aren’t aware of the details doesn’t mean Sanders didn’t have them.

          On housing: again calling it free housing is a disingenuous bait. His housing policy had so many facets that even if only half his proposals were put into place, it would do wonders to improve the situation for millions of Americans. Federal funding for expanding Community Land Trusts (if you don’t know what CLTs are you should look it up), combat gentrification/exclusionary zoning/segregation/speculation, expand the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund a fund that he was responsible for and fought for 15 years to become the first new federal affordable housing program funded in several decades, tenant protections like New York’s right to counsel that was created in 2017, which saw their eviction rates drop five times faster than comparable areas. God damn man I could keep going but if I haven’t made my point why waste the effort.

          All of this could easily be paid by taxing the wealthy and reducing military spending. Would that be a problem for you?

          • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            The fuck do I hear Bernie saying “Medicare for All” ?

            That’s literally free Healthcare as his top-of-the-line discussion point for the last decade.

            All of this could easily be paid by taxing the wealthy and reducing military spending. Would that be a problem for you?

            Where does Ukraine and Taiwan fit in that reduced military spending?

            Ah right, Bernie is also isolationist. He probably doesn’t give a shit. And even if we don’t support Israel (I know how the left feels about that), we the USA need to continue to patrol the Red Sea vs not just the Houthis, but also Somali Pirates and other threats.

            Military spending is going up, by any realistic discussion. Ukraine is only heating up, and Taiwan is likely getting hotter and hotter as China literally cuts off Filipino fingers and uses them to bully others in the Far East. If yall think peace will happen by reducing US Military spending at this juncture, you’re losing my vote.

            Bonus points: I’m also Filipino. So consider myself, and my family, very interested in hearing what the Democrats actually have to say about far-east stability / Taiwan / China’s increasingly aggressive actions.

            Military spending is going up, and not because anyone wants war. But because its necessary to keep the peace. USA has no control over China or Russia, we only have control over our own spending. And we must keep our spending up with them as they get more aggressive.

            • subignition@fedia.io
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              5 months ago

              You’re either trolling or too stubborn to evaluate new information that might change your position.

              Medicare For All is not free healthcare, as in on the government’s dime, it is entirely paid for by taxes. (Unless you actually object to free healthcare as in being able to go to the hospital when you need it for free, which is too ludicrous to be sincere.) The only reason it seems “free” is that the total operating cost of the system without the middleman of private insurance is significantly lower than our existing healthcare spending.

              Most households would significantly increase their spending power throughout the year by eliminating healthcare premiums, deductibles, copays, and prescription costs in excess of $200 a year, and would only see a smaller increase at tax time. Those who would be paying more in total are very wealthy households who would be paying primarily at tax time, and frankly many of those households have not been paying their fair share of taxes already, so I find it hard to see that as a bad thing.

              • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Medicare For All is not free healthcare, as in on the government’s dime, it is entirely paid for by taxes.

                Yeah, no shit sherlock. Socialist / Communist countries like Cuba also pay for Health Care.

                That doesn’t change the fact that several important examples (Soviet Union, Cuba, and now most recently, Venezuela) have collapsed… or are currently collapsing under that load and those costs.

                We know plenty of examples of countries who have done that. My question is why the fuck do you want to bring it to the USA?

                • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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                  5 months ago

                  Why do you keep pointing out these Marxist countries and ignoring the perfectly functioning western liberal democracies with policies like these? There’s literally one on our northern border.

                • TheDuffmaster@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  We’re the only 'first world" country without centralized healthcare. So the other countries that have done that would be… All the other first world countries, and all of them spend way less on healthcare then we do in the US.

              • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Yeah, and Medicare / Social Security are already going bankrupt by 2040.

                A gross expansion of those programs will make them go bankrupt even faster. You need to explain how to raise money for a “Medicare for All” program… and not just “Well fuck Taiwan / Phillipines / Far East / Ukraine / everyone else in the world”.

                We’re going to have our hands full just keeping the programs available over the next few decades, and you want to expand them?

                • NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth
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                  5 months ago

                  By having free healthcare for all you actually save money if basically no other change is made.

                  People will go to the dr whenever they first start feeling ill instead of putting off until it gets so bad that it now costs 10x what it would have to catch early as well as the reduced economic potential in workers being unable to due to recovery or worse.

                  It will also save money by reducing er costs from above by the jobless, homeless and addicts only going at the same points but they have even higher rates of hospitalization and severity so we save a ton more there.

                  You cut out the middlemen on all negotiated services and products, will save manpower and labor by everything being standardized universally with one system.

                  Eliminating all of the inefficiencies that insurance causes will reduce the cost of healthcare.

                  Also, no one is trying to make private insurance illegal, look at all the different Medicare programs they already allow.

                  • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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                    5 months ago

                    By having free healthcare for all you actually save money if basically no other change is made.

                    https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-02/57637-Single-Payer-Systems.pdf

                    In this analysis, we found that economic output would be between 0.3 percent lower and 1.8 percent higher than the benchmark economy 10 years after the single-payer system was implemented, without incorporating the effects of financing the system. Under a single-payer system, workers would choose to work fewer hours, on average, despite higher wages because the reduction in health insurance premiums and OOP expenses would generate a positive wealth effect that allowed households to spend their time on activities other than paid work and maintain the same standard of living. If the system was financed with an income or payroll tax, gross domestic product (GDP) would be between approximately 1.0 percent and 10 percent lower by 2030, depending on the specification of the single-payer system and the details of the financing policy.

                    Sounds like we pay by having a loss of GDP measured between 1% to 10%. That’s rather substantial.

                    CBO is the non-partisan accountants of the US Senate/House. They are our best estimate on the true costs of various programs.

    • Chickenstalker@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      > picks vuvuzela as example

      > conveniently overlooks hundreds of European and Asian “socialist” countries

      > also overlooks merely redirecting 10% of defence budget to “socialism” will cure more of your cuntry’s ills

      > also overlooks the MIC as the biggest “socialist” welfare queen program ever

      Kys