The Case For Biden

Biden isn't running on new ideas. He is running on going back to the time of Obama.

Biden's argument is that Trump is a outlier that doesn't represent who we are as a nation. He offers a "reset", a chance to take a step back from the chaotic nasty political environment in which we now find ourselves.

I think Biden has a good argument. This is not the time to battle over new ideas. This is a time for us to step back from the nasty partisan fights and reach out to as many Americans as possible.

In my view, he is not up to it. I am not sure he would last past the six months as a viable President; he simply seems shaky. (better than we got, goes without saying..)

When the democrats voted for Hillary to run in the last election Bernie and his bunch started screaming we was robbed and went and stood in the corner for a couple of months. Every once in a while Bernie would turn and say if you want to after we was robbed you can vote democrat. I will always believe he had as much to do with electing Trump as the Russians. And he will do the same thing again this time. Like Ralph Nader he thinks unless he is elected it makes no difference who is.

When the Democratic Party leaders decided to ditch the primary and make Hillary their choice, even Joe Biden wouldn't buck the establishment. Only Bernie Sanders had the guts to challenge her, and it was hopeless from the start. At least this time we'll have a primary. Maybe Joe Biden should just stand aside. He's kind of lost his luster.

Bullshit Rabel! When Bernie lost the primary, he wholeheartedly supported Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton supporters are the biggest threat to the Democrats this year. They are a bunch of angry, entitled, self-righteous middle-aged White women who are still bent on attacking their own side. It is almost like they want Trump to win again just to continue the fantasy that Hillary wasn't a crappy candidate.

I wish they would just shut up.

I think he felt compelled to run after hearing from some leaders around the country and their fears of the Trump presidency.

I don't know if he lost his luster, but perhaps he is simply tired and feeling his age after his son's death. But yeah, I agree, I wish he would step aside.

If you want the Democrats to beat Trump in 2020... I think a Biden/Harris ticket would be a very good thing. Biden can reach all important working class White voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio while Harris can keep the progressive base in check.

More importantly, a Biden/Harris administration would be good for the country. They can chart a stable, steady course that wouldn't pit Americans against each other.

If making an ideological point is more important than winning in 2020, go with the angry White woman vote. I would recommend Gillibrand.

Sanders doesn't really have a chance, he is in the race for his economic message.

Where in the hell have you been hearing from Clinton supporters? She is done in politics. The republican brain washing machine with all their lies and ineuendoes destroyed her with Bernie and his crowd helping them. Bernie was what he has always been for Bernie. He dident help Clinton when he and his crowd started the robbery b s and kept it up right to the election. The Bernieites couldent accept the fact that democrats voted for a democrat who had been one for 30 years rather than one who had turned democrat 2 years before. Did Hillary run the best election? No. But she had to buck the republican machine, the Russian machine and the Bernites who stayed home because their god was robbed. Their paying for it now because we have a totally bunch ofcrooked republicans running our government with a good chance of reelecting our crook in cheif ana his ass licking senate. Stupidity runs rampant in a democratic party that eats its own.

You wrote a divisive thread attacking a current Democratic candidate (who earned 43% of Democratic votes in 2016).

And then you write this gem... I love irony.

Let me put it another way. Bernie the god is 77 years old. Just one year older than the guy you say is too old to run, Joe Biden. I am still not choosing a candidate yet too early. But I am discarding one who i am not sure is a real democrat. Bernie has some good ideas which he has presented with no way to pay for them. Now I want him to go away and let the young democrats work out the liberal agenda. If Joe is too old Bernie sure as hell is to.

Sanders has the best chance—he’s just having to fight cheating pollsters and news agencies because he’s bringing a stop to their bribe money gravy train.

"I will be damned if the same politicians who refused to act then [in recent decades] are going to try to come back today and say we need to find a middle-of-the-road approach to save our lives," progressive star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said after hearing Biden could be crafting a "middle-of-the-road" climate change approach.

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/24/726433232/biden-sanders-highlight-familiar-split-in-democratic-party
Biden, Sanders Highlight Familiar Split in the Democratic Party

Bernie has well-defined plans to pay for all of his policies. You are a liar.

Maybe in your eyes i am a liar. But im not blind and stupid like you two. If Biden is too old for office then your god Bernie who is a year order sure as hell is.

Bernie Sanders runs around this country at a pace that a person half his age couldn’t keep. Biden is an Alzheimer-y Republican.

And, you *are* blind and stupid...and a liar. Bernie does have well-established plans to accomplish his policies.

That may be true, however, apart from proposing to tax the very rich and corporations, he hasn't provided any details regarding the expected cost of his programs and just how these taxes will pay for them.

That said, I'll agree this is a very common fault among politicians.

I think we don’t understand the amount we’ll derive from taxing billionaires and billionaire corporations.

Tell me which of Bernie’s policies you think he hasn’t planned to pay for.

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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/F6B2416A-5BA5-11E9-8596-CDAD5EFAEEA6

In introducing a new version of his health-care legislation, the Vermont independent and Democratic presidential candidate says, first, that Americans already are paying for trillions of dollars in health costs — to a combination of private insurers and the federal government.

Related: Bernie Sanders unveils new version of his ‘Medicare for All’ plan

An entirely government-run health-insurance program, as Sanders imagines, would by definition shift those costs onto the federal government.

A conservative group estimated Medicare for All would cost about $33 trillion over a decade. The Sanders camp didn’t come up with its own estimate but said the estimate from the Mercatus Group is inflated. The Congressional Budget Office has not yet scored Sanders’s legislation.

Regardless, Sanders did outline funding possibilities:

He suggests a tax both on the employee and employer sides. For employees, Sanders says there could be a 4% income-based premium paid by employees, exempting the first $29,000 in income for a family of four; for employers, a 7.5% income-based premium, exempting the first $2 million in payroll to protect small businesses.

From there, Sanders proposes a variety of progressive tax changes, including imposing a marginal tax rate of up to 70% on those making above $10 million, taxing earned and unearned income at the same rates, limiting tax deductions for filers in the top tax bracket, establishing a tax on extreme wealth and making the estate tax more progressive, including a 77% top rate on an inheritance above $1 billion.

Other ideas include closing a loophole that allows self-employed people to set up S corporations and avoid paying into Social Security and Medicare; imposing a fee on big banks; ending health tax expenditures; and “repealing corporate accounting gimmicks.”

The Sanders bill was co-sponsored by 14 Senate Democrats, including rival presidential candidates Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.

To my knowledge he as made only the most vague reference to the costs involved and merely identified the standard villains he will tax for it. The fact is his Medicare for all proposal will involve enormous costs for which those sources are not sufficient. Moreover, given the fact that 'he who pays makes the rules', his proposal will, in effect, yield a government takeover of the Medical establishment, (doctors, hospitals, labs, etc.) . That, of course will quickly end research and development for the discovery of new medicines and treatments; launch bureaucratically enforced rationing of services and a mass exodus of doctors from the profession (usually the best go first); and degrade medical care for all.

The observable fact is that it is already extremely difficult to find a doctor in the Bay Area who will accept Medicare only patients.

The problem with socialists is that they appear to believe people are stupid and will not react in their self-interest to the programs they initiate. The observable fact is that, absent violent coercion, people do react. The naïve aims of the creators of these programs are not realized, and the usual unexamined side effects simply worsen the situation they sought to improve (subsidized student loans are a good example - not to mention the sad debacle of Venezuela).

Historically the usual result of determined Socialism is the quick degeneration of what was initially offered as a benign benefit to all, into an authoritarian tyranny. Lenin termed this as "the elimination of the irreconcilables". Later Stalin reacted to the resistance of Ukrainian farmers to forced collectivization by the mass extermination of millions. Russia had been a major food exporter until the revolution, and it's agriculture productivity has never recovered from his actions.

Bernie is an avowed Socialist who has never in his life held a job outside of elected office, and likely doesn't know or acknowledge, the limits of his own understanding. There's no evidence he has the stuff and cruelty of Lenin or Stalin. However, in the unlikely event that he wins the Democrat primary, and in the even more unlikely event that if selected he manages to win the election, his potential to screw things up for us all is very great. I don't believe either of these events will occur, and for that reason alone, am not worried about him.

I am perplexed to observe, the contemporary popularity of group identities & values and the nonsensical programs that arise from them. However, there is no basis in the historical record to conclude that humans learn much from history in any event.

"georgeob1" “Lash”
To my knowledge he as made only the most vague reference to the costs involved and merely identified the standard villains he will tax for it.
The villains are billionaires and multimillion dollar corporations that not only aren’t paying their fair share, but getting tax breaks, while average people are left struggling to pay more than their share.

The fact is his Medicare for all proposal will involve enormous costs for which those sources are not sufficient.
The sources are sufficient. The exorbitant money most of us pay for insurance, copays, and all those extras we can’t afford will be more than the taxes we’ll pay to actually get medical care. Plenty of countries provide healthcare in this way. I don’t understand why you ignore that.

Moreover, given the fact that 'he who pays makes the rules', his proposal will, in effect, yield a government takeover of the Medical establishment, (doctors, hospitals, labs, etc.) . That, of course will quickly end research and development for the discovery of new medicines and treatments; launch bureaucratically enforced rationing of services and a mass exodus of doctors from the profession (usually the best go first); and degrade medical care for all.
All medical innovation will come to an abrupt halt when the US stops charging $2000. a pill? I don’t believe that you actually believe the gross excess of pills and the resulting deaths of those who can’t afford their insulin, for example, is the price Americans must pay for R & D.

The observable fact is that it is already extremely difficult to find a doctor in the Bay Area who will accept Medicare only patients.
This goes on the top of my column, not yours. The fact that criminals in white jackets can refuse care to living people who need it is disgusting—but that’s the system we’ve been groomed to accept.

The problem with socialists is that they appear to believe people are stupid and will not react in their self-interest to the programs they initiate. The observable fact is that, absent violent coercion, people do react. The naïve aims of the creators of these programs are not realized, and the usual unexamined side effects simply worsen the situation they sought to improve (subsidized student loans are a good example - not to mention the sad debacle of Venezuela).
Most countries that provide healthcare to citizens are doing fine. Certainly, more of their public has better healthcare than in the US.

Historically the usual result of determined Socialism is the quick degeneration of what was initially offered as a benign benefit to all, into an authoritarian tyranny. Lenin termed this as "the elimination of the irreconcilables". Later Stalin reacted to the resistance of Ukrainian farmers to forced collectivization by the mass extermination of millions.
Jesus Christ, I don’t think this is what Bernie has in mind.

Bernie is an avowed Socialist who has never in his life held a job outside of elected office, and likely doesn't know or acknowledge, the limits of his own understanding.
I think he found his niche, and he’s pretty damn good at it. I have footage of him warning us against the worst mistakes we’ve made in the last 3 decades.

URL: https://able2know.org/reply/post-6847602/quote/

You ignore the realities of human behavior. Humans are industrious only out of necessity. Human industry produces all that makes modern life better than the jungle. There really is no free lunch.