Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

Post by nommm-nommm » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 3:31 PM UTC

thomyorkie wrote: post #418

yolesaber wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>High brow smack (condescension) like that and "basket of deplorables" are what America revolted against. Actually, the majority of Americans agreed with Hillary Clinton. She won the popular vote by over a million votes. We just use an outdated system built to appease slaveholders that does not necessarily represent the bulk will of the people. Trump won on a technicality of our (antiquated and frankly awful) system,…

> Actually, the majority of Americans agreed with Hillary Clinton. She won the popular vote by over a million votes. We just use an outdated system built to appease slaveholders that does not necessarily represent the bulk will of the people. Trump won on a technicality of our (antiquated and frankly awful) system, not on a mandate. While I agree that the electoral college is not the best system, we can't really know…

Post by mordocai » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 3:58 PM UTC

RealGeek wrote: post #817

tw04 wrote: post #595

So he's going to lower taxes on the wealthy, drop taxes on businesses, increase spending on military, destroy our national parks to extract oil, and lay off federal employees. This is going to help the middle class and the uneducated who are struggling through... magic. None of the lobbying stuff will ever see the light of day. The term limits won't happen. He's going to repeal the "illegal" Obama executive orders bu…

> A middle-class family will get a 35% tax cut. I did some back-of-the-envelope calculation to figure how our taxes could change for various income levels for married joint filers. This does not factor in any deductions. Nobody is getting a 35% tax cut. Tax rate for middle-class families will go down by around 1% only, and taxes will go up for low-income families by 2%. Single tax filers will also see an increase in…

Post by intopieces » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:07 PM UTC

BrandonM wrote: post #910

hibikir wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't, but that doesn't mean that any random change will fix it. Your argument is then as follows: 1-We must do something 2-{This} is something 3-Therefore, me must do {This} You won't find many of us arguing against the first assertion, but I don't think real numbers say that it's insurance regulation that made the prices go up: It's the fact that the risk pools are full of very sick people. While deregulation wo…

> The ACA is working great for people that make so little they get subsidies. Not everyone. In NC alone, there are 377,000 people who make too little to qualify for ACA subsidies yet are not covered by Medicaid. That's a lot of people, and that's just one state. There are 19 other states that also don't have expanded Medicaid. http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/facts-and-features/state-by-st... Even with subsidized ACA, t…

Post by sgnelson » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:12 PM UTC

JosephHatfield wrote: post #766

josho wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump railed against the system that allowed politicians to be bought. It turns out his solution is to term limit congress. Sounds like treating a symptom not the root cause.

I don't see how elections themselves aren't term limits. You want to end someone's reign, vote them out. Am I missing something?

Post by Elrac » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #802

blintz wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then what's your alternative? Would you prefer a system without politicians? What kind of system is that? We must elect trustworthy politicians, we must make it harder for big money to interfere, and we must have faith in our government. It's hard for me to say right now, given our current president-elect, but it's true. There truly is no good alternative to democracy.

While any such system would obviously be a radical change from our current system, such systems do exist both conceptually and historically, and it's not just stateless societies. The most obvious example is sortition, whereby officials are selected randomly. Again, applying that everywhere overnight is obviously radical, but the idea is fairly sound. It's how jury duty works in the United States, and it's how Atheni…