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Bernie Sanders 2020 Watch


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9 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Regarding being an investment that "pays for itself": The answer to this is not material to me.

(i appreciate the way you're answering this, i agree we don't need to junk up multiple threads.)

not sure what this means ^^^ though.  the broad thought on "free-college" (not bernie's theory, but the overall concept) is that it'll cost tax-payers a lot now, but eventually, it will create a better, stronger, smarter work-force, who will in turn get better jobs, and put more money (through taxes) back into the system. 

i'm not an economist, but that always seemed like wishful thinking to me, because time doesn't exist in a vacuum.  neither do jobs, taxes, people, whatever.  things evolve.  and it's concerning to me when someone who's as old as bernie is pitching this idea that he will likely only be able to see through on the front end, and long term impact won't affect him personally at all.  

i didn't really understand what "the answer to this is not material to me" meant, so i clarified the question.  if you were saying "i don't really give a shit" then disregard.

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Just now, henrygandorf said:

not sure what this means ^^^ though.  the broad thought on "free-college" (not bernie's theory, but the overall concept) is that it'll cost tax-payers a lot now, but eventually, it will create a better, stronger, smarter work-force, who will in turn get better jobs, and put more money (through taxes) back into the system. 

That's probably the case, but maybe not. Whether or not it's the case doesn't matter to me. We should do it regardless. I oppose looking at education as a profit-making or even breaking-even enterprise.

Quote

i'm not an economist, but that always seemed like wishful thinking to me, because time doesn't exist in a vacuum.  neither do jobs, taxes, people, whatever.  things evolve.  and it's concerning to me when someone who's as old as bernie is pitching this idea that he will likely only be able to see through on the front end, and long term impact won't affect him personally at all.

The funding proposal is not back-loaded, it's a suite of taxes that begin immediately. It's not like some athlete's contract that's Y1: $5M, Y2: $8M, ... Y8: $400M.

 

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16 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Summary of Sanders's College for All Act (PDF)

In that document you see costs and payment.

yeah, that's a one-pager, and it's nice, but really only lists the stuff everyone knows.  it'll cost $70bb a year total (2/3 fed, 1/3 state), and that's not taking into account the idea that more people will likely want to attend college.  it's also not adjusted for inflation/rising costs of tuition (which will definitely go up if a bill like this passes).  so where does that money come from?  taxes?  what suffers?  foreign aid?  military?  (i'm not suggesting either is bad, i'm literally just asking because i don't know, and i would muuuuuuch rather money go to college kids than some other shit it's currently earmarked for).

i think free-college-for-all is a really nice idea, i would just like to see it debated and discussed some more so that twitter-nation can get more than 140-280 characters worth of information.  i really do like that it's becoming a democratic issue, in that most of the candidates are suggesting it, in some format or another.

"college loans are out of control, so we need free college for all!" is great for a campaign.  i just need a little more.

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5 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

so where does that money come from?  taxes?

 

The section Fully Paid for by Imposing a Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street in the linked PDF answers this question.

Fully Paid for by Imposing a Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street. This legislation is offset by imposing a Wall Street speculation fee on investment houses, hedge funds, and other speculators of 0.5% on stock trades (50 cents for every $100 worth of stock), a 0.1% fee on bonds, and a 0.005% fee on derivatives. It has been estimated that this provision could raise hundreds of billions a year which could be used not only to make tuition free at public colleges and universities in this country, it could also be used to create millions of jobs and rebuild the middle class of this country.

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4 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

That's probably the case, but maybe not. Whether or not it's the case doesn't matter to me. We should do it regardless. I oppose looking at education as a profit-making or even breaking-even enterprise.

The funding proposal is not back-loaded, it's a suite of taxes that begin immediately. It's not like some athlete's contract that's Y1: $5M, Y2: $8M, ... Y8: $400M.

 

right, of course.  what i mean when i say "in a vacuum" is that jobs available to college graduates change month to month and definitely change year to year.  the demand, the availability, the salary - that's all adjusted in real time.  to crunch the numbers now wouldn't seem to show an accurate portrayal of what life will look like to a 16 year old who gets to go to college in 2021 under president sanders' new free-for-all initiative. 

nobody knows what the job market will look like for him/her/they when they graduate in 2025.  nobody is able to accurately say "he would've made x with y college loans but now he can make x + 25% with zero loans."  college graduates have had an increasingly difficult time finding employment over the last several years, and i would think this would make it even tougher.  an idea like this might produce a much smarter class of unemployed 20-somethings though! 

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11 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

nobody knows what the job market will look like for him/her/they when they graduate in 2025.

This is true regardless of student debt policy.

Quote

college graduates have had an increasingly difficult time finding employment over the last several years, and i would think this would make it even tougher.

Why would it be even tougher? The rising difficulty of finding employment has occurred as both tuition and interest rates rose, so it's not like erecting hurdles to education has kept the jobs market stable. There is no connection there. The skills gap was a myth and college should not be considered a place where we sort people out into their economic-class tranches.

Would free tuition devalue a degree in the eyes of the labor market? Perhaps, but why should we care about that? What good does it actually do us to keep people less educated?

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34 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Regarding models in other countries: Yes, of course. The typical liberal response of, "Norway!" fits here. Not just there, of course, as tuition-free public universities exist in Scandinavia and lesser (according to my bloodline) European nations like Germany and France.

i answered my own question, sort of.

here are a couple of pretty good resources on the subject, as well as how other competing countries fare with/without it (the last one is interesting in regards to competing nations):

https://impact.vice.com/en_us/article/9k3j87/bernie-sanders-we-must-make-public-colleges-and-universities-tuition-free

https://www.procon.org/headline.php?headlineID=005432

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/02/17/466730455/fact-check-bernie-sanders-promises-free-college-will-it-work

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The section Fully Paid for by Imposing a Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street in the linked PDF answers this question.
Fully Paid for by Imposing a Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street. This legislation is offset by imposing a Wall Street speculation fee on investment houses, hedge funds, and other speculators of 0.5% on stock trades (50 cents for every $100 worth of stock), a 0.1% fee on bonds, and a 0.005% fee on derivatives. It has been estimated that this provision could raise hundreds of billions a year which could be used not only to make tuition free at public colleges and universities in this country, it could also be used to create millions of jobs and rebuild the middle class of this country.
Wait so does that "Wall Street tax" somehow limit the tax hit to Wall Street, or will it pass through to the middle class when they invest or buy rental property? I read the PDF, it is extremely light on detail (per par) and doesn't specify.

If it's the latter it's idiotic and should be immediately thrown in the dumpster.
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3 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

This is true regardless of student debt policy.

Why would it be even tougher? The rising difficulty of finding employment has occurred as both tuition and interest rates rose, so it's not like erecting hurdles to education has kept the jobs market stable. There is no connection there. The skills gap was a myth and college should not be considered a place where we sort people out into their economic-class tranches.

Would free tuition devalue a degree in the eyes of the labor market? Perhaps, but why should we care about that? What good does it actually do us to keep people less educated?

i'm fucking done trying to work the quotes/html on this site, so i'll just work in paragraphs.

1. agreed, and i think anything designed to attack the student debt policy is a positive.  i think a lot of that was created during the economic crash.  i personally know people saddled with debt that thought all along it would be fine and taken care of by their parents who didn't think the economy would take a nose-dive when it did.  bad luck, bad timing, whatever you wanna call it - it's an issue.

2. it may not be tougher.  if it's already tough, it may just "stay tough".  the optimist in me thinks that if college were free-to-all, we would end up with more college graduates (may or may not be true).  more college graduates means more competition for the same (presumably) jobs.  which means jobs are tougher to get, and unfortunately, means the salaries could be lower.  pete (sorry) does have a point about this generation being the first ones to possibly make less than their parents, and that's fucking depressing.

3. i don't think devalue is the right word, but i agree with what you're saying.  i think it would be harder to weed through resumes when everyone has a degree, but that's cheap.  but 100% we (as a country) should not care about that.  i like the idea of free-college and a more educated society.  you and i are in agreement on that, and most of this actually.

like i said earlier, this is not a "bernie-issue" this has become a democratic issue spearheaded by bold ideas from one of the leaders and strongest voices within the socialist democratic party! (sorry, had to).  seriously though, this has all come about because of bernie.  he's the rising tide, and people should appreciate that.

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21 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Wait so does that "Wall Street tax" somehow limit the tax hit to Wall Street, or will it pass through to the middle class when they invest or buy rental property? I read the PDF, it is extremely light on detail (per par) and doesn't specify.

If it's the latter it's idiotic and should be immediately thrown in the dumpster.

I did some reading on this and the answer is that it appears to be all-encompassing. So the things that will get hit are:

- Algo-traders (good, they add nothing and are profit takers)
- Other high-volume/systemic traders (fine mostly the same)
- High dollar investors (great, no issue with taxing the ultra rich)
- Mutual funds and ETFs who rebalance frequently (this is terrible, as most 401ks are limited to funds. Literally a retirement tax on the middle class)
- M&A (terrible)
- Pensions (obviously terrible)
 

Just like his funding plan for M4A which actually enriches corporations, it's poorly thought out and half-baked.

I don't have an issue with paying down student debt and/or making college free, but I have an issue with the funding methods proposed. I have yet to see one that actually makes sense.

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14 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Wait so does that "Wall Street tax" somehow limit the tax hit to Wall Street, or will it pass through to the middle class when they invest or buy rental property? I read the PDF, it is extremely light on detail (per par) and doesn't specify.

If it's the latter it's idiotic and should be immediately thrown in the dumpster.

someone with a background in tax law and legislation can probably clear this up, but i would assume bills like this start out as a target on the uber-rich/wall street, but then get amended and dragged down by what you're suggesting, which ultimately makes them 'unpassable', and they get shot down.  i think the bigger issue is keep the house, win back the senate, and try to pass as much of this shit as you can, while you can.

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7 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

someone with a background in tax law and legislation can probably clear this up, but i would assume bills like this start out as a target on the uber-rich/wall street, but then get amended and dragged down by what you're suggesting, which ultimately makes them 'unpassable', and they get shot down.  i think the bigger issue is keep the house, win back the senate, and try to pass as much of this shit as you can, while you can.

Yeah and I'm on board with that. I guess my issue is that all of Bernie's plans (and I have read his actual PDFs from front to back) seem half-baked and puerile. They are extremely light on detail and they don't address many of the pitfalls of something like a financial transaction tax. 

Maybe he has a much more in-depth plan that addresses all of that, has thresholds for when the taxes kick in, etc. If he does, let's see them, because I'd be legitimately interested to see his plan. 

And I guess there's part of me that finds it irritatingly ironic. Bernie supporters shred every other candidate as an "empty suit" with no real plans. And here's a guy whose policy document on a 70 billion dollar/year plan has five sentences on how the funding will work. His document for M4A is almost equally as lacking. I have a hard time taking him seriously when everything he puts out is short on detail and poorly thought out.

Edited by BradInATX
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Watched Bernie's town hall on Fox (shudder) and thought he did well.  I forgot how much I liked him in 2016.  Also heard an interview with Kamala Harris that made me like her a lot more.  I'm actually pretty satisfied if Bernie, Beto, Warren, Mayor Pete, or Harris get the nod.  

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1 minute ago, BradInATX said:

And I guess there's part of me that finds it irritatingly ironic. Bernie supporters shred every other candidate as an "empty suit" with no real plans. And here's a guy whose policy document on a 70 billion dollar/year plan has five sentences on how the funding will work. His document for M4A is almost equally as lacking. 

Why are you so mad that whitepapers and one-sheets exist?

"WHY IS THIS SUMMARY A SUMMARY!?!?!?!?!"

The full act is here, if you're interested.

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3 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Why are you so mad that whitepapers and one-sheets exist?

"WHY IS THIS SUMMARY A SUMMARY!?!?!?!?!"

The full act is here, if you're interested.

I actually read that just a bit ago.

Where is the detail on where the funds come from? 

 

Since you obviously haven't read it, I'll save you the trouble. There is none.

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21 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Yeah and I'm on board with that. I guess my issue is that all of Bernie's plans (and I have read his actual PDFs from front to back) seem half-baked and puerile. They are extremely light on detail and they don't address many of the pitfalls of something like a financial transaction tax. 

Maybe he has a much more in-depth plan that addresses all of that, has thresholds for when the taxes kick in, etc. If he does, let's see them, because I'd be legitimately interested to see his plan. 

And I guess there's part of me that finds it irritatingly ironic. Bernie supporters shred every other candidate as an "empty suit" with no real plans. And here's a guy whose policy document on a 70 billion dollar/year plan has five sentences on how the funding will work. His document for M4A is almost equally as lacking. I have a hard time taking him seriously when everything he puts out is short on detail and poorly thought out.

you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose.

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17 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Candidate A: *offers literally nothing at all*

Candidate B: *offers policy whitepapers/one-sheets* *files actual, full legislation complete with co-sponsors and committee referalls*

"Hmmm... identical!"

who is campaign a in your scenario?

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27 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Why would the funding piece be in the bill itself? That's a separate (but related) issue.

Brad: "I'm concerned that Bernie hasn't outlined his plans for funding these programs in detail"

b_t: "You idiot it's right here at this link"

Brad: "There is nothing about funding in your link"

b_t: "Why are we talking about funding?!"

 

wut

 

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3 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Brad: "I'm concerned that Bernie hasn't outlined his plans for funding these programs in detail"

b_t: "You idiot it's right here at this link"

Brad: "There is nothing about funding in your link"

b_t: "Why are we talking about funding?!"

I didn't say the funding piece was at the link. I said the full act was at the link, which it was. You assumed the funding piece would be in the act, which doesn't make any sense because that's not how legislation works. I apologize if my assumption that you would know that misled you in some way.

If you're putting something like free tuition through as a law, you don't make it contingent on the tax changes within the law itself. You pass the desired initiative then you work out the funding in a separate process.

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2 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

Thank god a responsible fiscal conservative like our friend Brad here is on the Bernie thread screaming WHO WILL PAY FOR IT into the void over and over. He reminds me of a Paul Ryan type. He's just a super smart policy wonk who really gets into the weeds. 

It's almost like all these Dem 2020 threads are full of concern-trolling conservatives desperate to start as many fights as possible between liberals and lefties.

Weird...

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I didn't say the funding piece was at the link. I said the full act was at the link, which it was. You assumed the funding piece would be in the act, which doesn't make any sense because that's not how legislation works. I apologize if my assumption that you would know that misled you in some way.
If you're putting something like free tuition through as a law, you don't make it contingent on the tax changes within the law itself. You pass the desired initiative then you work out the funding in a separate process.


I assumed the funding piece would be I'm the link because that's what the entire conversation was about.
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56 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:
Thank god a responsible fiscal conservative like our friend Brad here is on the Bernie thread screaming WHO WILL PAY FOR IT into the void over and over. He reminds me of a Paul Ryan type. He's just a super smart policy wonk who really gets into the weeds. 

So wanting to educate one's self on the details of a policy proposal is a negative? How very Trump supporter of you.

If you were interested in a real conversation you'd note that my concern is not fiscal conservatism, but that the proposal Bernie has laid out to pay for it hurts:

- The middle class
- Innovation and entrepreneurship
- Pensions
- Retirement plans

Somebody has to care about those things. Do you?

But we all know you are not interested in a real conversation. Most of you aren't. There's a reason everyone hates you and your team.

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13 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

I assumed the funding piece would be I'm the link because that's what the entire conversation was about.

I said the link was the act. There's no reason the act itself would have the funding piece.

A funding method is discussed in the whitepaper. No funding mechanism was written into budgetary issues because the act requiring funding hasn't been seen in committee. There's a process.

10 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

So wanting to educate one's self on the details of a policy proposal is a negative? How very Trump supporter of you.

You're not simply wanting to educate yourself.

If that were the case, you'd read the whitepaper and not use it as an excuse to lash out ignorantly and childishly.

Then, once you realize that you were mistaken as to how legislation works (funding is handled separately), you would either stop whining or you would ask further questions to learn more about the thing you obviously misunderstand.

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Just now, bad_teammate said:

I said the link was the act. There's no reason the act itself would have the funding piece.

A funding method is discussed in the whitepaper. No funding mechanism was written into budgetary issues because the act requiring funding hasn't been seen in committee. There's a process.

You're not simply wanting to educate yourself.

If that were the case, you'd read the whitepaper and not use it as an excuse to lash out ignorantly and childishly.

Then, once you realize that you were mistaken as to how legislation works (funding is handled separately), you would either stop whining or you would ask further questions to learn more about the thing you obviously misunderstand.

Yet again you are arguing completely disingenuously. I am not going to engage in your typical "I have no answer so I'll attack, make shit up and twist the argument" that you do.

So,  let's go all the way back to the start. 

Has Bernie released details of his financial transaction tax, or are the five sentences in the whitepaper you originally linked all of the details he's released?

Yes or no?

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So let me ask you some questions. After reading the bill it looks like there's a carveout for people making under 50k single, or 75k joint. Students and married-but-filing-separate status get this one as well. Admittedly I don't understand the second one.

So, for those in support of this, here's my question:

- Are you okay with adding a tax to the middle class that will hit them in multiple ways? It will hit them significantly on their 401ks and IRAs. It will hit them if they get equity stake in a company they work for. 

- Are you okay with dis-incentivizing entrepreneurship by decreasing the upside of starting and ultimately selling a company?

- Other countries that have tried this have shown it to be a failure - does that concern you? 

- Why is there not some sort of mechanism in the bill to address 401ks and IRAs and exclude them? Why is there not a threshold for transfer of private stock that keeps this tax from hitting small businesses giving equity to their talent as a way to attract and retain people in situations where they can't compete salary wise with the big boys? 

- Why wouldn't this tax just be on leveraged type products and niche/secondary type instruments. You know, the things that Wall Street uses to move money and profit-take without adding value. Wouldn't it be more prudent to focus on those, vs. the types of instruments that the majority of the middle-class uses for retirement saving?

This method of funding it would probably cause some pain for the money-movers and profit-takers, but the middle class will get caught up in the friendly fire. That doesn't seem smart to me. 

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7 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

"NO ONE WANTS TO DISCUSS POLICY LIKE I DO!"

- "Here are multiple filed pieces of proposed legislation and whitepapers explaining them."

"THIS IS WHY EVERYONE HATES YOU!"

giphy.gif

It took you two hours to provide something of substance relative to what I was talking about.

Everything in between was you being a dickhead and trying to change the argument into something else entirely, as you're prone to do when you realize you have no chance to keep up in a substance-based discussion.

 

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1 minute ago, BradInATX said:

It took you two hours to provide something of substance relative to what I was talking about.

2-star Yelp review:

"Such terrible service! I don't know how either legislation or Google work and it makes me very pissy! I shit my pants a lot and YOUR EMPLOYEES didn't clean it up fast enough!"

 

 

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24 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

2-star Yelp review:

"Such terrible service! I don't know how either legislation or Google work and it makes me very pissy! I shit my pants a lot and YOUR EMPLOYEES didn't clean it up fast enough!"

 

 

 

"I sat down and my waiter was a disheveled 50-something year old guy who was muttering something or another about Che Guevara. I asked him for a water, and he told me 'you idiot, drinks are self serve here. The soda fountain is over that way'. So I went to the soda fountain to look for my water, only to find that it wasn't a soda fountain at all, but a fondue fountain full of easy cheese. 

The waiter came back and I told him that the place he directed me to was a fondue fountain full of easy cheese. He proceeded to accost me and tell me that 'ONLY AN IDIOT WOULD THINK THEY COULD GET WATER FROM A FOUNTAIN OF EASY CHEESE!'. I then got a 20 minute diatribe about how stupid I am for not understanding how water works. 

A smart person would have left, realizing that the waiter is a half-crazy person who has no interest in  engaging like a normal human being, but my dumb ass stayed and tried to get a meal. I ordered a steak, and gave the waiter my credit card to go ahead and run ahead of time, so I could get out of the restaurant quickly after my steak arrived. I never did get that steak and the waiter completely disappeared, but his friends Fozz and Hank Scorpio showed up and called me a shitlib, made fun of me for loving easy cheese, and dropped a plate of all-licorice jelly beans in front of me. I then got a $5,000 charge on my card from the Grateful Dead merch shop, which cost me two hours on the phone with my bank"

1 star, would not return

 

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Of all the Dems on the scene now, Bernie would give Trump the most grief in a debate. Bernie says stupid shit and doesn't think he has to back it up with facts. Sound familiar? Trump will likely go berserk when Bernie starts running his mouth. 

Fun for all.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Dolemite said:

Of all the Dems on the scene now, Bernie would give Trump the most grief in a debate. Bernie says stupid shit and doesn't think he has to back it up with facts. Sound familiar? Trump will likely go berserk when Bernie starts running his mouth. 

Fun for all.

giphy.gif

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Bernie is a worse politician than Klobuchar and it's part of why I love him.

Furious grandpa can't help but get the, "How are you asking a question this fucking stupid?" look on his face when idiot Harvard centrist compares Medicare for All to the fucking gulag archipelago.

 

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1 hour ago, Js1 said:

But why? 

Like, it's April 2019, you shouldn't be pimping hypothetical general election internals 18 months out 

This campaign wants to win. As someone who loved Bernie in 2015, this campaign is COMPLETELY different.

He didn't start campaigning seriously until the winter of 2015. Before that he would do 3-4 campaign events a week and stayed very focused on his Senate work. His staff was barebones-to-non-existent.

This time?

While the political and economic establishments are out to get him, he's not just hiring outsiders and rebels.

This man wants to win.

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2 hours ago, American Swindle said:

Bernie will win the nomination. Get ready for what should have been the race of 2016.


Anyway, I thought the below was a good caricature of BT and encompasses his tone when addressing us loony conspiracy theorists:
 

the-right-is-starting-to-get-better-at-comedy.gif

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21 hours ago, BradInATX said:

Brad: "I'm concerned that Bernie hasn't outlined his plans for funding these programs in detail"

b_t: "You idiot it's right here at this link"

Brad: "There is nothing about funding in your link"

b_t: "Why are we talking about funding?!"

 

wut

 

Bernie is not concerned about funding. One of his chief advisors is Hank Scorpio, I mean Stephanie Kelton. She’s probably the most vocal advocate of MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) that there is currently. Essentially print money for anything you want. Free college, healthcare, bombs, and on and on. 

https://twitter.com/StephanieKelton

 

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