Red Mosquito

https://disrn.com/news/pete-buttigieg-c ... -all-drugs

E.H. Ruddock wrote:

verb_to_trust wrote:Billionaires shouldn't exist

But they do. And they aren't going away anytime soon in our society. I'm fine with what Bloomberg is doing with his advertising if it gets Voldemort out of office

We can keep money out of politics with some pretty simple legislation that will never happen.

I can simultaneously think the following things:

Bloomberg, and billionaires like him, should be taxed a lot more so we can fund things like single payer health care, free public colleges, universal pre-k, student debt relief, etc.

We should get money out of politics with legislation for publicly funded elections.

It's good that Bloomberg, if he's going to run for President, is using his candidacy to attack Trump and not weaken other Democrats.

cutuphalfdead wrote:We should get money out of politics with legislation for publicly funded elections.

It sounds good in theory but just further entrenches the existing parties. The system Canada had and rightfully scrapped paid parties $$ for every vote received. If you are a new party, you don't stand a chance as your competitors are receiving grants you can't even access.

Yeah, we should just keep it like it is.

cutuphalfdead wrote:Yeah, we should just keep it like it is.

I never said that in any way. Politics is going to require money. I don't think the tax dollars, corporate or union money should be involved. I think there should be a fairly low individual limit imposed. Sometimes an issue is such that every answer has it's deep flaws, funding politics is most likely one of them.

cutuphalfdead wrote:I can simultaneously think the following things:

Bloomberg, and billionaires like him, should be taxed a lot more so we can fund things like single payer health care, free public colleges, universal pre-k, student debt relief, etc.

We should get money out of politics with legislation for publicly funded elections.

It's good that Bloomberg, if he's going to run for President, is using his candidacy to attack Trump and not weaken other Democrats.

great now I'm horny

So you guys are okay with billionaires doing stuff like this as long as they are on your team?

SunKing wrote:

Of course he wouldn’t, but the real reveal here is that he will impulsively agree to whatever he thinks will separate him from the concept of “party leaning left.” Which is not only a big tell, but also a reminder that he will be an endless bag of eventual campaign ad quotes Republicans can use against him.

verb_to_trust wrote:So you guys are okay with billionaires doing stuff like this as long as they are on your team?

Short answer for me is no.

Long answer is I don’t think it works to have one side spend millions unanswered in campaign ads nationally while the other side sits quietly aside because it believes elections should be publicly funded. I don’t like what Bloomberg is doing in theory but in practice, until we have the branches of government agree that campaign contributions are not the equivalent of speech (or at least agree that kind of speech can be regulated effectively) then I am not sure there’s much of an alternative.

tragabigzanda wrote:

surfndestroy wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:Yeah, we should just keep it like it is.

I never said that in any way. Politics is going to require money. I don't think the tax dollars, corporate or union money should be involved. I think there should be a fairly low individual limit imposed. Sometimes an issue is such that every answer has it's deep flaws, funding politics is most likely one of them.

Worth noting that the recent Janus v. AFSCME decision somewhat address the union issue, by making it illegal for unions to enforce dues on non-union members, the argument being that it violates the 1st amendment of those non-union members.*

*To clarify, a “non-union member” is someone who benefits from the work of a union but does not pay member dues. A frequent example is teachers who benefit from union negotiations, but may not wish to pay to support their union’s political agenda or other.

To clarify further, Janus only applies to public sector unions.

surfndestroy wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:We should get money out of politics with legislation for publicly funded elections.

It sounds good in theory but just further entrenches the existing parties. The system Canada had and rightfully scrapped paid parties $$ for every vote received. If you are a new party, you don't stand a chance as your competitors are receiving grants you can't even access.

This, and in the United States I also think this should run into First Amendment and/or Equal Protection Clause problems in favoring certain types of political speech over others, depending on what scheme you concoct to determine who gets paid, and how much.

And even putting constitutional issues aside, I would not be happy at all if my tax dollars went to promoting political campaigns I find abhorrent. Hard, hard pass on publicly funded campaigns for me.

SunKing wrote:

Yeah, this will work out well for Democrats if Biden dies of old age or gets assassinated by a crazed Republican partisan. See: John Tyler.

SunKing wrote:

Country > Party

Green Habit wrote:

SunKing wrote:

Yeah, this will work out well for Democrats if Biden dies of old age or gets assassinated by a crazed Republican partisan. See: John Tyler.

if Biden chose a moderate republican like Larry Hogan should everyone (not on the party periphery) still freak out?

I say again

Of course he wouldn’t, but the real reveal here is that he will impulsively agree to whatever he thinks will separate him from the concept of “party leaning left.” Which is not only a big tell, but also a reminder that he will be an endless bag of eventual campaign ad quotes Republicans can use against him.