Her remarks concerning climate change as a threat to our national security were actually quite brilliant politically. It positions her as a supporter of any efforts necessary to mitigate climate change while making that appear to have a focus on an issue that even military leaders have warned about for years. Too much of the discussion around climate change is generalized and too big for voters to get their heads around.
Also, simply cutting military spending without some program to invest that money back into productive employment could be harmful and only present further opportunities to cut taxes for the wealthy in a GOP dominated regime/environment. By positioning government as a “cost” to the economy without pushback from the neoliberal establishment left the GOP has very successfully sheltered their donors from taxation and created a general opposition to any spending by the government that might benefit someone not deemed “worthy”. This is how the people have come to so consistently vote against their own best interests.
The truth is that every dollar spent by government is a brand new dollar, not recycled tax revenue, and becomes someone’s asset in the private sector. The red ink of government is the only net source of black ink in the private sector that is able to retire private bank debt or act as a store of value to be saved. This is why, in spite of all of its budget deficit hawking, you never see balanced budgets from GOP administrations. Their primary goal is to keep the working class subservient to capital by limiting spending beneficial to the overall economy but supplying their donors with profits and inflation compensation.
Medicare 4 All has not been properly explained to American voters, but a campaign is not the time for teachable moments. While Bernie gives into the common narrative surrounding budgets by explaining how he would “pay for” it by taxing the wealthy he fully understands that taxes and spending are not related operationally or in macro-economic reality since we left the gold standard.
Taxing wealth at a considerably higher rate is necessary to protect our democratic process, but doesn’t “pay for” anything. In fact, taken by itself, Medicare 4 All would be deflationary and likely require a general tax “cut”, even above the stimulus of so many having no premiums or out of pocket costs, to retrain and employ all of the people in insurance and medical administration it would cause to be unemployed.
Even the most conservative analysis shows that it would cost at least $5 Trillion less than insurance over a decade, and that represents lost economic activity that must be compensated for. The politically easy way to do so is to cut taxes for the working class when deficit spending isn’t as widely accepted. From a macro-economic perspective, they are identical.
Both Bernie and Warren have the best economists advising them, so they both know all of this. That Warren chose to take a more moderate approach to healthcare may be nothing more than an attempt to garner votes from those who Bernie scares off with his extreme platform of goals. Considering that well over half the nation thinks a balanced budget is a worthy goal, even though history shows in “always” leads to recession, she might be wise to take a more moderate approach and appear more reasoned. From the perspective of a co-Presidency with Bernie, it makes little difference how we get there.
