The Most Substantive Political Debate in Recent Political History

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/13/most-substantive-political-debate-recent-political-history

Win or lose, Bernie Sanders has made this Democratic primary the most substantive in my lifetime. Not that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is devoid of ideas. She has some thoughtful ones. But the boldness of Sanders’ proposals is what has driven this historic and instructive debate.

The dynamic so far consists of Sanders setting a marker (e.g. free tuition, universal free health care, breaking up the banks, a $15 federal minimum wage, a $1 trillion public works investment); Clinton responds, and their two camps engage in a spirited, intelligent, and surprisingly concrete debate.

This back and forth has forced both candidates to raise their game. When Sanders proposed free college tuition, Clinton responded by unveiling her detailed New College Compact Plan. When Clinton attacked Sanders for failing to identify revenue sources to finance his free tuition and health care proposals, he promptly posted chapter and verse on his web site.

When economics Professor Gerald Friedman concluded that if all Sanders policies were implemented the combined effect would be to stimulate dramatically strong economic growth, four former heads of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) wrote an open letter not only dismissing his conclusions as not credible but admonishing, “Making such promises runs against our party’s best traditions of evidence-based policy making…”

The three-paragraph letter generated a collegial scolding from James Galbraith, former Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee, the Congressional counterpart of the CEA. He pointed out the signatories’ own lack of evidence for their conclusion. “I looked to the bottom of the page to find a reference or link to your rigorous review of Professor Friedman’s study. I found nothing there.” That led one of the signers to undertake a far more detailed response, which in turn generated an instructive and much too rare discussion regarding the validity of assumptions inside the black box of conventional economic models.

[merrily]

1. Hillary's ideas are all a marked down variation of things Sanders has said

for years. Hillary began developing them when Warren's popularity became evident and the Draft Warren Movement was raising millions, and then Hillary went into overdrive when Sanders declared. And even though the ideas of New Hillary have been triangulated, I don't trust new Hillary to arrive in the White House on Inauguration Day, if she should be the nominee AND elected in the general, which are by no means certain.

I believe the Hillary of the first 66 years of her life will show up if she is elected. I believe the Sanders of the first 66 of his life will show up, if he is elected--and his chances of being elected look better than hers. So, even if they were saying identical things, I'd vote for Sanders. Besides, to vote for him, I don't have to try to find a way around the IWR or Libya, Syria, the 2008 primary campaign, defending DADT, DOMA, ending "welfare as we know it," etc.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Well said, merrily!

[Scuba]

3. What merrily said!

[CorporatistNation]

4. No Explainin' Required With Bernie... Hillary... Plenty and On Defensive Entire Time! Poor Judgement

Bernie Only Choice!