Warren: The curious case of the missing plan.

[crazytown]

Elizabeth has more plans than ... well anyone, with one outstanding exception - Health Care. She is content to say, 'I'm with Bernie on this', time out questions by talking about medical bankruptcies, and allow moderators to reach the obvious conclusion ... if they want to know, ask the guy who "wrote the damn bill".

I see Warren's greatest policy vulnerabilities as M4A, decriminalizing the border, and the constitutionality of the wealth tax. Warren's greatest strength is her unforgiving, laser like focus on corruption.

Warren made a substantial contribution to the health care debate in 2018 with The Consumer Health Insurance Protection Act, better known as the ACA 2.0. She can probably explain Joe Biden's policy better than the man himself; she wrote most of it.

But here and now, the brilliant legislator, who is all over every detail, has little to say about Health Care that is her own. Passing Strange.

[treestar]

1. None of these plans are going to matter

when they can't pass Congress. How are we going to get the needed Senators? I recall the "disappointment" regarding what President Obama was able to get. I can just see the posts on disappointment in Warren or Bernie.

[crazytown]

2. Yeah. Mitch will block everything

let's give up on policy altogether.

[treestar]

3. no but we'll have to campaign on

we don't have x because the Rs filibustered it.

[crazytown]

5. You think Mitch will pass the Public Option?

He killed it last time ... filibustering reconciliation. You think he's changed his mind?

[treestar]

22. No.

Hopefully he will be out of his seat or replaced by a Democrat. Which is the only way any of these plans even get a vote.

[Zoonart]

11. This is my big problem with Elizabeth Warren.

I love her bright intelligence, but she seems naive in her insistence that she can deliver on these myriad plans. If she were to win the election... and I would absolutely support her if she were to win the primary, she is setting herself up for failure.

The Presidency of Barack Obama is a case study in brilliance of intent and inability to execute due to divided government.

This is why, for the moment, my choice is Biden. He understands how broken Washington is. The government is going to be a smoking crater when MF45 is gone (think Bahamas) and it is going to take at least 4 years to dig out.

A hollowed out Federal Government. is not going to be able to move forward with massive plans that demand functioning infrastructure and bureaucracy.

JMHO

[sharedvalues]

12. She is the one who knows how to do it

She knows that structural rreform is needed to pass any of those plans. She’s the one who will actually fight Senate Republicans. She’s the one who will remove filibuster and make DC a state and reform Cit U and dark money. All those things will help her pass her plans.

THAT is why she’s a great candidate. She knows how to deliver, by overcoming the Senate obstacles and locking in structural reform.

[treestar]

23. She can't remove the filibuster as POTUS

and the Dem Senators know they need it when Rs are in power. You can either think of the things that can't pass because of it that we want, or the things that might have passed if it weren't there, that the Rs want.

[sharedvalues]

26. The president is the leader of the party.

And she’d be an ex-Senator.

She’d have a lot of persuasive power.
And nows the time to set that agenda in the public sphere.

[treestar]

29. I don't think the POTUS is the leader of the party

like a PM in the parliamentary system. No Senator has to do what she wants and so a majority would still have to agree.

[sharedvalues]

27. Also it's a farce to say filibuster will stop GOP

Theyll repeal it the second they need it. Just like they rolled back the Supreme Court filibuster.

The Supreme Court filibuster was effectively gone— for GOP nominees only - starting in 2014. McConnell removed it when he needed it. If he needed it in 2014 he would have removed it then. It was effectively gone.

Any Democrat who wants to keep the filibuster because it will stop Republicans is at best starry eyed and at worst, deeply deceived about the state of our modern politics. The

[treestar]

28. He needed the majority at least though right

So it's possible for the Ds to do the same (though they will be called out on it unlike the Turtle). When we had the Senate majority I remember Harry Reid being called spineless for not getting rid of it. If it can go back and forth, the next Dem Maj. Leader can do it and say well the Turtle did it.

[Thekaspervote]

21. +1000

[sharedvalues]

13. Win the Senate. Repeal the filibuster. Make DC a statr

Give PR the option.

That’s how you beat McConnell.

[question everything]

20. Which is why we need to concentrate on the senate, even more than on the presidency

[at140]

6. +10 Recs

[crazytown]

7. Beto has explained at great length

why decriminalizing the border is a counterproductive proposal. If there is one plan, I hope Warren will revise ...

[crazytown]

9. Here

Elizabeth Warren Unveils Immigration Plan That Would Decriminalize Border Crossings
https://time.com/5624011/elizabeth-warren-immigration-plan-decriminalization/

[oldsoftie]

10. You are correct.

[treestar]

24. Decriminalizing would only mean

it not being a crime to cross illegally, making it civil like it was before; there would still be deportation of those illegally in the U.S. It was made a crime only so the xenophobes could call the crossers "criminals" (when they found out it was only civil).

[Kahuna7]

14. Too many plans. How many would be feasible? Pick one or two

as her signature plans and run on them.

[crazytown]

15. This is her signature plan. Already introduced. Ready to go.

(and it might be do-able with enough public pressure)

The Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act.
https://www.warren.senate.gov/download/master-summary-of-anti-corruption-act_-final

[Kahuna7]

16. For the common audience, it's really hard to tell. She's been

defined as having MANY plans. Not just one.

[crazytown]

18. Disagree.

At her rallies, and in her interviews, her message is crystal clear. 'It's the corruption, stupid' - Apologies to James Carville.

[highplainsdem]

17. Paul Krugman, who likes many of Warren's plans, does NOT like her trade plan. And he spelled

out why when she released it in late July, in a long Twitter thread starting here:

Link to tweet

OK, obviously I need to weigh in on Elizabeth Warren's trade proposal. I've been a huge fan of her plans so far. This one, not so much, although some of the critiques are overdone 1/


The truth is that this would have been a bad and destructive plan if implemented in, say, 1980. At this point it's still problematic, but not disastrous (this is going to be a long tweet storm) 2/


Background: the way we currently do trade negotiations is that professionals negotiate out of public view, but with input from key business players. Then Congress gets an up or down vote on the result 3/


This can sound like a process rigged in favor of special interests. But it was created by FDR, and its actual intent was largely the opposite. It took away the ability of Congresspeople to stuff trade bills with goodies for their donors and districts 4/


And while business interests certainly got a lot of input, it was set up in a way that set different groups against each other — exporters versus import-competing industries — and this served the interests of the general public 5/


Without this system we wouldn't have achieved the great opening of world markets after World War II — and that opening was a very good thing overall, especially for poor countries, and helped promote peace 6/


So what has changed? The key point is that the system pretty much achieved its goals; we're a low-tariff world. And that has had a peculiar consequence: these days "trade negotiations" aren't mainly about trade, they're about intellectual property and regulation 7/


And it's not at all clear that such deals are actually good for the world, which is why I was a soft opponent of TPP 8/
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/tpp-at-the-nabe/


So what Warren proposes is that we partially unravel the system FDR built, making trade negotiations more transparent and giving Congress a bigger role in shaping the deals. This sounds more democratic, but that's a bit deceiving 9/


Mainly it would substitute one kind of special interest distortion for another. That would have been a clearly bad thing when trade deals were actually about trade. Today, I think it's ambiguous 10/


Warren would also expand the criteria for trade policy to include a number of non-trade goals, like labor rights and environmental protection. Here again there are arguments on both sides 11/


On one side, the potential for abuse would be large — we could be slapping tariffs on countries for all kinds of reasons, turning trade policy into global power politics, which would be really bas for smaller, weaker countries 12/


On the other hand, there are some cases where trade policy will almost surely have to be used to enforce some common action. If we ever do act on climate change, carbon tariffs will be needed to discipline free riders 13/
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/climate-trade-obama/?mtrref=t.co&gwh=349B54D5A0821FD057432A8EC77A225A&gwt=pay&assetType=REGIWALL


Overall, this is the weakest Warren plan so far. (Still waiting to hear from her on health care! Harris has taken point there, and done it well) But it's not bad enough to change the verdict that she's the strongest contender on policy grounds 14/

[crazytown]

19. Trade is not going to be an negative issue in this campaign for Dems

Whoever is the candidate, they will have a field day with trump's infantile, ham fisted, trade wars.