The Schumer Shutdown
Eight Democrats break with party to advance plan to end shutdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKyPKSDr12s
Interesting info on the back half of this 6+ minute video.
Sanity reaches a handful of Democrats... the CR will pass... with Back Pay for those employees who lost out.And the Democrats had to force that and a promise (which I half expect Republicans to break) to vote for an extension of ACA subsidies down their throat.
Also, the CR has not passed. There are several hurdles in the way including the Republicans in the House.The only hurdles are the Democrats.
The Democrats are the threat to the Nation... well... the Progressive half of that Party, they need to dealt with:
Secessionist Democrats Need a Constitutional Lesson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECLdl1P02PIThe THUMPING MAGA took the last election is proof you are reading things incorrectly.
While I don't agree with them, mainly because Republican lawmakers cannot be trusted to keep their word, I can understand the vote of the eight Ds. Consequently, I can't join the chorus denouncing them.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/10/politics … ent-reopenWell hopefully, fingers crossed, that more folks will be able to get out of breadlines lines now...
You want to know something, ESO? I, too, believe that it was a great mistake to cave in. I wouldn’t give those people an inch. WHO among the GOP senators even considered the adverse affect of the spiraling health care premiums that hapless millions are going to have to pay even if they could retain their insurance coverage?
As for the gang of eight, DINOs are best left at Jurassic Park. The word of Republicans is less than worthless, otherwise they would have worked harder with Democrats to forge a compromise. They have been trying to destroy affordable health care programs since their inception, pointing specifically toward Obamacare. They all say that they want to replace it with something better, but I have yet to see anything from them except lip service.
I will have to say that the hapless and unfortunate will have asked for it by not resisting GOP schemes and by not supporting what it was the Democrats were trying to protect. Now that the heat if off, the GOP will brush off the Democrats like one would dust lint from his collar.
I am with other progressive Democrats saying that capitulating to this “gang” was a grave error, the magnitude of such has yet to be realized."WHO among the GOP senators even considered the adverse affect of the spiraling health care premiums"
The real question is WHO among the DEM senators even considered the adverse affect of the spiraling and never ending tax increases (and/or debt) in order to create and grow charity programs.When's the last time your taxes have gone up Wilderness, assuming you are middle class, from a Democratic sponsored tax reform.
To say "spiraling and never ending tax increases" tells me you don't know what you are talking about. When is the last time Democrats passed a law raising the federal income tax rate on what is considered middle class income earners?
You know what happened with Trump's first tax break for the wealthy? They went up, not down.When was the last year that federal receipts did NOT increase? Whether taxing the current population, whether taxing only a segment of it, or whether taxing future citizens, federal income ALWAYS rises, now doesn't it?
Stop moving the goal posts - you were talking about non-existent Democratic tax increases on the middle class.
Bottom line:
The last time Democrats raised federal payroll taxes on the middle class was 2013, when Obama allowed the temporary payroll tax cut to expire. There has been no Democratic-led income tax increase on the middle class since then.
"wilderness wrote:
When was the last year that federal receipts did NOT increase? Whether taxing the current population, whether taxing only a segment of it, or whether taxing future citizens, federal income ALWAYS rises, now doesn't it?" Dan
Facts support Dan's statement
Federal Receipts by Fiscal Year (in Trillions of Dollars)
Fiscal Year Federal Receipts % Change from Previous Year Notes
2010 $2.16 +2.7% Recovery from Great Recession began
2011 $2.30 +6.5% Economy improving
2012 $2.45 +6.3% Continued growth
2013 $2.78 +13.5% Payroll tax cut expired (revenues jumped)
2014 $3.02 +8.6% Strong growth year
2015 $3.25 +7.7% Record revenues
2016 $3.27 +0.6% Nearly flat year
2017 $3.32 +1.5% Slight increase
2018 $3.33 +0.3% Tax cuts took effect (revenue steady)
2019 $3.46 +3.9% Economic growth offset lower rates
2020 $3.42 –1.2% COVID shutdowns reduced receipts
2021 $4.05 +18.4% Rebound after pandemic
2022 $4.90 +21.1% Record receipts due to inflation & stimulus wind-down
2023 $4.44 –9.4% Decline after surge in 2022
2024* $4.79 +7.9% (est.) CBO estimate — receipts rising again
(*2024 figures are CBO estimates as of mid-2024.)
One of the ones was persuaded by this logic:
A lot of people are hurting now and it is going to get a lot worse if the Democrats stick to their guns. But if they don't stick to their guns and go for this almost nothing compromise, a lot of people are going to get hurt later.
After making the calculus that the Republicans would rather see people die rather than give up, they chose to relieve the current suffering and hope for the best.
Me, I would have waited another week or so.
The two positive things I think they got (plus a huge follow-on later) is 1) they got the fired people rehired and 2) stopped Trump from future RIFs. The promise of a Senate vote on ACA is a lost cause because either, they will decide not to have the vote after all or the House won't take it up.
Now, what I think has been accomplished already. The shutdown destroyed the Republicans in the publics eye. They won't be helped by the SNAP recipients finally getting their money because they will blame the Republicans for their misery anyway. They will, in my opinion be really hurt from now until Nov 2026 because of the millions of ACA people who will either have their quality of life lowered from huge ACA insurance premiums or start dying from lack of insurance because they can't afford it.
Everyone will know that is the Republican's fault and vote accordingly in 2026. I bet the Ds even take back the Senate. In fact, I will be putting my money where my fingers are and actually place bets on that outcome on one of the political betting sites. (I already would have but I could get them to upload my money when I tried, so I gave up.0
Democrats inarguably got at least one very important win...They have placed a glaring spotlight on Republicans refusal to renew the ACA healthcare subsidies, hanging the blame for spiking healthcare costs around their necks as the midterms draw near. And they have exposed once again the remarkable callousness of the Trump regime, which spent the last week of the shutdown fighting tooth and nail in court to avoid paying out this month’s SNAP benefits...trump is willing to shoot the hostage... the Democrats are not.
And the good news?
Mike Moses Johnson can hop on swearing in Adelita Grijalva... And we can get those Epstein files out in front of the public.The government shutdown was just an excuse, I would be surprised if Johnson will not find another excuse for not swearing Grijalva in, because the real issue is not having enough votes to get the Epstein files released.
The more I read Giuffre's book, the more certain I am that there are bombshells in the data Bondi has.
Isn't it ironic that lying Johnson calls himself a Christian. What a charlatan.
It's come to an end . . .because 8 Democrats changed their position.
So did every Republican.
So did Trump.
It's called compromise. It's how a government governs.I don't think there was much compromise, the Republicans did not give them the hefty continuations for migrant support and the ACA.
From what I can gather, the legislation includes a reversal of the mass firings of federal workers by the Trump administration since the shutdown began on Oct. 1.
It also protects federal workers against further layoffs through January and guarantees they receive back-pay once the shutdown is over.
I think there were enough sane Democrats left to see that their tactics were getting them no-where... other than increasing the chaos in the country... maybe they thought it helped them win some political campaigns that were going to go Blue in those Blue districts/states anyways.
I am glad to see that the Republicans have more spine than I gave them credit for, and they stood their ground. This is a fight for the country... one side wants to destroy it, the other is trying to preserve it, simple as that.
The sooner that sinks in, for those that still think this is old politics... where there was only a moderate difference between the two Parties, the better.Happily, the Republicans are toast in 2026 now.
In states that aren't completely lost to voter fraud, like CA is, I am not worried about it.
By 2026 election time, the divide will have become even more stark, the awareness of many, who take the time to vote, of what is at stake is growing.The reporting CLEARLY shows that Republicans lost across the board:
* They lost their gain in the Latino vote
* They lost a ton of Republican seats in Red districts in Virginia led by a Republican governor.
* They lost by margins never before seen in these "Blue" states that often elect Republican governors and House members.
I think you are simply fooling yourself and not accepting reality by holding on to the myth that Republicans didn't get squashed.
Again, false claims with nothing to back them up. Trump has snookered you, there is only insignificant voter fraud anywhere in the US. And when it does happen, the Republican are most often the guilty party.
Repeat after me - the claim of voter fraud is a fraud itselfDude... who is deluding themselves here?
California... New Jersey... New York City... Virginia...
The Government shut down motivated a lot of people dependent on government support to get out there and vote, I am sure, and the media played its part to blame Trump... I don't want to slander such people with labels such as "low information voter"... but if the shoe fits...
Anywho... if you think a 'blue wave' happened... fine... who am I to say it didn't.
But I am not impressed... if that had happened in states like Florida and Ohio, well then, I would have to agree with you.Did you see the Laura ingraham interview with trump? The man is deeply unwell... Trumpcare? 50 year mortgages? The man is an imbecile to put it politely
I would have to say that 50 year mortgages make a LOT more sense than forcing lenders to make more sub-prime mortgages. Yet I hear rumblings that Congress may try that ploy again - the same ploy that was directly responsible for the Great Recession a few years back.
I would have to say as well that "Trumpcare" could not be any worse than the Obamacare that Democrats want to spend additional Trillions on.Are you saying the Republicans are going to push for sub-prime mortgages again. Not surprised.
That will definitely cause another crash of the markets.
Both of these ideas like most of his ideas, are idiotic.
It is only MAUGA who can't see what is right in front of their eyes.
Ken, I completely agree with your take. It’s encouraging to finally see some real backbone from Republicans who understand that standing firm isn’t about partisanship, it’s about principle. For too long, compromise has meant caving to policies that expand government spending and weaken the country’s foundation.
I think you’re right that this latest legislation shows a turning point. It’s not perfect, but it does reflect that at least some in Washington realize endless concessions on things like migrant funding and bloated programs aren’t sustainable. Maybe this will mark a shift back toward accountability, fiscal discipline, and putting America’s interests first.
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt a bit of optimism about where things might be headed, but I’ll take this as a good sign that not everyone in Congress has lost touch with reality. I was also very pleased to see some Democrats cross over on this bill. Does shows compromise.
Here’s a clear, plain-spoken summary of what’s happening with the SNAP case before the Supreme Court and what the justices are really being asked to decide.
Background
Because of the ongoing federal government shutdown, there hasn’t been a new spending bill passed by Congress. That means several major programs — including SNAP (food stamps) — are running out of legally authorized funds.
https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-f … -churches/
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/11/trum … -payments/
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/11/trum … -payments/
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/ … 1.7.25.pdf
A federal district court in Rhode Island ruled earlier this month that the federal government must pay full SNAP benefits for November 2025, even though Congress hadn’t appropriated the money yet. The court reasoned that cutting benefits would harm millions of low-income Americans and that the government had some flexibility to find money elsewhere.
The Trump administration disagreed and quickly asked the Supreme Court to pause that order, saying the court had overstepped its power.
What the Supreme Court has done so far
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (who handles emergency applications from the First Circuit, which includes Rhode Island) granted an administrative stay on November 7, 2025.
This temporarily blocked the lower-court order that required full SNAP payments.
It allows the government to keep sending partial benefits while the legal issues are sorted out.
The full Supreme Court later extended that stay, so the pause remains in place while the justices decide what to do next.
That means, for now, SNAP benefits are not being fully funded — they remain at reduced levels.
What the Supreme Court is really looking at
The justices aren’t deciding whether food aid is good or bad. They’re looking at a constitutional and legal question about separation of powers and government spending authority.
Here’s the heart of it:
Does a court have the power to order the Executive Branch (the USDA, in this case) to spend money that Congress hasn’t appropriated?
The Constitution gives Congress the “power of the purse.” No money can be drawn from the Treasury unless Congress approves it by law.
The administration is arguing that forcing full SNAP payments violates that principle.
Does the SNAP law (7 U.S.C. § 2013(a)) require the government to pay full benefits even if appropriations are insufficient?
The law says benefits are provided “subject to the availability of appropriations.”
The lower court said that phrase doesn’t let the government slash benefits when millions rely on them, especially if the government can legally shift funds.
The administration says that’s wrong — if Congress hasn’t approved the funds, agencies can’t simply take them from somewhere else.
Emergency powers and equitable authority:
The Supreme Court will also consider whether federal judges can issue emergency orders to protect citizens during funding gaps, or if that’s entirely up to Congress and the Executive to solve politically.
Why it matters
This case could set a major precedent about what happens to essential aid programs during government shutdowns.
If the Court sides with the administration, it would affirm that no court can force spending without Congressional approval, even for critical programs like food aid.
If the Court sides with the plaintiffs (the Rhode Island Council of Churches and others), it would expand judicial power to order emergency funding for essential programs when the government deadlocks.
Either way, this case could reshape how future shutdowns affect Americans who rely on federal benefits.
My view
In my opinion, the Supreme Court is trying to balance compassion and constitutional limits. The justices likely understand that millions could suffer without full SNAP funding, but they also know that allowing courts to compel spending without appropriation would weaken the separation of powers.
This is not about whether food aid is justified — it’s about who has the authority to release the money: Congress, the Executive Branch, or the courts.Trump will eat the best food money can buy this Thanksgiving — while 42 million Americans wonder how to feed their families.
He’s blocking SNAP funds that are already in the bank.
The first president in U.S. history to starve his own people.Thank you for sharing your view. I believe I made my own position quite clear in my earlier, more detailed comment. I have nothing more to add.
This is key - Justice Brown, and presumably the other two liberal Justices, would have not issued the stay But at least 5 conservatives must have decided to starve people a couple more days hoping this would all blow over tonight.
"But at least 5 conservatives must have decided to starve people a couple more days hoping this would all blow over tonight."
In you opinion, will we thus be buying caskets for a few million people that [b]starved[/i]? Personally I don't see anyone at all starving, but perhaps you live in a different world. In my world food banks and private people have stepped up to help, but I suppose your (primarily) Democrat neighbors are different?Starving means 1) going hungry, 2) being deprived of food, so yes, starving is the appropriate word.
If you are busy at work and miss lunch you are not starving. Starving is NOT the appropriate word.
Dr. Mark,
Isn't it interesting the United States is a place where liberals claim people are starving...yet...there is a widespread problem with obesity in this country.
This is from the CDC
New CDC Data Show Adult Obesity Prevalence Remains High
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024 … esity.htmlSo, glad you pointed this out, it is a well-known fact.
Obesity can take a real toll on the body. It can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, liver problems, and joint pain. It can even raise the risk of certain cancers and cause issues like infertility or depression. It affects nearly every system, including the heart, lungs, liver, hormones, and even mental health. That’s why I take it seriously; it’s not just about weight, it’s about overall well-being.Both can be true at the same time - have food deprived people and obese people, it is a big country.
So to me, pointing out obese people is a deflection and an insult all around, to obese people and people on SNAP who can't buy enough food.When apples cost $2.50 a pound, spoil quickly and a box of store brand snack cakes will retail for about a $1.50 on average and last for a month, I think we all know which one will be chosen more often.
"Both can be true at the same time - have food deprived people and obese people, it is a big country.
So to me, pointing out obese people is a deflection and an insult all around, to obese people and people on SNAP who can't buy enough food.
replypermalinkreport" ECO
My comment was regarding the CDC link Mark left. A follow-up on what I read per the subject . I suggest you follow a conversation before leaving a rude comment.
Readmikenow wrote:
Dr. Mark,
Isn't it interesting the United States is a place where liberals claim people are starving...yet...there is a widespread problem with obesity in this country.
This is from the CDC
New CDC Data Show Adult Obesity Prevalence Remains High
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024 … esity.html
Sharlee ---" So, glad you pointed this out, it is a well-known fact.
Obesity can take a real toll on the body. It can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, liver problems, and joint pain. It can even raise the risk of certain cancers and cause issues like infertility or depression. It affects nearly every system, including the heart, lungs, liver, hormones, and even mental health. That’s why I take it seriously; it’s not just about weight, it’s about overall well-being.
Back off, or I will report you. You have once again, for the second time today have accused me of something that my comment does not reflect. Better yet, pass my comments by.
If one has on average $170 per month to feed themself, might one buy only the most processed and fat laden foods because they're cheaper? Therefore resulting in a weight issue?
Or get a job.
In fiscal year 2024, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the U.S. served an average of 41.7 million people per month, which equates to about 12.3% of the U.S. population.A significant portion of SNAP recipients are full-time workers; however, the exact number varies depending on how "full-time" is defined (e.g., 35 hours/week vs. year-round). According to a 2020 (most recent) U.S. Government Accountability Office report, roughly 70% of adult wage earners in SNAP households worked at least 35 hours a week, and about half worked full-time all year. Many full-time workers still qualify for SNAP because their wages are low, and their income does not meet the eligibility requirements for the program, which are based on household size, income, and expenses.
A sad statistic that was unknown to myself: Social Security was the most common source of income among SNAP households. Thirty-three percent of SNAP households received Social Security benefits (an average of $1,096 monthly. On top of that, two-thirds of participants are children, adults over age 60, and people with disabilities.
SNAP Helps Millions of Workers in Low-Paying Jobs | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities https://share.google/pJ0re2fdzTSXUabMy
SNAP Provides Critical Benefits to Workers and Their Families | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities https://share.google/JV2c46FdVh9RqFXlY
Have you heard of the saying that "both things can be true at the same time"?
Doc, in the case of the so-called Democratic shutdown, the term "starving" became just another exaggerated label pushed by Democrats and echoed by the left-leaning media for those who latch onto buzzwords. Think of past examples like “Boot Jacks,” “Hitler,” or “dictator.” Have you noticed how these words often start from a podium, spread through the media, and then—well, you know the rest?
Groupthink is alive and well.Then why are those on SNAP complaining about starving so much? Do you think they are whiners and don't really know how they feel?
As to your other point "Think of past examples like “Boot Jacks,” “Hitler,” or “dictator.” Have you noticed how these words often start from a podium, spread through the media, and then—well, you know the rest? "
Those references are not made up out of thin air. Those terms are used because Trump and his goons actions look remarkably like those being referenced from 1930s, As to dictator - that is obvious on its face.Source please -- "Then why are those on SNAP complaining about starving so much? Do you think they are whiners and don't really know how they feel?" Starving? Do you actually have a quote from a person who receives SNAP, who claims they are starving? I would think you would be concerned about the Democrats disrupting SNAP benefits. In reality, they vote 14 times to obstruct a clean pathway so people can receive their benefits. It was obvious to me they could have cared less about the people they claimed were starving.
Regarding the labels --- I won a bet with a friend on how long it would take liberals to use the Boot Jack label on social media. I won.... I mean, it is very obvious that dog whistle labels are picked up quickly and used on social media. It is a true phenomenon.
You are definitely stretching to find something to oppose and insulting those on SNAP at the same time. Good job.
I think we will have the culmination of the desires of BOTH extremes soon enough...
The Extreme Left wants nothing less than the destruction of the current system we have in place...
The Extreme Right will essentially prefer that than to allowing tens of millions of people (some citizens... some not) to continue to get to ride the gravy train for free...
The Extreme Right will also likely enjoy the chaos and the 'survival of the fittest' social unrest that comes during a systemic collapse...
42 million people relying on the government for SNAP... that is a lot of people that are going to be looking for a way to survive when that all goes away.
From Mirriam Webster:
starve
verb
ˈstärv
starved; starving
intransitive verb
1
a
: to perish from lack of food
b
: to suffer extreme hunger
2
a
archaic : to die of cold
b
British : to suffer greatly from cold
3
:
: to suffer or perish from deprivation
(starved for affection)
1) seems the most appropriate...unless the goal is to once more demonize politics you don't like. In any case, none of them is simply missing a meal and getting a little hungry, as you would use the word.
But I DO understand the value of gross exaggeration. A lot of people just eat it up, especially if it is negative about Trump or anything to do with Trump. I'm just not one of them.Dan-- My view--- I would tend to feel that out o the 42 million on the plan, a greater majority should not be on it... I mean, has anyone ever considered this program needs a deep clean--- 12.3% of the U.S. population. I mean, one really needs to wonder. 12% freaken percent of our population!
*shrug* We are also told that over half of our population is too disabled to support themselves; that they need government charity of one kind or another. Every other person you meet walking through the mall of down the sidewalk is mentally or physically disabled to the point they cannot provide for themselves!
And if you believe that (or that 42 million people cannot provide health insurance) I have some great ocean front property in Arizona just for you! Complete with a gorgeous bridge!If an individual works at a full-time job that pays $20 an hour, around $40,000 per year, how does one afford health insurance that on average retails for about $1,000 per month along with rent, food and all of the other bills associated with living?
It should be obvious he does live in the real world like you and I.
Don't work for $20 per hour. Today we find McDonalds paying nearly that - there is no need for a skilled worker to settle for it.
Don't have any salable skills? Get some.I believe many of the jobs that have been difficult to fill will now have more applicants, especially with the new requirement that some Medicaid recipients work 20 hours a week to maintain coverage. I think this rule could benefit the economy overall. and gets able-bodied people back to work.
Requiring able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work a minimum number of hours can increase participation in the workforce. When more people take jobs, businesses can fill open positions more easily, which helps production, customer service, and overall economic activity. Increased employment also means more people earning wages, spending money in their communities, and contributing to economic growth. Additionally, a larger workforce can reduce the strain on social programs by shifting more people toward employer-based insurance or higher incomes. Win WinWhat does it mean for the worker that makes 15 to $20 an hour though? These jobs largely do not offer even the smallest employer contribution toward health care. These are also wages that still allow the individual to collect some level of benefit from the SNAP program.
In states that expanded Medicaid, most adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level are eligible. That means someone making below the poverty line can generally get Medicaid coverage.
How do we move people away from what has been called "socialist" programs here (Medicaid, SNAP)? Particularly when we have 34% of this country that make $50,000 or less yearly?
I have no Idea... I will leave that to those who have contributed to the problem, which is many.
If we’re talking about moving people away from programs like Medicaid or SNAP, we can’t just ask how to move them; we have to ask a deeper question that almost no one addresses honestly: why the hell do we have so many Americans who aren’t thriving in the first place? That’s the part everyone skips, and it’s the heart of the issue.
Yes, roughly a third of this country indeed earns $50,000 a year or less. People throw that statistic out as if it’s an immovable fact, but it raises a critical question: How did the most prosperous nation on earth end up with so many citizens who can’t break past basic survival? So, before we can talk about moving people off “socialist” programs, we have to understand why they now seem to need them to begin with.
I guess perhaps some don't realize as of yet... even if we need socialism in America --- we can't afford it. Small problem that those who push it have looked.What is the definition of "not thriving?" A large portion of our society makes less than $50,000 a year because that's what that particular employment pays. How is it possible that everyone can make $100,000 a year? Hotel housekeeping may make $50,000 per year. Should that staff be paid more? Because hotel housekeeping isn't going anywhere. The same can be said for many jobs in the service and other sectors. Labeling an individual as "not thriving" because they work at a job, that is vital to society, and make only $50,000 per year doesn't seem to make sense. That's blaming the individual for something beyond their control. Someone has to do the jobs that pay $50,000 a year, don't they? I know another user here suggested that we have our nation's children do them but I don't think that's feasible.
What a utopian society we would be if all of us were doctors, lawyers, finance gurus, tech wizards and the like. But who would cook our food? Clean our homes? Manicure or lawns? Run our retail?"Yes, roughly a third of this country indeed earns $50,000 a year or less. People throw that statistic out as if it’s an immovable fact, but it raises a critical question: How did the most prosperous nation on earth end up with so many citizens who can’t break past basic survival? "
My guess? Because that's what employers pay.
A housekeeper at the Marriott Corporation makes an average of $19.91 per hour.
The average hourly pay for an Amazon warehouse worker in the US is about $18.36.
The average hourly wage for a Walmart frontline associate is close to $18 per hour,
The average hourly worker at Kroger makes around $15 per hour,
The average hourly pay for a cook at Olive Garden is approximately $15.85 to $17.19.
The average salary for a teacher at a KinderCare Center is about a whooping $22 per hour.
A janitor's hourly wage at the nation's largest office building owner? $17
A home personal healthcare aide's hourly wage can range from approximately $14 to $20 per hour.I think the core issue your comment misses is that when I talk about people “not thriving,” I’m not referring to job titles or pretending that everyone can be a doctor, lawyer, or tech engineer. I’m talking about the deeper societal conditions that keep millions of Americans, across all professions, stuck in a cycle where they’re constantly one emergency away from collapse.
We’ve always had housekeepers, retail workers, landscapers, and kitchen staff. That isn’t new. What is new is that MORE and more people working these essential jobs can’t afford stable housing, can’t save anything, and can’t build a future.
They’re not failing because they chose the “wrong job”; they’re struggling because somewhere along the line, the basics of stability, housing costs, healthcare, childcare, and transportation skyrocketed far beyond what these roles were designed to ever cover.
In the past, America dealt with societal challenges without embracing socialism because we focused on opportunity, mobility, and building pathways out of hardship rather than trapping people in it.
We strengthened education, we expanded trade schools, we incentivized industry, and we rewarded work. But right now, we’ve created a society where millions of people work full-time and still cannot get ahead. That’s not about the value of the job; it’s about the fact that the economy changed faster than the system did. The issue isn’t that someone makes $50,000—it’s that the cost of living now treats $50,000 like it’s barely survival.
So when I say “why do so many not thrive,” I’m asking a bigger question. Why have we allowed a society where essentials outpace wages? Why did we let globalization hollow out the middle-income labor market? Why did we shift massive incentives toward corporations while shrinking mobility for workers?
And why is the proposed solution from some people always more government dependency, and more programs that look increasingly like the precursors to socialism, rather than reforms that actually restore independence, dignity, and upward mobility?
We don’t need a utopia. We need an economy where essential workers can still build a life. We need a society where a housekeeper or retail worker can thrive without relying on Medicaid, SNAP, and government housing. And the only way that happens is by fixing the underlying structural issues, housing shortages, healthcare monopolies, overstretched immigration systems, and weak vocational pipelines—not by normalizing permanent dependence on government programs.
Yes, someone has to clean the hotel rooms and serve the food. But in a healthy society, those people are stable, secure, and have pathways to grow if they choose to, not boxed into reliance on programs that politicians keep expanding while calling it compassion. Thriving is not about everyone making six figures. Thriving is about having control, options, and dignity. And right now, too many Americans don’t have that, not because of the jobs they work, but because of decisions made far above their pay grade."Why have we allowed a society where essentials outpace wages? Why did we let globalization hollow out the middle-income labor market? Why did we shift massive incentives toward corporations while shrinking mobility for workers?"
Well I would say that capitalism would be at the root particularly in relation to globalization. "Allowing" equals a free market, doesn't it?
Capitalism is really the driving force behind globalization, as it seeks new markets, cheaper labor, and more efficient production methods elsewhere. Another? Reduced worker bargaining power as evidenced by the decline of unions.
And almost never mentioned? Decoupling of pay and productivity. In the post-WWII era, worker pay rose in tandem with productivity. However, since the 1970s, productivity has continued to grow, while the hourly compensation of typical workers has largely stagnated, meaning workers produce more but receive a smaller share of the economic output.
Companies have become more sophisticated in implementing strategies that suppress wages and reduce labor costs over time, especially since the 1970s.
"Fixing the underlying structural issues" would fly in the face of capitalism. But I would argue that pure, unregulated capitalism has lead us to the extreme inequality we see today. It's time to pull the reins.
What should be done when the nation's largest corporations do not pay a living wage?I honestly don’t agree that “capitalism” is the root of all this. What you’re describing didn’t happen because the free market was too free; it happened because politicians messed with the market, made terrible trade decisions, and pushed policies that weakened American workers. If anything, capitalism got distorted, not unleashed.
You bring up globalization, but you skip the biggest factor: NAFTA and then China entering the WTO. Those were political decisions that wiped out whole towns, sent factories overseas, and left the middle class with fewer good jobs. That’s not capitalism running wild, that’s leaders selling out American labor in the name of “global competitiveness.” And if we’re talking about wages, let’s be honest: wages didn’t stagnate because CEOs woke up one day and said “let’s pay less.”
They stagnated because our own government encouraged offshoring, allowed illegal immigration to flood the low-skill labor market, and created a tax and regulatory system that rewards companies for going anywhere but here.
You mention unions, but unions didn’t decline because capitalism crushed them, they declined because they turned into political machines. They spent more time donating to one party than actually helping workers adapt to new industries or negotiate better training and mobility.
And the pay–pay-productivity issue? That’s tied directly to globalization. Workers here simply couldn’t keep pace when our policies opened the floodgates to countries with zero labor or environmental standards. It’s not that capitalism failed. It’s that the playing field stopped being even.
You also left out how over-regulation drives the cost of essentials through the roof. Housing, energy, infrastructure all of it takes years of paperwork and government approval before anything is built. When supply is strangled, of course, prices outpace wages. That’s not capitalism. That’s bureaucracy.
So no, I don’t think extreme inequality came from “pure capitalism.” It came from political decisions, global competition, and policies that punished American workers and rewarded foreign labor. Look at the countries with the worst inequality; ironically, they all have huge government control over the economy.
As for corporations not paying a “living wage,” the real question is why our government built a system where they don’t have to. We allowed trade deals that export jobs, a border that undercuts wages, welfare programs that subsidize low pay instead of promoting upward mobility, and an education system that produces debt instead of marketable skills.
Capitalism didn’t fail us. Our leadership did.
And yes, this is exactly why Trump’s agenda resonated with me. For the first time in 30 years, a candidate was actually talking about bringing production home, fixing trade deals, securing the border, cutting the regulatory mess, and rebuilding the middle class instead of apologizing for it. He finally said what I’ve been wanting to hear for decades.Your defense of capitalism hinges on a clear distinction between “pure” capitalism and the actual version that exists in the U.S.—a distinction that’s more theoretical than practical. You argue that inequality, wage stagnation, and the decline of good jobs resulted not from capitalism itself, but from government missteps: NAFTA, China’s entry into the WTO, regulatory “overreach,” and flawed immigration and welfare policies. Let’s examine why I believe this argument collapses under scrutiny.
Capitalism’s Track Record: The problem isn’t just with “distorted” capitalism; it’s with the incentives and structures capitalism creates in practice. The system rewards profit maximization above all, often at the direct expense of labor. NAFTA, WTO agreements, and even deregulation were not imposed in opposition to capitalist interests: they were actively championed by corporate lobbyists and business interests looking to lower costs and boost profits. Political leaders didn’t act against capitalism—they followed its logic, enabling capital to chase cheaper labor and fewer regulations across borders. Corporations offshored jobs and suppressed wages because it was profitable to do so. This is exactly what market forces—left alone or “unleashed”—create: a relentless search for cost savings, usually on the backs of workers.
The “Government Messed Up the Market” Fallacy. The “government interference” you decry often amounts to removing protections for workers, not imposing artificial barriers. When the government “got out of the way” by gutting labor laws, weakening unions, and deregulating industries (from airlines and trucking to finance), wages stagnated and job security collapsed. History offers a blunt lesson: in periods of strong government intervention on behalf of workers (the New Deal, post-war era), wages grew with productivity and the middle class flourished. When the pendulum swung toward deregulation and “free” markets in the 1980s onward, inequality surged. If “interference” is the problem, why did outcomes get worse when it was removed?
Globalization Was Capitalism’s Project: Globalization didn’t happen despite capitalism—it happened because of it. Corporations demanded market access, offshore production, and the right to move capital seamlessly around the planet. NAFTA and China’s WTO accession were orchestrated with, and for, the largest multinational firms. The profit motive ensured that jobs would always flow to where labor was cheapest and standards were lowest. Protectionism, in fact, would have required a rejection of capitalism’s core principle: open competition and pursuit of efficiency. It’s a sleight of hand to blame “global competitive pressures” as if those are external to capitalism—they are its natural consequence.
Union Decline: Not just politics, but market hostility. It’s misleading to claim unions simply “became political machines.” The decline of organized labor followed a deliberate campaign by business, supported by deregulation and anti-union law (Taft-Hartley, right-to-work laws, retaliation against organizers). Capitalism rewards the destruction of collective bargaining, as it empowers employers to cut wages and benefits. Where unions thrive (see Germany, Nordic countries), inequality is lower despite open markets. Unions were crushed because they interfered with profit maximization, not because of their political donations.
Pay-Productivity split Is a feature, not a bug. The decoupling of wages from productivity—across the OECD, not just the U.S.—predates China’s WTO entry and NAFTA. It’s endemic to late-stage capitalism, where technological advances and bargaining asymmetries allow owners to capture virtually all productivity gains. In a system that prioritizes shareholder returns over worker welfare, this is the expected and persistent outcome.
Overregulation as scapegoat? The “red tape” argument doesn’t withstand scrutiny. Housing, healthcare, and education costs have soared in a deregulated financial environment—think mortgage-backed securities, private equity in healthcare, tuition loan subsidies—not from over-regulation. In fact, where government directly provides or heavily subsidizes these goods (Europe, East Asia), costs are lower and outcomes better. Deregulated markets in essentials foster speculation and predatory pricing, not affordability.
“More Government = more inequality”? No evidence your assertion that highly regulated economies breed more inequality. Actually this is contradicted by global evidence. The most egalitarian, prosperous societies (Scandinavia, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands) combine robust capitalist markets with strong welfare states, active labor market policies, and high union density. The U.S., with its weaker safety net and relatively deregulated labor market, is among the most unequal developed societies. The pattern isn’t subtle.Corporations and the “System Built for Them”To say companies exploit loopholes, wage subsidies, and trade deals because government “lets them” is to admit that, left unchecked, profit-seeking will always erode labor standards and public welfare. That’s not a flaw of corrupt politicians; it’s a structural feature of the system—they respond to who holds power and capital, and in a capitalist democracy, that’s business, not workers. If capitalism requires constant government correction just to keep it humane (through minimum wages, labor laws, social insurance), it clearly isn’t self-correcting, nor “purely” beneficial.
The Trump Agenda: Populism, not a systemic solution. Finally, the appeal of nationalist, protectionist policies—no matter which party offers them—speaks to a widespread sense of betrayal. But slapping tariffs on imports or closing borders doesn’t solve the fundamental problem: the relentless pursuit of profit above all, even national solidarity or worker wellbeing, is embedded in the DNA of the system. Populist rhetoric may address symptoms, but it leaves the disease untouched.
To sum up? Capitalism in practice—not in economic textbooks—drives the very “distortions” you blame on politicians. Policy choices, trade deals, and regulatory structures are themselves products of capitalist pressures. When left to its own devices, the profit motive relentlessly moves capital away from workers, toward owners, and across borders when possible. Real-world outcomes, not theoretical ideals, demand scrutiny. “Pure” capitalism does not exist outside debate rooms, and blaming only politicians is to ignore who holds power and sets the terms. If you object to the outcomes, you’re objecting to the system. If you require government intervention to avoid these outcomes, you’re conceding that capitalism—left alone—cannot and will not deliver economic security, equality, or broad prosperity. That’s the core problem your argument cannot resolve.I’m going to respond to you directly, because your entire argument assumes I’m defending some fantasy version of capitalism that only exists in textbooks. I’m not. I’m talking about the real-world system we actually live in, and the very real political decisions that wrecked it for working Americans. You’re trying to blame “capitalism” for every bad outcome, when in reality it was our government that opened the door, held it open, and waved American jobs out of the country.
You say NAFTA, China’s WTO entry, and open borders were “capitalism’s logic.” No, they were Washington’s logic, pushed by politicians, global institutions, and corporate lobbyists who knew exactly what they were doing. Other capitalist nations protected their workers and industries. We didn’t. That wasn’t capitalism acting on its own; that was a political class choosing ideology and corporate favoritism over national interest. Don’t pretend that trade deals negotiated by presidents and approved by Congress were some automatic function of “the market.”
You blame deregulation for wage stagnation, but wages were already flattening long before the deregulation wave. What crushed wage growth was flooding the labor market, both through mass immigration and outsourcing. When you oversupply labor, the price of labor collapses. That isn’t “late-stage capitalism”; that’s basic economics. Our politicians made that choice. They didn’t have to.
And your take on unions skips the part where American unions became bloated political machines protecting bad workers, resisting modernization, and driving entire industries into the ground. Germany kept unions tied to productivity. We let ours become partisan fiefdoms. Again, political choices, not “capitalist inevitability.”
Your argument about housing, healthcare, and education costs actually proves my point. Housing is expensive because government restrictions throttle supply. Healthcare blew up because government subsidies removed any market pressure on costs. College tuition exploded because federal loans guaranteed universities endless money. Those are policy decisions. That’s the government creating distortions, not capitalism being “unleashed.”
And invoking Scandinavia is a dodge. Those countries run capitalist economies too. They just tax MORE and redistribute more. Their prosperity comes from wealth generated by markets, wealth they then choose to spread around differently. They don’t prove capitalism fails; they prove capitalism succeeds so well that a country can afford huge social programs on top of it.
You also keep saying capitalism “needs constant corrections.” So does every human system. Families do. Schools do. Democracies do. The presence of rules doesn’t mean the system is broken, it means the people running it matter. And my entire point is that the people running our system made catastrophic decisions that undercut workers, gutted industries, and left communities behind. That isn’t capitalism’s DNA. That’s leadership failure.
So if we’re going to assign blame, I’m not handing politicians a free pass by pretending they were helpless passengers in some runaway capitalist machine. They wrote the rules, rewrote the rules, and ignored the consequences. And now we’re living with the fallout.
I’m criticizing the people who steered the ship into the iceberg, not the tool they were supposed to use responsibly. If anything, your argument proves my point: the damage came from the decisions, not the existence of capitalism itself.
I’ve heard that argument before; it’s popular, and in my book, it gets repeated so often it feels rehearsed. Maybe it’s time to step away from the script and actually dig into how we got here. Because it’s easy to blame “the system” in some abstract way, but that doesn’t move us forward. If we really want answers, then we need to stop reciting ideological talking points and start asking who made the decisions, why they made them, and who benefited. That’s where the real story is."You’re trying to blame “capitalism” for every bad outcome, when in reality it was our government that opened the door, held it open, and waved American jobs out of the country."
Quite simply and succinctly, because corporate America demanded it. The answer to your question, "who benefited"? Corporate America.
Blaming the “political class” for all social and economic dislocation mistakes the messy reality: capitalism is an inherently political system everywhere. Every major country, including the U.S., has always mixed markets and state intervention, with results shaped as much by global realities as by domestic choices. The separation of “market” from “politics” is artificial: it is precisely their entanglement that creates the modern world, with all its growth and all its inequities. Robust debate about the proper balance is necessary, but the claim that American outcomes are due solely to ideological or “corporate-favoring” policy—rather than the very nature of modern capitalism as it is practiced worldwide—is factually unsupported and analytically naive.Not looking far enough... you are speculating... "corporate America"?
What is "corporate America"... most corporations are HQed offshore for tax evasion purposes, making them international corporations.
The Central Banking system is owned by the largest Banks which in turn are owned by whom?
It is these powers, the owners of the banks controlling the Central Banking system that are pulling the strings... Open Border... Nationless world...
Giving them, the ones you never elect, never blame... never know are the ones really directing the flow of power in the world... starting the wars... raising inflation to 10%... 20%...
The joke is on anyone who is thinking they are fighting that system... by fighting the Trump Administration.Ownership of the Reserve? The U.S. Federal Reserve is not “owned” in any traditional sense. While its regional reserve banks technically issue shares to member commercial banks, these shares do not confer ownership, control, or profit in the private sense. The Fed’s operations and leadership are set by public law, and its policy-makers are appointed by the U.S. government. All net profits are transferred to the U.S. Treasury.
I will concede that some
large U.S.-based multinationals use offshore subsidiaries for legal tax minimization (not “evasion,” which is illegal, but rather “avoidance”), the majority are still headquartered in the U.S., subject to U.S. law, regulation, and taxation on their domestic operations. Apple, Google, ExxonMobil, Walmart, JP Morgan—these companies remain fundamentally American in ownership, leadership, and employment. Most Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in the U.S.; only a minority have fully "offshored" HQs.Joel it is great to have you here.
You do provide some valuable insights.
I don't agree with them, but you do present them in a thoughtful way.While it’s true that the Federal Reserve operates under public law and its profits are remitted to the Treasury, the claim that it is entirely independent of private influence oversimplifies reality. The Fed’s structure is unique: its regional banks are technically owned by member commercial banks, which hold stock that confers dividends and influence in governance matters such as electing certain bank directors. Though this is not ownership in the traditional corporate sense, it does embed private banking interests into the institution that sets U.S. monetary policy, creating potential conflicts between public interest and private banking priorities. Critics argue that this hybrid public-private structure allows large banks disproportionate influence over economic policy, including lending rates, liquidity decisions, and financial regulation.
Regarding U.S. corporations, while headquarters remain domestic, the modern global economy blurs the line of “true” American ownership. Multinationals routinely shift profits to low-tax jurisdictions, leverage complex global structures, and influence international trade and tax policy. Even if legal, these practices can reduce the effective tax contribution of corporations to the U.S., which impacts public funding for infrastructure, social programs, and economic stability. So, while the companies appear “American” on paper, the reality of ownership, profit flows, and control is far more globalized, raising questions about the domestic benefits these corporations truly provide.
Ken, I agree with what you’re saying, and it fits directly into the point I already made. You’re right that “corporate America” isn’t a neat, tidy category anymore; these are globalized corporations, often headquartered offshore, operating above national loyalties. You’re also right that there are financial institutions and central banking structures that exert influence far beyond what the average voter can track.
Because whether you call it corporate America, multinational corporations, or the financial architecture behind central banking, the bottom line is the same: specific policy choices in the U.S. were made in ways that favored these concentrated power centers over workers and citizens. These weren’t inevitable consequences of capitalism, nor were they natural byproducts of globalization. They were decisions, trade agreements written by corporate lawyers, tax codes carved out for multinationals, deregulation pushed by banking lobbies, and political narratives crafted to convince the public these choices were “just the way the world works.”
Your point about international corporate power and financial institutions actually strengthens the case that blaming only “the political class” is incomplete. But the political class isn’t irrelevant; they’re the gatekeepers who allowed these actors to shape policy. They’re the ones who opened the door.
And this returns to my original argument:
America’s economic and social outcomes didn’t simply fall out of the sky. They came from deliberate policy trajectories that disproportionately benefited these powerful groups, whether you define them as corporations, financial institutions, or globalized elites. Pretending the system just naturally evolved this way ignores the fingerprints all over it.
Yes, ordinary people attacking the wrong targets, believing that the system is shaped purely by partisan squabbles or by whichever administration is in office, miss the larger forces at work. That’s how the real power centers get away with what they do: people are too busy fighting each other to look up the food chain.Posted:
"the bottom line is the same: specific policy choices in the U.S. were made in ways that favored these concentrated power centers over workers and citizens. These weren’t inevitable consequences of capitalism, nor were they natural byproducts of globalization."
Globalization is an inevitable outcome of capitalism. The pursuit of profit drives companies to seek new markets and resources beyond their borders. Yes policy choices were made but they were made under the construct of capitalism. Without the underlying principles of capitalism, policy decisions would lack the necessary economic motivation to facilitate globalization.Correct, they did not come because of Capitalism itself...
They came because of corruption and the 'Single Super Power' status achieved in 1990.
Much of the decisions to shift businesses out of America and to shift toward global (open border) liberal rules based international profiteering began in earnest.
NAFTA... China's Favored Nation Status (renamed but remaining)... the Repeal of Glass Steagall... all this was done under Clinton... as harmful to the American Citizens then as what the Biden Administration allowed in his 4 years.
Yes... the Political Class... Republican and Democrat both... but now a earnest betrayal by the Democrats of the American people. The Republicans are where the last bastions of people trying to save the Nation and Citizen Rights... the benefit of being an American Citizen... are being harbored.
One more big Progressive wave post 2028 should do the trick and capsize the American economic ship... if Trump fails to bring an economic boom to fruition for the Middle Class by 2027... 2028 will go to the dogs.
Ken, sometimes you make it so easy to debunk obvious fibs - such as the one you just made about corporate offshoring.
That’s just factually off. The vast majority of corporations serving the U.S. market are incorporated and headquartered in the United States — including almost all of the Fortune 500. A small slice of multinationals have done tax “inversions” to places like Ireland or Bermuda, but that’s nowhere near “most.” When people talk about “corporate America,” they’re talking about big firms whose leadership, operations, and political influence are centered here, regardless of whatever P.O. box they use for tax purposes.Offshore Tax Evasion by Big Corporations, the Wealthy Cheats American People
https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/ … can-people
OFFSHORE TAX EVASION BY THE WEALTHY AND CORPORATIONS
https://www.congress.gov/event/118th-co … 73024/text
Tax Evasion at the Top of the Income Distribution: Theory and Evidence
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/23rptax … medist.pdf
Ongoing Use of Offshore Tax Havens Demonstrates the Need for the Global Minimum Tax
https://itep.org/offshore-tax-havens-co … nimum-tax/None of that supports your broad claim that "What is "corporate America"... MOST corporations are HQed offshore for tax evasion purposes, making them international corporations."
That simply isn't true no matter how many anecdotes you find.
To say “corporate America demanded it” and that’s why these outcomes happened vastly oversimplifies reality. Yes, capitalism is inherently political, and yes, markets and governments are intertwined, but that doesn’t erase the clear, documented choices made in the U.S. over the last 40 years that systematically favored corporate profits over workers’ wages and social stability. Tax policy, regulatory rollbacks, trade agreements, and financial deregulation weren’t inevitable consequences of global capitalism; they were deliberate, ideologically driven decisions shaped by lobbying and political influence. To dismiss them as mere features of “modern capitalism” ignores the agency of policymakers and the measurable impact these policies had on wage stagnation, inequality, and wealth concentration.
The messy reality is still rooted in choices. Governments and markets interact everywhere, yes, but the U.S. trajectory, especially post-1980s, was not an inevitable byproduct of globalization or market forces. It was a specific path chosen by political actors responding to corporate power. To pretend otherwise is to mistake convenience for analysis.The logic feel circular. One is making a staunch defense of capitalism but decrying its outcomes.
Globalization is a result of capitalism, with the two reinforcing each other, as capitalism's drive for profit and expansion fuels globalization, while globalization creates a global market condition that benefits capitalism. They are interdependent.
And Yes, many factors within a capitalist system contribute to the decline of labor unions. People may or may not like these outcomes but they are inextricably linked to capitalism.
You wrote:
"You say NAFTA, China’s WTO entry, and open borders were “capitalism’s logic.” No, they were Washington’s logic, pushed by politicians, global institutions, and corporate lobbyists who knew exactly what they were doing."
To reiterate: NAFTA, WTO agreements, and even deregulation were not imposed in opposition to capitalist interests: they were actively championed by corporations and business interests looking to lower costs and boost profits. Political leaders didn’t act against capitalism—they followed its logic, enabling capital to chase cheaper labor and fewer regulations across borders. Corporations offshored jobs and suppressed wages because it was profitable to do so. This is exactly what market forces—left alone or “unleashed”—create: a relentless search for cost savings, usually on the backs of workers.
You wrote:
"If anything, your argument proves my point: the damage came from the decisions, not the existence of capitalism itself.".
The two are intertwined, inextricably. The decisions were and are based upon capitalism, unleashing free markets. The separation of “market” from “politics” is artificial."To reiterate: NAFTA, WTO agreements, and even deregulation were not imposed in opposition to capitalist interests: they were actively championed by corporations and business interests looking to lower costs and boost profits. Political leaders didn’t act against capitalism—they followed its logic, enabling capital to chase cheaper labor and fewer regulations across borders. Corporations offshored jobs and suppressed wages because it was profitable to do so. This is exactly what market forces—left alone or “unleashed”—create: a relentless search for cost savings, usually on the backs of workers." Joel
I have to disagree. Yes, corporations and business interests supported NAFTA, WTO agreements, and deregulation, but that doesn’t mean this was just “capitalism acting.” These were deliberate, political decisions designed to benefit certain groups, not inevitable outcomes of the market. Saying that capital “chases cheaper labor and fewer regulations” as if it’s automatic removes human agency from the picture; it was politicians and lobbyists who structured the rules and incentives to make it happen.
Markets provide opportunities, but they don’t dictate policy on their own. Capitalism doesn’t require offshoring jobs or suppressing wages; those are choices made within the system. Political leaders and corporate lobbyists decided to prioritize profits over workers, and they created the conditions for inequality and stagnation. To call this simply “market forces left alone” is misleading; it was a manipulated market, crafted to serve specific interests.
The reality is that capitalism and politics are inseparable here. What you’re describing isn’t capitalism acting on its own; it’s capitalism guided by deliberate policy decisions that favored the few at the expense of the many.“The reality is that capitalism and politics are inseparable here. What you’re describing isn’t capitalism acting on its own; it’s capitalism guided by deliberate policy decisions that favored the few at the expense of the many.”
We saw what capitalism looked like when it was relatively unfettered and allowed to operate with few if any hinderances. Go back to the late 19th century. Capitalism is inherently greedy and selfish and must always be kept on a leash. Capitalism does lead to offshoring, because of the basic principles of Econ 101. Why would any business not have its labor if properly trained moved to a less expensive market with less regulation and thereby relieving them of accountability? Capitalism, by its very nature forces business to prioritize profits over workers. This IS the result of market forces left alone. There are plenty of examples of this during this and the past century. The corporate class is oblivious to environmental abuse in India, one of the reasons that they leave America is that an intolerable level of environmental degradation will not be tolerated here. So, if you can’t exploit workers here, simply move operations to environment where you can."Capitalism, by its very nature forces business to prioritize profits over workers. This IS the result of market forces left alone."
Cutting to the bone very simply. Bravo.Cred, I respect the points you’re raising, but I don’t agree with the conclusion that capitalism is “inherently greedy and selfish” or that the only alternative is to keep it on a choke chain. What you’re describing from the late 19th century wasn’t pure capitalism; it was capitalism without modern labor protections, without regulatory frameworks, and without the global standards we’ve built since. We learned from those mistakes. That’s why we do have labor laws, workplace safety standards, environmental protections, and legal accountability today.
But the reason we were able to build all that in the first place is because capitalism produced the wealth to pay for it. No other system in history has lifted more people out of poverty, generated more innovation, or created more upward mobility.
Offshoring is not some moral failure of capitalism, it’s a predictable outcome when domestic policy makes it more expensive to produce here. Taxes, regulations, energy costs, and trade policies all matter. When you make it financially punishing to build in America, businesses will go where they can survive. That’s not greed; that’s reality. If we want companies to stay, we need to create an environment that rewards investing in American workers instead of punishing it.
And yes, companies that go overseas sometimes take advantage of weaker environmental rules—because those countries choose to have weaker protections. The answer isn’t to attack capitalism as a whole; it’s to strengthen American competitiveness so companies want to operate here, where standards are higher.
Capitalism isn’t the villain. It’s the tool. When paired with reasonable regulation and smart incentives, it’s the system that gives workers the most opportunity, creates the most innovation, and keeps the greatest number of people out of poverty. The real danger is when we forget that prosperity has to be created before it can be distributed.America has a mixed economy with components of socialism and capitalism. If we were a purely capitalist one, the government interventions you've mentioned simply wouldn't exist or would exist to a very small degree. In a purely capitalistic society, government control is theoretically minimal.
Let’s continue,
Doesn’t have to a choke chain, but a taut leash.
Why wasn’t 19th century version of capitalism not pure capitalism?
The “leash” was the restraint upon outright exploitation introduced during the early 20th century, otherwise known as the “Progressive Era”. The leash constituted elimination of child labor, breaking of trusts, the introduction of unions and workers rights to an 8-10 hour day. The leash constituted regulatory standards such as what was introduced in the meat processing industry after people found so many unsavory practices as describe in the 1906 book, “The Jungle”. All the standards that made Capitalism bearable came the socialist side and has nothing with capitalism in its ideal state.
Speaking further about the need for regulation, years ago, I visited the Kellogg plant in Battle Creek MI. Someone pulled me aside and said that regulations were expensive as rules that pertained to so much extraneous matter in specific volume of cereal was tested by FDA. Capitalism by itself would allow the company a greater extraneous matter content as long as it could not be detected by the consumer with the naked eye, which would, of course, adversely affect sales. The FDA required a higher standard, as it is known, what you don’t see can hurt you.
In spite of your vaunted praise of the Capitalist system, it certainly has glaring flaws. Yet, I respect the need for capitalism as the incentive for people to do and accomplish.
It is like conservatives to always blame the bureaucracy for Capitalism’s shortcomings. Let’s, face it why would I produce a car or anything else here having to pay minimum wage and comply with environmental regulations that make perfect sense in the modern world, when I could go to a lower cost nation that have trained workers to do the job for a fraction of the cost, where the people are subjected to environmental terrorism with the support or many or their governments and leaders who have been swayed by the “profit motive” to line their pockets at the expense of their people. There are many cases of American industrial imperialism throughout the world. That is the ultimate incentive. The profit motive is the only real driver in the capitalist system. And, I don’t expect my government to consider all and every issue from a profit/loss attitude.
You, yourself, mentioned rising costs and stagnant wages as prevalent today. You also acknowledge that wages and compensation are not keeping up with rising costs. Who do you think is benefitting from the gap? The corporate/oligarch class are drenched in riches and have greater and ever greater percentages of the national wealth.
Capitalism, with the rising wealth inequity, what is the future?
As it is now, it may not continue to work. As conservatives tend to put the corporate robber Barron types on a pedestal, the rights of the workers subside. We may well be regressing toward feudalism where your very existence depended upon the Lord “Employer” you work for and as a mere serf, you only had as many rights as he or she granted you.
Very plainly put, political decisions and/or policy followed capitalism, were guided by its principles.
While government policies can influence globalization, they almost always operate within the framework established by capitalist dynamics, which prioritize economic growth and integration across borders.
They were not mistakes or flawed... they were deliberate and with full understanding that the American Middle Class would be gutted over time.
The corporations preyed upon the greed of the political class and those that did not want to play along were eliminated, one way or the other, from the political arena.
The Federal Reserve wasn't created by "mistake" or because of "flawed" concepts. The IRS wasn't created by mistake.
The ACA made Pharma and Insurance companies rich, while the costs of Insurance that no longer covered anything doubled, that wasn't due to a "mistake".
True, and there were enough politicians on both sides of the aisle to regularly sell out the interests of the American people, and even our Nation's future, its economic survival.
Today everything is owned by the greed... Congress... CNN... and under normal circumstances the President... Trump has been a monkey wrench thrown into the whole big mess.
I think this is ultimately the conclusion one has to reach. Globalism and Capitalism will not work in conjunction with Nationalism.
Corporations want the cheapest resources and cheapest labor... they will not respect National borders unless they are forced to.
Banks/Investments will not respect National borders unless they are forced to.
When it is in the interests of the corporations and financial institutions to sacrifice a nation for their ultimate gain (profit and power) they will do so.
China has solved this dilemma by making all corporations and financial institutions owned partially or in whole by the Party/State.
Therefore all profit ultimately benefits the Party/Government in their system.
In our system, there is no such thing guaranteed, all profits and power of a corporation can be siphoned off OUT of the Nation and away from the American Citizens. Unless the Federal Government steps in to protect the interests of the American people and the Nation.
"why the hell do we have so many Americans who aren’t thriving in the first place?"
That question has been answered in these forums and elsewhere many times, but conservatives chose not to believe it or, if they think there is some truth to it, they won't do anything about it.
Here is a slightly edited ChatGPT answer that I know to be true through years of research on the subject. It is concise, but dead on. I can provide pages of detail if needed.
"We have so many Americans who aren’t thriving because for decades the basic math has been off. Productivity and profits went up, but typical wages didn’t keep pace. At the same time, the “entry tickets” to a stable life — housing, health care, and education — got a lot more expensive. The job market shifted from stable, benefits-heavy work to more precarious jobs, and our safety net and housing policies haven’t caught up. Further, the tax structure from Reagan on has in all but a couple of cases, moved money from the poor to the wealthy. Add in regional inequality and long-standing racial and class gaps, and you end up with exactly what we see now: a rich country where a huge share of people are working hard, but still feel one bad break away from falling apart."
With numbers, here is the ugly truth:
If we compare the top 20% of income earners with the bottom 40% (double the top) the split is disturbing and getting worse as Republicans keep passing their tax reform.
Income Top 25 Bottom 40%
1960 42% 16%
1970 43.5% 14.7%
1980 44% 14.5%
1990 46.3% 13.3% After Reagan tax "cuts"
2000 49.7% 12.5%
2010 51.3% 11.8% After Bush tax "cuts"
2020 52% 11.5% After Pandemic
In other words, over the last 60 years, the slice going to the top grew by about $100 per $1,000, while the slice going to the bottom shrank by about $45 per $1,000.
So the question to ask yourself is what is so structurally wrong with America's economic system that would allow this growing disparity between rich and poor.
What would conservatives be willing to do to reverse, or even stop, this trend?"Further, the tax structure from Reagan on has in all but a couple of cases, moved money from the poor to the wealthy."
It always fascinates me to hear liberals proclaim that they, not the earner, has title and rights to what a person earns or builds. No money was "moved" from poor to rich via taxes; what WAS done was to allow the rich to keep a trifle more of what they earned. To slightly equalize the taxes. To make the tax rates just a tiny bit more fair.
But not to the liberal, who believes that they own all the wealth in the country. To them, the rich have no right to be rich, have no rights to what they have earned. When the liberal wants it, that wealth immediately and automatically becomes theirs, to use as they see fit. (Of course "rich" is relative, and will be redefined every time the liberal wants more money.)How taxes actually "move" money?
You claim, “No money was 'moved' from poor to rich via taxes,” yet the post-1980s tax reforms had clear distributional impact. After the Reagan tax cuts (and subsequent similar changes), top marginal tax rates dropped dramatically, capital gains and estate taxes were slashed, and payroll taxes—paid disproportionately by working and middle-class Americans—climbed. The net effect was not simple: not only did the wealthy keep “a trifle more,” but the aggregate share of income and wealth going to the top decile (and especially the top 1%) grew sharply, while wage growth stagnated for everyone else. Decades of CBO and IRS data confirm that, as tax burdens on high incomes and inheritances shrank, economic gains increasingly accrued at the top, while social supports for the poor and middle shriveled.
"Just letting them keep more” masks structural change. The idea that lower taxes for the wealthy is “just letting people keep more of what they earned” misrepresents how public goods and the economy function. Every “earner” relies on roads, courts, infrastructure, law enforcement, and a stable currency—public investments that make earning, building, and profiting possible. Progressive taxation arose not to confiscate someone’s just reward, but to ensure that those who benefit most from the system proportionately support its upkeep. When rates were slashed on top incomes, it wasn’t an act of fairness—it was a political decision to shift who pays for government from the wealthy to everyone else. The result: ballooning deficits, chronic underinvestment in public goods, and social mobility in decline.
Effect on wealth inequality? The outcome isn’t hypothetical: wealth inequality in the U.S. is now at Gilded Age levels. Inheritances, capital gains, and untaxed or lightly taxed financial income drive much of this disparity. When the 0.1% gain enormous fiscal advantages not available to wage earners, compounded generation after generation, the promise of meritocracy dies. The playing field tilts further and further toward capital, not labor. At no point has making tax rates flatter or slashing estate taxes “equalized” anything—if anything, it undermined the level playing field essential to the capitalist ideal.
Liberals and wealth “ownership”? To argue that liberals believe “they own all the wealth” is not a valid argument. The liberal case for progressive taxation and public investment is not about seizing someone’s private assets for personal use but about maintaining the social contract: investing in education, health, infrastructure, and opportunity for all—not just the rich. The “right to be rich” never existed in a vacuum; it is contingent on the stability, security, and opportunity that collective investments make possible.
The post-Reagan tax reforms didn’t simply let the “rich keep what they earned.” They engineered a historic upward redistribution of wealth—publicly documented, measurable, and now central to America’s social and economic stagnation.The foundation of taxation isn’t envy or entitlement but shared contribution to common prosperity.This isn’t about “liberal” ownership of wealth. It’s about balancing opportunity, ensuring everyone who benefits from a stable, prosperous nation contributes their fair share—and preserving a society where the middle and working classes have a genuine shot at economic security. To oppose even modest, historically normal progressive taxation is to endorse a future where advantage is locked in at the top and spiraling inequality cripples both civic trust and economic dynamism. That isn’t “fairness.” That’s rigging the game.When I hear people talk about taxes as if they’re some conveyor belt shuttling wealth from the poor straight into the pockets of the rich, I honestly have to stop them. That’s not how I see it at all. Yes, tax structures changed after the 80s, nobody disputes that, but to claim the government “moved” money upward is too simplistic and frankly ignores how our economy actually functions. The wealthy didn’t suddenly become wealthy because a marginal rate shifted; they became wealthy because they created companies, took risks, made investments, and engaged in economic activity that already had the infrastructure, workforce, and market to support it. That is not the same thing as siphoning money away from the poor. To me, taxes don’t magically redistribute prosperity; they just set the rules for how much the government grabs out of everyone’s pockets. And the government grabbing less is not the same thing as “stealing” from the poor.
I also get tired of hearing that line about “public goods make wealth possible, therefore the wealthy owe more.” Of course public goods matter, nobody denies that, but last I checked, everybody uses the roads, everyone benefits from the courts, and everyone relies on a stable currency. So why is it only the successful who are expected to pay an ever-growing tab for the entire country? We’ve handled societal problems for decades without insisting that prosperity automatically comes with a punishment. And honestly, if taxes were really the magical fix to inequality, we’d be living in a utopia by now, because the government has had decades and trillions of dollars to prove it works. Yet here we are, still talking about the same social issues we’ve had since long before Reagan.
And about this constant drumbeat of “inequality is at Gilded Age levels”, even if that’s true in some abstract statistical sense, it leaves out a very basic question: why aren’t more people thriving? Instead of obsessing over how much wealth someone else has accumulated, maybe we should be asking why wages stagnate, why housing is unaffordable, why education costs exploded, why families feel squeezed. Those problems didn’t start because someone kept more of their own earnings. They started because we’ve built an economy that punishes working families with inflation, regulation, and broken systems that never get repaired no matter how much money the government collects. You can raise taxes to the sky, but if the underlying issues stay untouched, nothing changes for the people stuck at the bottom.
And as for the idea that “shared contribution” means endlessly ratcheting up progressive taxation, sorry, I don’t buy it. I believe in opportunity, not in treating success like a public liability. I don’t assume the rich owe me anything, and I certainly don’t think fairness means flattening achievement just to satisfy some statistical model of equality. We’ve always believed in lifting people up, not dragging others down.
And let me add something I’ve heard a thousand times, this whole argument you’re making is popular, almost rehearsed.. Maybe it’s time to really ask the harder question: why do so many people in this country feel they can’t thrive, no matter how much money Washington claims it’s redistributing?
And as I have shown elsewhere, a $50,000 annual household income means that in high cost areas, those families need SNAP on occasion.
What is your definition of able-bodied workers and what are the jobs that are available to them? This is the 21st century. It's not the days of huge assembly line workers in factories. High tech and robotics have taken over those jobs.
Trump and Miller have deported thousands of people who do field work, domestic work, and construction work without due process of law. How many of your able-bodied workers are going to accept those jobs for less than a minimum wage?. They have the same skills as the 560 people he is hiring back to do work for him. He calls them "The ones with talent.""Trump and Miller have deported thousands of people who do field work, domestic work, and construction work without due process of law."
How do you know this? Depending on the time they've been here there is a legal process for deportation called expedited removal.
"How many of your able-bodied workers are going to accept those jobs for less than a minimum wage?"
Well, then, there is the problem. Companies need to be forced to pay minimum wage.
We've been down this path before. The United States has several guest worker programs. This is where people from other countries can come into the United States for a period of time legally, do work, and then return home.
The key is to let the workers in legally to do the work. Then, they don't have to worry about ICE agents.Neutral estimates are that 340,000 have been deported, very few of them criminals and most are (were) hard working, tax paying immigrants (many of them here legally). DHS inflates that to 500,000 with another 1.6 million self-deportations.
No wonder it is so hard for employers to find workers in the agriculture, hospitality, construction, and caregiving industries.What the Facts & Data Show
Total Removals / Deportations
According to ICE and DHS data, in the first seven months of Trump’s current term (2025), there have been nearly 200,000 formal removals.
WESH https://www.wesh.com/article/trump-immi … hatgpt.com
SELF-DEPORTED --- DHS claims that since Trump’s return to office, over 2 million noncitizens have left the U.S., including ~1.6 million “self-deports” (i.e. voluntary departures) and ~400,000 formal deportations.
VisaVerge https://www.visaverge.com/news/dhs-over … hatgpt.com
A Congressional report shows that from FY 2017–2019, there were 749,462 total removals under Trump.
Congress.gov
https://www.congress.gov/118/crpt/hrpt4 … hatgpt.com
Historical Context
For comparison, under Obama, formal removals were much higher over his two terms.
VisaVerge https://ohss.dhs.gov/sites/default/file … hatgpt.com
DHS’s own statistics back this up: in 2017, for example, they removed about 300,000 noncitizens.
Office of Health and Safety
Who Is Being Removed
A Washington Post analysis reports that in recent enforcement actions, more than HALF of those removed by ICE have a criminal conviction.
The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigrat … hatgpt.comWhen I looked at what AI pulled up, what stood out to me most, probably because I tend to be a glass-half-full person, was this: DHS claims that since Trump’s return to office, over 2 million noncitizens have left the U.S., including about 1.6 million who “self-deported.”
To me, that suggests that many are choosing to leave on their own and won’t have to be arrested, they’re deciding to follow our laws. Trump did promise to deport those who are here unlawfully, and that includes people who have been denied asylum and required to leave, as well as those who crossed the border without seeking asylum and simply blended in.
I would be firmly against denying anyone due process, and I’m glad the courts ruled that everyone must receive due process before being put on a plane. I fully support the difficult task of removing anyone who does not have a legal right to remain in the country. And for that reason, a chart like the one you provided isn’t really pertinent to me. I believe that anyone who ignores an order to leave, or who entered illegally as a “got-away,” needs to depart.I would add the traffic to the None to get 72..3%. I also notice that only 6.9% qualify as the "worst of the worse" which Noem, Trump, and Miller keep saying are their real targets.
As usual, they lied
First, your link is 4.5 months old.
Second, it is titled "ICE increasingly targets undocumented migrants with no criminal record"
Third, if ICE, CBP, or DHS says it, there is a high probability it is a lie.
Forth, if congressional Republicans say it, it is almost certainly a lie
It would help to find non-partisan sources to at least authenticate the gov't numbers.
The new Medicaid work requirement for able-bodied adults isn’t about forcing people into specific jobs; it’s about encouraging 20 hours a week of work, training, internships, or even volunteering, helping participants build skills and gain experience that can lead to higher-paying employment. It’s not tied to low-wage field, domestic, or construction jobs alone.
The claim that Trump and Miller “deported thousands without due process” is false. Deportations require legal hearings and due process under U.S. law. Enforcement actions target individuals in the country illegally, not people who are legally working. in the country. Using this to argue that Americans won’t fill certain jobs, in my view, is misleading.
While yes, automation has changed the manufacturing landscape, many skilled jobs still require human labor, from maintaining robotics to assembling complex components. The idea that all positions are now “high-tech” and off-limits to Americans ignores reality. Companies like Ford have addressed labor shortages by offering six-figure salaries for technicians, proving that the workforce will respond when compensation and opportunity are fair and right.
Mocking Trump for selecting “the ones with talent” misunderstands the principle. The work requirement and hiring practices are meant to encourage skill, engagement, and productivity, not punish people.
Between legal work visas filling real gaps and policies promoting workforce participation, the U.S. can address labor shortages without bypassing the law or unfairly targeting anyone. We need people to come to America, people who can fill jobs of all kinds, actually more than ever...I asked AI what is Trump's policy on Medicaid? Here is the answer.
**Donald Trump’s current Medicaid policy centers on major funding cuts, stricter eligibility rules, and nationwide work requirements. Analysts project these changes could reduce Medicaid spending by about $1 trillion over the next decade and cause millions of Americans to lose coverage.**
Key Elements of Trump’s Medicaid Policy
- **Massive Funding Cuts:**
- The *“One Big Beautiful Bill Act”* (signed July 4, 2025) reduces federal Medicaid funding by **over $1 trillion in 10 years**, the largest rollback in the program’s history.
- Cuts target expansion populations, provider taxes, retroactive coverage, and administrative funding. States will bear more financial responsibility, creating uneven impacts depending on their reliance on federal funds.
- **Work Requirements:**
- Adults must work **80 hours per month** to maintain coverage.
- The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates **4.8 million people could lose coverage** due to these requirements.
- **Eligibility Checks:**
- Coverage reviews now occur **every 6 months instead of annually**, increasing administrative hurdles and risk of losing coverage.
- **Projected Coverage Losses:**
- CBO projects **10–11.8 million Americans may lose health insurance by 2034**, most of them Medicaid recipients.
- Rural areas and states with high Medicaid enrollment (like Pennsylvania and West Virginia) are expected to be hit hardest.
Broader Implications
- **Hospitals & State Budgets:** Cuts could destabilize rural hospitals that rely heavily on Medicaid reimbursements.
- **Insurance Markets:** States may reverse Medicaid expansion, pushing more people into the private market or leaving them uninsured.
- **Political Framing:** The Trump administration frames these changes as reducing “fraud and abuse” and promoting a “Blue-Collar Boom” through tax cuts. Critics argue it represents the largest rollback of health insurance coverage in U.S. history.
Strategic Context
Trump’s Medicaid policy reflects a **shift from expansion to restriction**, emphasizing work as a condition of aid and reducing federal responsibility. The policy creates a **triangle of tradeoffs**:
1. **Federal deficit reduction (claimed)** vs. **actual budget hole from tax cuts**.
2. **Work incentives** vs. **coverage losses among vulnerable populations**.
3. **State autonomy** vs. **financial strain on state budgets and hospitals.
I asked AI how many Medicaid recipients are already working? Here is the answer.
*Most adult Medicaid recipients are already working: about 64% hold jobs, and another 28% are exempt due to caregiving, illness, disability, or school.** That means roughly **92% of adults on Medicaid are either employed or not working for valid reasons recognized under past work requirement policies**.
Breaking Down the Numbers
- **Working adults:** Around **64% of Medicaid enrollees** are employed either full-time or part-time.
- **Exempt from work requirements:** Another **28%** are not working, but for reasons such as:
- Caregiving responsibilities (e.g., caring for children or elderly family members)
- Illness or disability
- Enrollment in school or training programs
- **Remaining group:** Only about **8% of adult Medicaid recipients** are not working and don’t fall into one of these exemption categories.
Context
- Medicaid covers **83 million low-income children and adults** in the U.S..
- Employment among Medicaid recipients often reflects **low-wage sectors** such as retail, food service, and healthcare support roles.
- Many Medicaid enrollees work jobs that **do not provide health insurance**, which is why Medicaid remains essential even for employed individuals.
Policy Implications
- These figures challenge the assumption that Medicaid recipients are largely unemployed.
- Work requirements, when proposed, often target a very small fraction of enrollees (the ~8% not working and not exempt).
- Policymakers debate whether imposing such requirements adds administrative burden without significantly changing employment rates.I looked through the information you sent, and I want to be clear about one thing up front: the way a question is asked absolutely shapes the answer you get, especially with AI. That’s why I always try to separate actual policy actions from someone’s interpretation of them.
When I re-asked the Medicaid question in a neutral way, focusing only on what the Trump administration actually did on Medicaid and what his approach was, I didn’t get the dramatic, doom-and-gloom narrative that you posted. I got a factual summary: Trump favored tighter eligibility, more state flexibility, and work requirements. That’s consistent with the overall philosophy conservatives have held on safety-net programs for decades.
Something else gets lost in these heavily negative summaries: most adult Medicaid recipients are already working. The data shows about 64% have jobs, and the majority of the rest are people caring for children, dealing with illness, or in school. That means the group who would even be affected by work requirements is extremely small, roughly 8%. So when I see claims that “millions will lose coverage,” I take that as a political projection, not a factual outcome. Administrative hurdles can cause problems, yes, but framing it as an intentional mass purge of the poor is misleading.
Another issue is that the description you posted treats expansion cuts, eligibility checks, and state-level reviews as if they automatically equal harm. But Medicaid is a shared state–federal program, and states vary widely in how they run it. Policies that give states more control, or that require people to stay engaged with work or training, aren’t inherently cruel; they reflect a belief that long-term self-sufficiency matters. That’s the same point I was making earlier: if we have so many people in this country who are not thriving, the question shouldn’t be “how do we expand dependency,” but instead, “why is our system producing so many people who can’t climb into a more stable life?” That’s the conversation we should be having.
So I’m sticking to facts, not the worst-case assumptions you received from AI. Trump’s Medicaid approach focused on tightening eligibility, creating work incentives, and giving states more flexibility. Biden’s approach, in contrast, is about expanding enrollment and loosening oversight. Those are simply two different governing philosophies, not moral judgments. And when we talk about Medicaid, I think we ought to start with the reality that the majority of people on it are already working or justifiably exempt. That’s the foundation the debate should rest on, not exaggerated projections.
I think you missed this set of FACTS
A 2025 KFF analysis of adults on Medicaid (under 65, not on SSI/SSDI, not on Medicare) finds:
64% are already working full- or part-time.
- 12% are not working because of caregiving responsibilities
-10% are not working because of illness or disability
- 7% are not working because they are in school
Only 8% fall into the “other reasons / not working” bucket (retired, can’t find work, etc.).
Now, let's break that 8% down. First know that represents about 1.8 million people. and there are 7.2 million job openings currently.
* A portion of that 8% are already looking for work and just haven't found it
* Another portion is "other" and may be part of the pool you think is available.
* A third portion is classified as "retired under 65". That may be a person who has worked for 40 years but has physical problems which he or she hasn't sought disability for, they just hurt to much to work. In any case, I suppose you could force that class of people to look for work.
As you can see, the pool of people available for work from Medicaid is pretty small.
That would certainly be nice - if true. But practically, it is not. Here is why.
A 2025 KFF analysis of adults on Medicaid (under 65, not on SSI/SSDI, not on Medicare) finds:
64% are already working full- or part-time.
- 12% are not working because of caregiving responsibilities
-10% are not working because of illness or disability
- 7% are not working because they are in school
Only 8% fall into the “other reasons / not working” bucket (retired, can’t find work, etc.).
Now, let's break that 8% down. First know that represents about 1.8 million people. and there are 7.2 million job openings currently.
* A portion of that 8% are already looking for work and just haven't found it
* Another portion is "other" and may be part of the pool you think is available.
* A third portion is classified as "retired under 65". That may be a person who has worked for 40 years but has physical problems which he or she hasn't sought disability for, they just hurt to much to work. In any case, I suppose you could force that class of people to look for work.
As you can see, the pool of people available for work from Medicaid is pretty small.
It would be nice to have that resource to make up for all the able-bodied workers who are or were currently working that Trump is deporting.
Your whole last paragraph argues for keeping these people in the country and finding a pathway to citizenship.My comment was referring to American citizens on Medicaid and the 20-hour-a-week work rule. I’ve always agreed it would affect only a small number of people, I argued that when it was proposed and then passed in the OBBB. Others here were very upset about the rule, but with all the exceptions built into it, I thought it was almost ridiculous to include it at all.
Regarding deportations, I believe in our laws, and my values tell me they should be followed, not ignored. If laws are outdated or wrong, they should be changed before they’re disregarded. We already have several legal pathways for people to come here and work, from low-paying, unskilled jobs to high-paying tech positions. If we truly need workers, then we need a clear legal process for them to come in and fill those roles, and add more work visas. We also have pathways to become citizens, and those laws should be respected as well.
I feel we need well-defined quotas on asylum. It’s a big world, and other nations should share the responsibility for humanitarian asylum. In my view, our nation is starting to flail, and we need to focus on fixing what’s falling apart before we watch our grand experiment fail. That’s just my perspective. I’m not driven by emotion when I see a crisis forming; I focus on what needs to be addressed.
Well, Gee, wilderness, that solves everything, go to school when you can barely afford to feed yourself or your family?
You live in the real world Credence where common sense still applies.
You realize that there is quite a rigorous evaluation done to receive any sort of disability?
And that "rigorous evaluation" results in half our population being disabled. A very good eval, right?
"I would tend to feel that out o the 42 million on the plan, a greater majority should not be on it... "
Data that supports the view?
Approximately 70% of adult wage earners in households receiving SNAP benefits work full-time.
Therein lies the problem.Is the problem that they work or that they choose (choose to work jobs that don't pay much? Or is it that they have produced more children than they can afford? Is it that they waste their wealth on luxuries rather than on food?
There are a thousand possible reasons for working and still not being able to provide for yourself. And the vast majority of those reasons do NOT indicate that someone else should provide FOR you."Is the problem that they work or that they choose (choose to work jobs that don't pay much?"
Who would ever choose the employment that is lower paying?
But the real question is, who do you expect to do with the lower paying jobs?I don't know if anyone here knows people who have Medicaid and/or SNAP benefits etc. I do. They are relatives on my wife's side.
Don't feel sorry for them. They live well. They go on nice vacations. They know how to work the system.
This couple is employed at a job enough to make the necessary income to qualify for government benefits. THEN...they work in the "all cash" economy. They do many things for cash only. This includes everything from cleaning houses, to pet sitting, to working for contractors, to working at locations helping to unload trucks, landscaping, etc. They do quite well with the "cash only" economy.
So, they have government funded medical care, housing assistance as well as SNAP benefits and the couple can make up to $200 a day in the "cash only" economy.
Not a bad amount of money to not have to pay taxes on.
This is how many people play the system. No need to have a job that provides medical care, the government provides it for them and their children. They can then work for whoever pays them in cash with no worries.
These people eagerly show other people how to play the system who tell others, etc.
It is a world many people know nothing about, but it is there.Who is expected to do the lower paying jobs? The housekeepers, cooks, retail clerks , wait staff and so on?
The point is people getting taxpayer funded benefits and making good money being paid in cash. Not paying taxes on earnings. The abuse of SNAP, Medicaid, etc. is what makes this possible and it is an issue nobody addresses.
I'm sur many of us could live quite well if we had government funded medicaid, SNAP benefits as well as housing assistance and made over $100 a day in cash.And this post has diverted far from the original statement. "Is the problem that they work or that they choose (choose to work jobs that don't pay much?"
Or...they work enough to qualify for government benefits and make substantial amounts of money being paid for doing work in cash. Money they don't pay taxes on.
Again, that is absurd. Prove it with studies that back you up.
Children. Elderly wanting a few extra bucks. The handicapped, as a supplement to (deserved) charity.
I have, in the last few years, watched my grandchildren (all 5) go through the job process. They all found low paying jobs (mostly fast food, but not all).
Not really.
The point is most of the people like the ones I have mentioned don't really need SNAP for food. They game the system. It explains why so many people are using SNAP. Not out of necessity, but out of a desire to game the system to their benefit.
I guess you don't know much about the cash economy here in the United States. It is how many people survive in California. I knew some Hispanic people who told me about it. They knew how to use the system to their benefit.That is clearly not true unless you prove it studies.
Does your example really reflect the rule or the reality for millions of people on these programs, or is just people that “you know”?
Not everyone can qualify for a job as a forensic pathologist, but everyone still has to able to afford to eat, regardless.
Besides your vaunted opinion, Mike, where do you get your information from?As I said before, there are relatives on my wife's side who do this very thing and are very open about how they encourage people to do this very thing. I also talked with people when I lived in California. They told me many things about the cash economy.
I think he is suggesting that employers all raise their wages to $30 or 40/hr.
Personally I would love to see a living wage but I highly doubt that he does. What do you think?
Define "living wage"? Will it support a family of 10? Or just 1? Will it provide a nice car and home? Or a shack and a bicycle? Will it provide unlimited health care, or just a doctor to stitch a cut? Will it provide steak and lobster or chicken helper?
This is a term liberals appear to LOVE to use, but refuse to define. If they do, it is so vague as to be useless...or pie in the sky dreaming.
Lazy people. People that refuse to gain skills. People that have learned how to live off of govt. charity. People without education. Children without work experience. People with a very poor work history.
"But the real question is, who do you expect to do with the lower paying jobs?"
I don't know what this means. What are you asking?Any society will be comprised of skilled and unskilled jobs. Someone will have to do the unskilled work that pays less. That's a fact.
Another simplistic hypothesis, Wilderness? What do the stats say and how does your “sage wisdom” take issue with them? Do you pay attention to the fact that 70 percent of SNAP recipients have full time jobs.
It is the right wing mindset that always “assumes” that this “crisis” is always the fault of the working class who cannot figure out how to pay for something costing a dollar with a dime.Where do they come up with these ridiculous notions?
Given the great disparity of wealth and income in America, I am surprised it is not bigger.
In 2022 and 2023 (it is worse today) in the wealthiest nation in the world/b]:
* 34% of American households make less than $50,000. In high cost areas, that is not enough to keep food on the table 24/7 100% of the time.
* 19% of American households make less than $30,000. In high cost areas, now there is [serious risk to keeping food on the table 24/7 100% of the time.
* 12% of American households (recognize that number?) make less than $20,000 annually and definitely are starving by the common meaning of the term.
That is the real world Americans live in, not a rose-colored glasses version some others see.
So, YES, 12 freaken percent of our population is starving as we speak today."34% of American households make less than $50,000. In high cost areas, that is not enough to keep food on the table 24/7 100% of the time."
Staggering. Appreciate the data.It is sad to see our nation's people no longer thrive. We are clearly failing at this point. That much of the writing is on the wall.
What is meant by "no longer"? How long has the income divide existed? These numbers aren't an overnight phenomenon. They aren't even a decade phenomenon.
The U.S. poverty rate was as high as approximately 45% in 1870 and again in the mid-1930s before declining to near 30% by the early 1950s. Not much has changed since then.
"It is sad to see our nation's people no longer thrive."
So if my employer chooses to pay me below a living wage, I'm not thriving?
Sorry, I'm not understanding the link between the individual and the wage determinations made by employers.
Seems to be that many are still comfortable blaming the individual for circumstances they don't have a lot of control over.
Do your figures include retirees on SS? Do they include truly disabled people? How about the insane, in mental hospitals?
"34% of American households make less than $50,000. In high cost areas, that is not enough to keep food on the table 24/7 100% of the time."
Then move. How such a simple solution escapes educated people escapes me!
If you simply look at the total you will find the numbers badly skewed to one side. On the other hand, a retiree that owns their home and car can make it fairly well on just SS - something around $2,000/month.
When was the last time you heard of a corpse in the morgue that had starved to death? Died from lack of food? No, Americans are not "starving". Remember, exaggerating does not do your credibility any good.
Not surprised that was an edited version Here is the FULL Mariam-Webster definition.
intransitive verb
1
a
: to perish from lack of food
b
: to suffer extreme hunger
2
a
archaic : to die of cold
b
British : to suffer greatly from cold
3
: to suffer or perish from deprivation
starved for affection
transitive verb
1
a
: to kill with hunger
b
: to deprive of nourishment
c
: to cause to capitulate by or as if by depriving of nourishment
tried to starve the enemy into submission
2
: to destroy by or cause to suffer from deprivation
starved the program of funds
I’m just so relieved that the Democrats caved, and people will finally get their SNAP benefits. Honestly, why did they hold out so long? They must have known they’d end up looking foolish, especially since the New Republican Party wouldn’t give in to the old tricks
It seems to me trying to prevent Republicans from literally killing Americans from lack of insurance is a pretty good goal. I guess you don't.
Sharlee01 wrote:
I’m just so relieved that the Democrats caved, and people will finally get their SNAP benefits. Honestly, why did they hold out so long? They must have known they’d end up looking foolish, especially since the New Republican Party wouldn’t give in to the old tricks
ECO wrote --"-It seems to me trying to prevent Republicans from literally killing Americans from lack of insurance is a pretty good goal. I guess you don't."
In my view, your last sentence is presumptuous and baiting. You seem to feel you can judge others, and I, for one, don't fall for bait. ByeIt is neither and you know it.
It is established FACT that some people will die without health insurance. Given the numbers the Republicans are trying to or actually denying health care, studies estimate about 1,000 per year..
History shows something like that WILL happen.
So, what do the numbers show (sorry that I have to repeat this) but the Republicans are attempting to kick roughly 17 million of QUALIFIED citizens OFF OF MEDICAID. The Republicans are working hard to kick 2 - 4 million more off of ACA by making it unaffordable.
That means somewhere around 1,000 American citizens will die a year IF the Republicans succeed in their plans. The logic says that
"It seems to me trying to prevent Republicans from literally killing Americans from lack of insurance is a pretty good goal." is an appropriate observation.
You may look away from those facts, but I cannot.
I guess you do not live in the real world, but where the rest of us live there is a big difference between being hungry and starving. NO ONE in the US starved, and your argument has lost all validity since you do not recognize reality.
Doc, what can I say? Sometimes emotional thinking just seems to take over before logic kicks in. These kinds of statements really leave me puzzled. I haven’t seen a single report of anyone dying from starvation. In my opinion, this whole mess was caused by the Democrats.
I live in a world where definitions matter:
Starve:
intransitive verb
1. To suffer or die from extreme or prolonged lack of food.
2. To be hungry.
3. To suffer from deprivation
So, stop insulting us.According to that definition if I cannot buy a new car I am suffering from starvation. Do you even read what you write here?
I want to say one thing, many of those who receive SNAP benefits are able-bodied people who could work & pay their own way. Many on SNAP are generational welfare recipients pure and simple. The government isn't here to provide able-bodied people with benefits which cost the middle class taxpayers.
And yet, the Welfare system largely operates on that....
Most benefits only reach their max if there is NOT a man in the house...
Almost ensuring the generational disintegration of the nuclear family...
And now, especially post Biden and his joining the Global Compact on Migration... we are putting millions of migrants... NON-American Citizens on the backs of the American Middle Class workers."Most benefits only reach their max if there is NOT a man in the house..."
On what is this based? Factually I mean?
There is no publicly available data on the percentage of current recipients who have ancestors that also received SNAP. This is not a metric that has been tracked in program statistics.
So, you are saying the commenter is making stuff up then? Not surprising?
I'd say that it is my observation that several members here have a tenuous relationship with facts.
Those stats are from 2019.
Before the changes made by the Biden Administration that nearly doubled the amount of people on SNAP...
Before 10 million non-citizens were brought into the country to add to the drain on social services.
SNAP plays a vital role for low-wage workers, those who are in between jobs, and the disabled population. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported that “Adults who receive SNAP often work in occupations and industries with low pay or unstable hours that cause income volatility, such as important frontline service or sales roles like cashiers, cooks, or home health aides.” Despite popularly held myths about SNAP recipients being unemployed, data from the U.S. Census Bureau revealed that most SNAP recipients work. 2021 data from the U.S. Government Accountability Office indicated that 70% of people who relied on government programs like SNAP and Medicaid worked fulltime, with most working in the private sector, in places like restaurants, department stores and grocery stores.
The SNAP Shutdown And America’s Working Hungry https://share.google/jjzu0x0NADKtr1jkoI just find it interesting that since 1978 the number of people getting SNAP benefits has increased dramatically. I don't know why. I think the stigma of getting food stamps no longer exists.
I still believe with the number of food banks, the number of churches offering assistance as well as other organizations providing help, it is difficult to believe anyone in this country is hungry.
I think if you work full time and still need SNAP you may need to learn more about money management than anything else.Unskilled labor across this country garners anywhere from $15 to a little over $17 an hour. Full-time, this qualifies, in most states, for some level of SNAP benefit. Between rent, food, utilities transportation and other bills, it would be incredibly difficult to maintain oneself on that income. And we haven't even mentioned, that most of these jobs do not provide even a small employer contribution toward health care. Here in America we a have a section of the labor force that is employed but still have incomes below the official poverty level. Many unskilled jobs do not pay a living wage.
I think if you work full time and still need SNAP you may need to learn more about money management than anything else.
Sorry, Mike that is a pretty simplistic analysis of the situation. As Joel stated the society is full of the working poor. The simple fact is that low wage jobs provide inadequate income to support a woman with a child for example. Even being single, how do you afford to rent with the costs being so high? There are no controls on rising costs while wages remain stagnant.
So, they are not just sitting around watching TV or being profligate with their sparse resources. This is the ultimate outcome of oligarchic society, working our way back to a modern version of the late 19th century sweatshops, where the capitalist class continue to exploit labor to the workers disadvantage and to the disadvantage of tax payers having to take up the slack.Low wages and rising costs have put many hardworking families in impossible situations, and it’s shocking that now 12% of U.S. citizens rely on SNAP. I can’t help but wonder how we got here. Over the past few decades, wages for most workers have barely kept up with inflation, even as productivity has grown, while the costs of housing, healthcare, education, and childcare have soared. At the same time, the bargaining power of workers has weakened with the decline of unions, globalization, and the rise of automation, leaving many people stuck in jobs that simply don’t pay enough to survive. Policy has not kept up; minimum wages in many places haven’t matched the cost of living, and regulations and tax policies have often favored corporations and high earners rather than helping everyday workers. The result is that hardworking Americans are left struggling.
We are in rare agreement regarding this comment.
And it is our wonderful politicians that in selling out the American people have put us here...
NAFTA...
The Repeal of Glass Steagall...
China's favored nation status for decades...
And for those who haven't figured it out yet, the ACA was designed to make the rich Insurance and Big Pharma corporations richer... until the escalating costs made health care unaffordable for everyone not in the top 10% which would give the Democrats the excuse they need to socialize medicine for the 90% while allowing for the privatization of healthcare for the elites, a two tier system... socialized crap for the masses... state of the art for the elites that can pay.
Answering to the deplorable masses is so 20th century... Democracy... allowing for the idiots amongst us to have a voice... we need some 21st century Social Credit systems put in place to go with our 21st Century Socialized America... where there are no Citizens... other than citizens of Earth... no one deserves more than another... unless you are in that top 10%.I completely agree with your view; you’ve summed it up perfectly. It’s painfully clear that under Biden, the nation has sunk into a deep hole. Just look at the skyrocketing number of citizens now relying on SNAP benefits and the flood of new applicants enrolling in the ACA. It’s undeniable that we’ve rapidly become a nation with more struggling Americans than ever before. The policies you mentioned, from NAFTA to the repeal of Glass-Steagall to the ACA’s design, have all worked together to strip away the middle class and enrich the elite, while everyday citizens bear the brunt. It’s a harsh reality that’s hard to ignore.
41.7 million people per month receive SNAP
That is roughly 12.3% of the U.S. population.
Here are the approximate enrollment numbers for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplaces for plan years 2023 and 2024:
For the 2023 plan year (open enrollment Nov 2022–Jan 2023): about 16.4 million plan selections.
cms.gov
For the 2024 plan year (open enrollment Nov 2023–Jan 2024): about 20.35 million plan selections.
cms.gov
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
We now have 45 million enrolled in ACA...
We may soon be a nation of rich and poor, and a few in between.
Or...maybe they need to learn how to better manage their money.
Capitalism has produced more wealth and a higher standard living than any other system on the planet. THAT is a fact.
Here is a very good article from the Heritage Foundation that proves this point. I will provide information when I make a point as well as a link for others to read.
Unlike others who simply write things and believe they've made a point without backing it up with supporting information.
The Case for Capitalism
How can half of Americans between 18 and 29 favor socialism over capitalism? Because they do not know the first thing about capitalism, the economic system that has made them the most prosperous and privileged young people in the world.
Many young people accept every myth about capitalism. Capitalism, they say, favors only the rich, never the poor. Capitalism is responsible for every economic disaster of the last 100 years, from the Great Depression to the Great Recession. Capitalism is racist, misogynistic, dismissive of climate change. Capitalism, they declare, is the apotheosis of all that is wrong with America. But these myths don’t stand up to scrutiny.
Myth: Capitalism Is Only For the Rich
They are right about one thing: the rich are becoming richer. There are now nearly 19 million millionaires in America, two-fifths of all the millionaires in the world. We have 621 billionaires, one-fourth of all the billionaires globally. They are rich because the United States rewards the entrepreneurial spirit. American capitalism has also produced the largest and most affluent middle class in the world, with a per capita GDP of more than $65,000. By contrast, Communist China’s per capita GDP is an estimated $10,900, one-sixth of ours.
But it is also true that the poor are getting richer. Measured by consumption, according to economist Bruce Meyer of the University of Notre Dame, the percentage of the poor fell from 13 percent in 1980 to 2.9 percent in 2018, while the official poverty rate fell by only 1.2 percentage points to 12.3 percent. A major reason for the discrepancy is that the official poverty measure is based on cash income only, which fails to include all the resources available to a family including tax credits and in-kind transfers. The reality is that the average “poor” American owns a car, enjoys air conditioning, has access to the Internet, and has at least one TV. The official poverty line for a family of four is $25,465.
Capitalism benefits all, as seen by the lessening of historical racial and gender disparities. From 2013-2018, the five metropolitan areas with the largest black population—New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.—saw black median household income increase significantly from rates of 7 percent in Washington, D.C., to 21 percent in Atlanta. In 2019, blacks maintained their lowest unemployment rate ever of 5.5 percent. The jobless rate for Hispanics hit a record low of 3.9 percent. The 11.6 million women-owned firms in America represent 39 percent of all private businesses. No other nation comes close to matching this level of female entrepreneurship.
>>>The Good Fight: Capitalism vs. Socialism
Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is everywhere. Capitalism, not socialism, is responsible for a global economic miracle: The number of people living in poverty around the world has declined every year since 1990 while the global population has risen. Free-market capitalism, in the words of the Pew Research Center, has for the first time “allowed [billions of] people to decide for themselves what they value and what type of life they wish to pursue.”
Myth: Capitalism is Just Modern Exploitation
Millennials urgently need some remedial history to fill the gaps left in their education. Many young Americans sympathetic to socialism mistakenly believe that capitalism is a relatively modern concept, first seriously examined in Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, published in 1867. However, as the Harvard historian Richard Pipes wrote, private property—an essential ingredient of capitalism—has been an integral part of Western civilization since ancient Athens, which had “a highly developed system of private property.”
In the Politics, Aristotle accepted private property as inevitable and “ultimately a positive force,” asserting that people who hold things in common tend to quarrel more than those who hold them individually. Thomas Aquinas, the most influential theologian of the Middle Ages, emphasized that possession of private property was not just lawful but necessary for peace and order: “Quarrels arise more frequently where there is no division of things possessed.”
In 1776, two documents were published that shaped America and the rest of the world. In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith analyzed how a market system can combine the freedom of individuals to pursue their own objectives with the widespread cooperation needed to produce “our food, our clothing, [and] our housing.” Smith described how an individual who “intends only his own gain” is “led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention….y pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually.”
The Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, states that all men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and among them are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” As the political historian Matthew Spalding wrote, the founders understood that life, liberty, and property were closely connected, as expressed in the 1780 Massachusetts Bill of Rights:
John Adams defined a republic as “a government in which the property of the public, or people, and of every one of them was secured and protected by law.” Property “implies liberty,” Adams said, “because property cannot be secure unless the man be at liberty to acquire, use or part with it, at his discretion.”
[b]Socialists say that the unequal distribution of property inevitably leads to division and the age-old conflict between the rich and the poor. Karl Marx argued that the only way to overcome class struggle and social warfare was to overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism—that is, state ownership of property.
The founders rejected any such concentration of power. They believed that to ban private property, to put property in the hands of government, or to enforce the equal distribution of property would be a denial of liberty itself. The founders, led by Alexander Hamilton, believed that America would not remain small and static, but would become a large commercial republic with many peoples and multiple interests. Such a republic would restrain class struggle because it would create a large prosperous middle class instead of a rich-versus-poor society, and would stimulate market competition and opportunity. And so it has turned out for Americans for nearly two-and-a-half centuries.
Myth: Capitalism is the Cause of America’s Ills
Another persistent myth is that capitalism is responsible for the worst times in American history. The 19th century is depicted as the age of the “robber barons,” when greedy capitalists exploited the poor and opened wide the gates for immigrants whom they abused unmercifully. Night and day, goes the myth, Wall Street conned Main Street and nearly bled Midwest farmers dry. The reality was far different.
There was an explosion of charitable activity financed in large part by America’s wealthiest citizens throughout the 19th century. As Milton Friedman summarized, “Privately financed schools and colleges multiplied; foreign missionary activity exploded; non-profit private hospitals, orphanages and numerous other institutions sprang up like weeds.” The charitable activity was matched by cultural activity. Art museums, opera houses, symphonies, museums, and public libraries (a favorite benefice of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie) were begun in big cities and small towns alike.
Capitalism is also blamed for the Great Depression of 1929-1932. The truth is that the Federal Reserve’s gross mismanagement of the money supply led to an inflationary boom and the crash of the stock market. Between 1921 and 1929, the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, the Federal Reserve increased the money supply by a shocking 61.8 percent, encouraging mass speculation and unsupported bank loans.
The end of the Great Depression is just as misunderstood and mis-taught in our schools. President Roosevelt and the federal government did not lift America out of the depression, although they tried through massive domestic spending and government action like agricultural price support programs. In 1939, after seven years of the heralded New Deal, U.S. unemployment stood at a disturbing 17.2 percent. Economic recovery finally occurred because of an impending world war that occasioned large orders for guns, tanks, ships, and other materiel.
Capitalism and Limited Government
What Americans have sought since the Founding is a society that keeps government in its place. And nothing restrains government more than private property, the primary instrument of capitalism and the primary target of Karl Marx and socialism.
The tide of U.S. public opinion toward economic freedom and limited government that Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson advanced flowed strongly until late in the 19th century. The Great Depression of 1929 enabled FDR to declare that it was the “responsibility” of the federal government to care for the welfare of its citizens, a progressive declaration that led to Social Security, Medicare, Federal Aid for Dependent Children, and numerous other entitlements.
President Ronald Reagan sought to limit the growth of government so that free-market capitalism could work its magic. As he said in 1970 as governor of California, “Free men engaged in free enterprise build better nations with more and better goods and services, high wages and higher standards of living for more people.” But as president, Reagan was not able to reverse the federal government’s seemingly inevitable expansion. Congresses, Republican as well as Democratic, continued to expand rather than limit government. Entitlement spending from health care to social security made up 52 percent of the 2018 federal budget and is projected to command a breathtaking 65 percent of the budget in 2029.
Nevertheless, the roots of capitalism have not withered away. The United States has continued to be the most prosperous and freest nation in the world, atop most economic indexes well into the 21st century. This is despite the election of Barack Obama, who was often critical of capitalism. He promised to be a transformational president, building on the progressive programs of FDR and Lyndon B. Johnson, especially with his Affordable Care Act. However, the ACA turned out to be more expensive than any of its sponsors imagined: A typical U.S. household spent $11,172 in 2019 on health care. The bureaucrats were proven wrong again.
Obamacare was a wakeup call for conservatives of both political parties whose electoral response was the election of the idiosyncratic Donald Trump, a billionaire populist who has confounded official Washington from his first day in office. There is no questioning where the president stands on the issue of socialism versus capitalism. In his 2019 State of the Union Address, President Trump declared: “America was founded on liberty and independence—not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free…. Tonight we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country!”
Capitalism is About Human Flourishing, Not Greed
Although a prosperous economy is good in itself, it is no less significant for its contribution to America’s first principle of ordered liberty. In the words of the cultural historian Russell Kirk, economic production (or capitalism) is the means “to raise man above the savage level, to make possible the leisure which sustains civilization and to free man from the condition of being a simple drudge.” Private ownership of property is not greed, Kirk argued, but “one of the most powerful instruments for teaching … responsibility.” The Nobel economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman both recognized that private property encourages wise decisions and requires individuals to accept the consequences of their choices. Capitalism puts a premium on industry, thrift, honesty, and ingenuity. It is not capitalism that is ruthless, wrote the economist John Attarian, but socialism, which makes a society ruthless by denying individuals the ability to make their own decisions and turning government into the master.
Nowhere is the stark difference between socialism and capitalism more evident than in a photograph of the Korean peninsula at night. As Acton Institute president Robert Sirico, among others, has pointed out, South Korea (the lower half) is a glittering Christmas tree that offers a vision of what the world looks like under freedom. North Korea (the upper half) is a dark wilderness, suggesting what the world might look like were “the torch of human liberty to sputter out, casting civilization into darkness.”
It is not a myth but a reality that capitalism has brought greater economic wealth and cultural freedom to more people than any other system in the history of man. As we look ahead to an uncertain, post-pandemic economic future, we should not allow the pervasive but unfounded myths about capitalism to divert us from this path of prosperity and freedom.
https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/c … capitalismLet’s address the claim that capitalism is the root cause of improved living standards by considering the historical role of state intervention and mixed economies. The highest standard of living in the world, by most human development measures, is found in countries that explicitly reject unfettered capitalism: the Nordic states—Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. These nations combine markets with robust social safety nets, high taxation, universal healthcare, and nearly free education. The outcomes? Low poverty, high life expectancy, strong social mobility, and, contrary to popular capitalist myth, highly competitive and productive economies. These advancements are not a product of pure capitalism but of deliberate policy choices that actively constrain and guide the market.
Capitalist economies, when left unchecked, have a long record of producing catastrophic failures: the Great Depression, the global financial crisis of 2008, rampant inequality, and the ongoing climate disaster—all consequences of prioritizing profit above welfare. Historically, periods of greatest human progress—the abolition of child labor, universal suffrage, workplace safety regulations, and civil rights—were achieved in spite of, not because of, capitalist imperatives. They happened when democratic societies collectively forced capital to operate within a more just framework.Sure is easy to post things without information to back up a claim.
Too easy.
Even more difficult to take serious.I invite you to challenge each and every point. I think that's what debate is all about isn't it?
I like facts more than unsubstantiated opinion.
Read and learn
The Myth of Scandinavian Socialism
When the U.N. released its latest index of “happiest countries,” it probably came as no surprise to Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that all of the Scandinavian countries finished in the top ten. They often cite them as models for their far-left policy prescriptions.
Sanders doesn’t point to China, Cuba, or Venezuela when pushing his vision for America, but to Denmark. Surveying its spacious safety net and liberal benefits such as free education and universal health care, the socialist senator says enthusiastically, “We can learn a lot from Denmark.”
Ocasio-Cortez agrees. As the unofficial head of the House’s Progressive Caucus, explains: “My policies most closely resemble what we see . . . in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden.”
Sanders, AOC, and their socialist cohorts laud the Nordic model (comprising Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland) for its supposed management of the market, draconian taxes on the rich, and cradle-to-grave welfare system. Polls show that a large number of Americans, especially those under 30, would welcome the Nordic way.
>>> Dismantling the Myths of the Socialist Paradise
But there is a problem: Scandinavian “socialism” does not exist, except in the Marxian imagination of radical progressives. It is a chimera wrapped in an illusion inside a dream.
In fact, the economies of Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries are not socialist but capitalist. They depend on the free market to generate the funds that make their extensive welfare system possible. Former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen put it succinctly during a U.S. visit: “I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear: Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.” According to the Heritage Foundation’s 2021 Index of Economic Freedom, Denmark is the tenth freest country in the world, economically; the United States lags behind at No. 25.
Denmark has long depended on the workings of capitalism. As recounted by the Danish-based Center for Political Studies, Denmark was a wealthy country in the late 19th century and early 20th century while adhering to a free-market philosophy. But it introduced socialism in the post-World War II period, resulting in a serious economic downturn by the 1980s. Shifting economic gears, ensuing Danish governments introduced reforms such as reduced benefits, partial privatization of pensions, and fewer regulations. An attempt to partially socialize industry through wage-earner funds was abandoned.
All along, Denmark maintained a broad-based welfare system financed by heavy taxes on all citizens, including the middle class, which bears a far greater burden than its counterpart in the United States. According to the Center for Political Studies, low-income Danes pay an effective marginal tax rate of 56 percent, the middle class, 57 percent. In addition, there is a value-added tax (VAT) of 25 percent on the sale of every item, plus additional taxes on coffee, beer, and chocolate.
Danes accept the universal high taxes as the price of the country’s universal welfare. Bernie Sanders prefers to skip over the fact that the top 10 percent of wealthy Danes pay “only” 26 percent of all income taxes. In contrast, the top 10 percent of wealthy Americans pay 45 percent of all income taxes, according to the Tax Foundation. Senator Sanders has said that “billionaires should not exist,” but Sweden has 30, Denmark ten. And Scandinavian billionaires can pass along their wealth—there is no inheritance tax in Sweden or Norway. Denmark imposes an inheritance tax of 15 percent.
Inside the Nordic Model
An essential element of the Nordic model is strong unions. About 30 percent of the population works in the public sector. According to Norwegian analyst Erik Engheim, Scandinavian countries have “sectorial bargaining” under which unions exist for specific jobs rather than specific companies. A workplace may have several different unions representing different kinds of workers. “In Scandinavia,” says Engheim, “you pick the union you want.” Unions have learned to cooperate, giving them power in bargaining over wages and hiring practices. The commitment to cooperation is reinforced by government’s generous welfare system, job retraining and relocation assistance. Organized labor matters in Scandinavia: Union density ranges from 50 to 92 percent versus about 10 percent in the United States.
Analysts such as Daniel Schatz of New York University suggest that Nordic success has its roots in cultural rather than economic factors. With a combined population roughly equal to the greater New York City area, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark developed “remarkably high levels of social trust, a robust work ethic and considerable social cohesion.” The Scandinavian pays a price for such cohesion, sacrificing diversity for security, accepting the known rather than gambling on the unknown as in the more competitive United States. Given the sharp debates and wide divisions that characterize American politics, it is doubtful that Americans would imitate such a Nordic model.
American socialists prefer to emphasize the benefits rather than the costs of Denmark’s bountiful welfare system. Danish mothers enjoy 18 weeks of guaranteed maternity leave at 100 percent of their pay. Danish students leave college with no debt. Everyone is covered by a national health-insurance system. The average Danish worker has five to six weeks of paid leave. Yet, compared with Americans, Danes have less disposable income and purchase fewer cars and other consumer goods. Bernie Sanders’s idealistic version of Danish “socialism” is far from the pragmatic reforms of Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen in the 1990s, when his government gave employers the flexibility to hire and fire workers easily without excessive regulation or litigation.
Bringing Denmark’s economic system to the United States would require a wide range of social benefits paid for by significant taxes on the middle class and the poor alike and the creation of a massive bureaucracy to administer and monitor the welfare system. Imagine the Veterans Administration on steroids.
The Swedish Model
Sweden is the progressives’ second-favorite “socialist” country. Its welfare system seems almost without limits, including: universal health care for all; free education from kindergarten to university; social-security benefits including unemployment compensation up to 300 days; a housing allowance; pensions for retired workers; child support up to age 16; and compensation for those who cannot achieve a reasonable standard of living.
At the same time, Sweden is one of the richest countries in the world with a per capita GDP of $52,274, according to the World Bank (compared with the U.S. per capita GDP of $63,593). Like Denmark, Sweden relies on the free market (levying a capital-gains tax of 30 percent) to underwrite its generous welfare system. This was not always the case, though. Starting in the 1970s, the government expanded cradle-to-grave welfare through an increase in tax rates and regulation of free markets. The total tax load peaked in 1990, crushing businesses and driving up unemployment.
As recounted by New York University’s Center for European and Mediterranean Studies, talent and capital moved out of Sweden to escape the tax burden, with furniture giant IKEA moving to the Netherlands. Tetra, the world’s leading food-packaging company, left for Switzerland. In 1970, Sweden was the fourth-richest member of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development); by 1993 and after 20 years of democratic socialism, it had dropped to eleventh.
An aroused populace demanded a reversal of course. The government eliminated many regulations, cut government spending, tightened welfare availability, and shrank the size of government. Ever since, under liberal or conservative government, Sweden has taken the capitalist road.
Its present Social Democrat government has adopted several reforms that would please Ronald Reagan, including abolishing a 5 percent tax on the highest incomes, a partial privatization of the state employment department, and a tougher line on crime. Since the 1990s, the government has allowed the private sector to have a larger role in education; Sweden presently has over 800 private schools. Even health care is moving away from a government monopoly: More than 40 percent of the 1,100 health centers are run by private for-profit companies. According to the director of the European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform, private-sector employees are increasingly covered by private health insurance paid by their employers.
Thus Sweden has joined Israel, India, and the United Kingdom in learning that even under the most favorable conditions, socialism does not work.
American progressives are reluctant to mention that Swedish universal welfare depends on a universal tax system. Personal income is taxed at a top rate of 61.4 percent plus a 38 percent social-security tax rate, of which 31 percent is employer covered and 7 percent covered by the employee. Like Denmark, Sweden has a 25 percent consumption tax (VAT), which tends to fall hardest on lower-income earners. Billionaires are welcome, and there is no estate tax, enabling wealth to be passed from generation to generation. (The U.S. estate tax can reach a whopping 40 percent.)
Swedes are accustomed to the demands of the tax man: Consumption, social security, and payroll taxes total 27 percent of Sweden’s GDP, compared with 16.4 percent in the United States. Sweden taxes capital gains at 30 percent, compared with a high of 20 percent in the United States. That Sweden participated in neither World War I nor World War II—which devastated other European countries—contributed significantly to its wealth.
The Other Scandinavians
Finland is “a capitalist paradise,” according to a column in the New York Times by Anu Partanen and Trevor Carson, who along with their three-year-old daughter moved from New York City to Helsinki—and have yet to regret it. Far from being socialist, they say, Finland is a country and an economy “committed to markets, private businesses, and capitalism.” Finnish citizens have discovered, write the young U.S. expatriates, that capitalism works best when employees are paid decent wages, have access to high-quality public services, “and enjoy real equality of opportunity.” Note the word “opportunity.”
Paradise does not come cheap. Finnish citizens from top to bottom pay more than 50 percent in marginal income taxes. There is also a VAT of 25 percent on consumer goods plus corporate taxes of 20 percent. The Nordic way as practiced in Finland depends on a mixed economy. Partanen and Carson argue that the Nordic region is a laboratory “where capitalists invest in long-term stability and human flourishing while maintaining healthy profits.” This is far from the centralized decision-making of Sanders-style socialism.
>>> Beware the Siren Song of Socialism
Norway is the smallest of the Nordic countries with a population of only 5.3 million. It has a “mixed” economy—part socialist, part capitalist, but is more socialist than its sister Scandinavian nations. For example, 30 percent of Norway’s workers are in the public sector (compared with 15 percent of American workers). According to Norwegian analyst Erik Engheim, Norway’s government owns 33 percent of its stock exchange. The government has full or partial ownership of “strategic” industries such as oil, banks, transportation, and national defense. It owns and runs the universities and hospitals. Nevertheless, a fair legal system, transparent regulations, and political stability make Norway “a secure and transparent place in which to do business,” concludes the 2021 Heritage Index of Economic Freedom.
Whether liberal or conservative, says Engheim, the Norwegian government has accepted a neo-socialist arrangement comprising a mostly capitalist economy, a large public sector, high taxes, strong unions, and government ownership of essential industries. Still, even the most radical socialists in Norway accept the role of smaller companies and do not deny ownership of a home or private property.
In short, Scandinavian socialism does not exist. The mixed economies of the Nordic nations are possible only because of their small size, free-enterprise history, cooperative sense, relative homogeneity, and ability to blend socialism and capitalism. America is a far different country—many times larger, more diverse culturally, more divided politically, more entrepreneurial, more skeptical of government.
Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Squad, and the Democratic Socialists of America want to turn America into a giant Denmark or Sweden. To do that they would have to build a gigantic welfare state and a bureaucracy to run it; triple income taxes on everyone, including the middle class, to pay for the welfare; initiate a value-added tax of 25 percent on coffee, beer, chocolate and other goods; convert our $141 trillion net worth into government bonds; eliminate all right-to-work laws and unionize the 90 percent of workers who do not belong to unions; and open our borders to all.
The Democratic Socialists might welcome such a revolution. Most of America never would.
https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/ … -socialism"I like facts more than unsubstantiated opinion."
And yet what is posted is an opinion, of the Heritage Foundation no less.
"In fact, the economies of Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries are not socialist but capitalist."
Inaccurate statement.
The reality is that Denmark and its Nordic neighbors operate mixed economies that incorporate fundamental elements of both capitalism and socialism.
The "read and learn" blurb is needlessly rude."And yet what is posted is an opinion, of the Heritage Foundation no less."
Not really. IF you took the time to read it you would find it provides quotes from Scandinavian economic analysts, stats, etc. It is a very wall-researched article.
I will take the Danish at their word on being capitalist.
"Former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen put it succinctly during a U.S. visit: “I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear: Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
"The reality is that Denmark and its Nordic neighbors operate mixed economies that incorporate fundamental elements of both capitalism and socialism."
True, and there are reasons their model would not work in the United States.
"The mixed economies of the Nordic nations are possible only because of their small size, free-enterprise history, cooperative sense, relative homogeneity, and ability to blend socialism and capitalism. America is a far different country—many times larger, more diverse culturally, more divided politically, more entrepreneurial, more skeptical of government."
When I read that argument about the Nordic countries being proof that “unfettered capitalism fails,” I can’t help but shake my head. I’ve heard this exact talking point so many times it’s practically a slogan at this point. And honestly, it leaves out so much context that it borders on misleading. The Nordic model isn’t some repudiation of capitalism, it’s built on top of extremely strong market systems, high levels of private ownership, global trade, innovation, industrial competitiveness, and a cultural foundation that simply doesn’t translate to the U.S. They tax heavily, yes, but they’re taxing a population that is overwhelmingly middle class, socially cohesive, and already benefits from thriving capitalist engines. Pretending their success came from the welfare state alone is rewriting the whole history of how those countries got wealthy in the first place.
And let’s be real: those countries became rich first, then built generous social programs. They didn’t tax their way into prosperity; they taxed after prosperity existed. That’s a massive distinction that always gets glossed over in these idealized comparisons. Meanwhile, when America tries to replicate those models, we ignore the fact that we are a country of 330 million people with a wildly diverse population, huge geographic spread, inconsistent education systems, and a political culture that can’t even agree on what a woman is, let alone how to structure a nationwide welfare model. It is just dishonest to pretend a small, homogeneous, high-trust society can be copy-pasted onto us like we’re interchangeable Legos.
As for the claim that capitalism “unleashes catastrophic failures”—sure, capitalism has crises. Every system does. But capitalism is also the system that produced modern medicine, the internet, global food abundance, mass literacy, transportation networks, consumer technology, and a standard of living unimaginable for most of human history. Socialists love to list capitalism’s failures but quietly skip over the fact that the alternatives failed far more catastrophically: famine, stagnation, authoritarianism, and economic collapse. When capitalism hits bumps, we fix it and move forward. When socialism hits bumps, people starve.
And the idea that every major human advancement happened despite capitalism is just another recycled line. No, most progress happened because people finally had the freedom, the wealth, and the leverage to demand better lives. You can’t abolish child labor, expand suffrage, or improve workplace safety in societies where people are too poor to challenge the powerful. Capitalism created the surplus that made reform possible in the first place. It gave ordinary people bargaining power. It gave governments tax bases. It gave reform movements money, time, and momentum. Only wealthy, capitalist nations had the luxury of making those changes.
So no, I’m not buying this neat narrative that capitalism is the villain and the welfare state is the hero. It’s way too pat, way too polished, and honestly sounds regurgitated. Real life is messier: capitalism created the prosperity, democratic reforms shaped it, and public policy tweaked it. But pretending capitalism only harms and government only saves isn’t analysis, it’s ideology dressed up as history.
I must add--- And honestly, when people hold up the Nordic countries as if they’re some flawless example, I have to wonder if they’re paying attention to what’s happening right now. Those nations are facing real strain, economic and social, because they opened their doors far wider than their systems could realistically handle. It’s not bigotry to say that; it’s just acknowledging the facts. Labor-force participation among non-EU immigrants lags badly behind native populations, and that puts pressure on welfare systems that were never designed for long-term, large-scale dependence.
Sweden is having highly public fights between municipalities and the federal government over return-assistance programs, Finland is dealing with its highest unemployment rate in decades, and Norway is openly debating how to shore up a system that’s cracking under the weight of low birthrates and high integration costs.
These are not tiny issues. They’re exactly the kind of structural pressures that shake the stability everyone romanticizes about the “Nordic model.” And it isn’t because those countries suddenly abandoned social democracy; it’s because even the strongest welfare states crumble if the balance between contributors and recipients tips too far.
So before anyone uses the Nordic nations as the go-to example of how capitalism supposedly fails and the welfare state magically saves the day, maybe they should take a hard look at the problems those societies are wrestling with right now. Stability isn’t guaranteed, and the challenges they’re facing today are proof that no system, capitalist, socialist, or somewhere in between, can outrun economic reality forever."So no, I’m not buying this neat narrative that capitalism is the villain and the welfare state is the hero. It’s way too pat, way too polished, and honestly sounds regurgitated"
In no way, shape or form have I actually made such a binary argument.
Regurgitated?
But surely one understands that the Nordic countries have mixed economies, which combine elements of free-market capitalism with a strong social welfare system. They are characterized by private enterprise, private property rights, and market-based competition alongside government-funded social services like healthcare, pensions, and education. They aren't in any way a "welfare state"Just my view ---
While it’s true that Nordic countries maintain elements of private enterprise, the reality is that their economic model is far closer to what many would call a “welfare state” than a pure free-market system. High taxes fund universal healthcare, generous unemployment benefits, free higher education, and robust pensions, programs that, in the U.S., would be considered expansive social safety nets. These policies fundamentally redistribute wealth and regulate outcomes in ways that pure capitalism does not, shaping incentives and market behavior.
Calling Nordic economies “market-based” can be misleading: the government’s role in directing labor, healthcare, and education spending is far beyond what traditional capitalist economies tolerate. Businesses operate under heavy regulation and taxation designed to support these programs, which affects competitiveness and profit motives. In short, Nordic countries may retain private ownership, but their economies are socially engineered to prioritize welfare and equality over unfettered market freedom, which fits the definition of a welfare state more accurately than proponents often admit.
The rate of wealth accumulation in Nordic nations is lower than in low-tax countries because high taxes reduce disposable income.The post and other posts box in or frame issues as binary. I did not state that the Nordic countries were welfare states or governed by purely free markets. I stated that they were a mixed economy. Are they closer to a welfare state? No, in my opinion they balance, quite effectively, the mixed approaches of both.
Shar wondered why regular people aren't thriving and why is that so. As I mentioned before, I have done a lot of research and written extensively on the subject. So I worked with ChatGPT to craft an answer that will be more coherent and concise than if i did it alone.
I actually think you’re asking the right big question: why do so many people in a country this rich struggle just to keep their heads above water? Why have we allowed a system where essentials outpace wages, globalization hollows out the middle, and corporations seem to be doing just fine while ordinary workers can’t get ahead?
What’s striking is that it wasn’t always like this. From roughly the late 1940s through the 1970s, a huge share of Americans really were thriving by any reasonable standard. Productivity grew, and typical wages grew right along with it. Importantly, a single income from a factory, office, or trade job could often support a family, buy a modest house, and send kids to college without soul-crushing debt. Union membership was high, which meant ordinary workers had real bargaining power. Top tax rates were steep by today’s standards, which both restrained runaway executive pay and helped fund public investments: highways, schools, the GI Bill, research, and the rest of the post-war build-out. It wasn’t a golden age for everyone—Black Americans and many women were shut out of a lot of that prosperity—but the basic deal for white working- and middle-class families was: if you work hard and play by the rules, you really can build a decent, stable life.
However, starting around 1980, that deal changes. Productivity and corporate profits keep climbing, but median wages flatten out once you adjust for inflation. The link between “the economy is growing” and “regular people are getting ahead” starts to break. That doesn’t happen by magic; happens because we rewrite the rules.
We allowed private-sector union membership to collapse. We let the federal minimum wage stagnate until it’s worth less in real terms than it was in the late 1960s. We cut taxes repeatedly on the highest incomes, on large estates, and on corporations. The result is exactly what you’d expect: the people at the top capture more and more of the gains, and everyone else gets stuck with rising costs and weaker leverage.
Globalization and and especially automation land on top of that new rulebook. Trade agreements like NAFTA and China’s entry into the WTO make it easy to move production abroad. But it was automation that really hollowed out the middle class. It made it easy for employers to produce more with fewer workers at home. For Joe Six-pack as a shopper, this means some things are cheaper: the pickup, some groceries, appliances. But as a worker in a factory town, it often means the plant closes, or the union is told, “we can do this cheaper in Monterrey,” and wages and benefits are squeezed.
Most serious studies find that automation explains most of the long-run manufacturing job loss; trade explains a smaller but very concentrated share. The key point is that the new rules made it easy for capital to roam wherever profit is highest, and did very little for the workers and communities left behind. Back in the post-war decades, we at least tried to pair change with support: GI Bill, strong unions, expanding public colleges. [u]After 1980, we mostly tell people to “adapt” on their own.
Now, I briefly described where things wrong over time. But who changed the rules that sped up the ever growing inequality between rich and poor. While both parties share some responsibility here studies show it primarily falls on the shoulder of Republicans, starting with President Ronald Reagan. Yes, some conservative leaning Democrats - think Clinton- helped pass NAFTA and other trade deals, but they were almost entirely Republican initiatives. that is just a fact. Moderate and liberal Democrats opposed NAFTA. Some conservative-leaning Democrats joined with Republicans in financial deregulation. They supported Republican-led tough-on-crime policies and welfare reforms that left many families more exposed to shocks.
[b\But if you zoom in on the rules that specifically make “the rich get richer, everyone else treads water,” the modern Republican Party has been and still is the main architect and bodyguard.[/b] It’s been Republicans who’ve consistently pushed to slash top and corporate tax rates, fought unions and passed right-to-work laws, blocked federal minimum-wage hikes, and resisted expansions of health coverage, housing aid, and family supports. Democrats have often been too cautious and too willing to compromise, but they’ve generally been the ones pushing to raise wage floors, expand health insurance, and strengthen tax credits and benefits for low- and middle-income workers.
[u]This is why the “government dependency” framing misses the mark and is more Republican talking points than anything else. In the post-war era, a lot of families could thrive on one decent wage because the rules supported that: strong unions, rising real wages, cheap public college, affordable housing in many places. As opposed to the Republican myth, most folks on Medicaid, SNAP, or housing assistance are not choosing some cushy dependent lifestyle—they’re working in the very “essential” jobs we all rely on: housekeepers, grocery clerks, CNAs, line cooks, delivery drivers. They need those programs because the labor market and cost structure we’ve built since the 1980s simply doesn’t let those jobs cover rent, food, transportation, and health care the way similar jobs did in 1965. The safety net is a patch on a system that no longer shares its gains the way it used to.
On your last point, I actually agree with the goal: we don’t need a utopia, we need an economy where essential workers can build a life without being permanently tethered to Medicaid and SNAP. But you only get back to something like the pre-1980 “thriving” era by making conscious choices that reverse the rules that broke that old social contract: raising the wage floor, restoring some bargaining power for workers, tackling housing and health-care costs, investing in education and vocational training, and designing trade and automation policy so workers share in the gains instead of just absorbing the hits.
It is my observation over the last 60 years that this is something Republicans are not willing to do.
So when you ask why Americans aren’t thriving, the answer isn’t that people suddenly got lazy in the last 40 years. It’s that we walked away from a mid-20th-century model where growth was broadly shared, and replaced it with one where the gains flow mostly upward. Both parties helped build parts of that new model, but Republicans have been the strongest champions of keeping it in place. If we want fewer people relying on government programs, we don’t need to go back to some mythical era of no government—we need to get closer to the actual era when ordinary people really were thriving, which is when the rules gave workers a fighting chance instead of telling them to be grateful for whatever trickles down.Fantastic response to a great question.
Let me just add:
In 2024, approximately 51% of U.S. adults are living in middle class households, based on Pew Research Center analysis and Census Bureau data. This continues a long-term trend of decline from previous decades, where 61% of adults were in middle class households in 1971. The percentage has remained around the 50% mark in recent years.
The share of aggregate income held by the middle class in the United States in 2024 is about 42%. This reflects a continued decline from previous decades; for context, the middle class controlled 62% of aggregate income in 1970 but held only around 42% in 2020 and 2024. This reduction is a result of growing income inequality and the increasing share of income held by upper-income households over time.
While the median income for middle-class households (adjusted for inflation) is somewhat higher today, much of this growth has not kept pace with the rising costs of essentials like housing, healthcare, and education.
We have a growing problem here. A shrinking middle class due to income inequality.So, what needs to be addressed are those things that are driving income inequality:
1. A tax structure that transfers wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy
2. Laws suppressing unions
3. Laws that favor corporate interests and suppress workers interests
In other words, get back to the 1960s model where the middle class prospered and didn't live paycheck-to-paycheck.
That is what Sharlee is really asking for and what Republicans will stop from happening.Don't forget Citizens United.
Citizens United and the Transformation of American Campaign Finance
Introduction
Few Supreme Court decisions in modern history have reshaped American politics as profoundly as *Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission* (2010). By ruling that corporations, unions, and other organizations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited money on independent political campaigns, the Court opened the door to a new era of political fundraising and influence. The decision sparked fierce debate about free speech, democracy, and the role of money in politics.
The Case Background
- **The Trigger:** Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit, sought to air and promote a film critical of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary season.
- **The Law in Question:** The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) restricted corporations and unions from funding “electioneering communications” close to elections.
- **The Challenge:** Citizens United argued that these restrictions violated its free speech rights under the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court Decision
- **Date:** January 21, 2010
- **Vote:** 5–4 in favor of Citizens United
- **Majority Opinion (Justice Anthony Kennedy):** Political spending is a form of protected speech. Limiting corporate and union expenditures infringes on the First Amendment.
- **Dissent (Justice John Paul Stevens):** Warned that equating corporate spending with individual free speech undermines democratic equality and ignores the common sense of the American people.
Key Impacts
- **Rise of Super PACs:** The ruling enabled “independent expenditure-only committees,” better known as *super PACs*, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, provided they don’t coordinate directly with candidates.
- **Corporate Personhood:** Reinforced the idea that corporations enjoy many of the same constitutional rights as individuals.
- **Explosion of Political Spending:** Outside group spending skyrocketed, with billions flowing into elections from corporations, unions, and wealthy individuals.
- **Transparency Concerns:** While disclosure requirements were assumed to safeguard transparency, “dark money” groups often obscure their donors, reducing accountability.
Why It Matters
Supporters of the ruling argue it protects free speech by preventing government from limiting political expression. Critics contend it entrenches inequality by giving disproportionate influence to wealthy donors and corporations, undermining the political voice of ordinary citizens.
The decision has become a touchstone in debates about campaign finance reform, with calls for constitutional amendments or legislation to counteract its effects. Whether viewed as a triumph of free speech or a blow to democratic fairness, *Citizens United* remains a defining moment in the evolution of American politics.
Conclusion
*Citizens United v. FEC* did not simply change campaign finance law—it altered the balance of power in American democracy. By equating money with speech, the Court shifted the political landscape toward one where influence is increasingly tied to wealth. The ruling continues to shape elections, policymaking, and the broader debate over how democracy should function in the 21st century.I think this is what made it possible for Kamala Harris to spend over a billion dollars on her presidential campaign.
Here is her fund raising and spending. It was an incredible amount for a losing campaign.
https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presid … =N00036915
President Donald Trump didn't spend near that amount for his winning campaign.
https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presid … =N00023864It's an example. An example of how democrats are able to amass extremely large amounts of money and still lose elections.
It's an example that having the largest amount of money doesn't guarantee you will win an election.
Winning an election requires much more. It may require being a candidate people want to vote for rather than the candidate with the most money.Point was the harm the Citizen United causes in elections
It didn't keep someone who spent much less from winning an election. So the Citizens United cause didn't really impact the election.
We don't know how it would have turned out if Harris had had 365 more days; look how well she did with just 107. I suspect she would have won.
We don't know how it would have turned out if Harris had had 365 more days. I suspect she would have won.
I don't think there is anything that cackling hen harris could have done to win over the American people.
The more she talked the less popular she became. harris was an awful candidate. There are even democrats who have acknowledge this.
democrats had the cackling hen or senile old man to run for president.
They didn't really have a chance with the candidates they provided.
I am afraid that with the current SCOTUS structure, Citizens United is baked in for the next 20 years. More doable is a constitutional amendment stuffing their ill-thought out decision down there throat.
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