CAVEAT EMPTOR POLITICO

In politics, absurdity is not a handicap. ~ Napoleon 

Promising a multitude of equality-filled rainbows when they’re elected, virtually all of the 23 fervent Democratic presidential candidates have been campaigning for a brighter future, come Nov 3, 2020. That’s a mere 529 days away. Given recent trends and Trump’s example (he formally began his reelection campaign on his Jan 20, 2017 inauguration); I expect the 2024 campaigns to begin just after we’ve finished 2020’s Thanksgiving stuffing. Oh, my.

As long as one anointed Dem is successful, a brighter future isn’t terribly hard to imagine, given our Drama-King president’s continuing record of fear-based ukases and misinformed, damaging policies covering all substantive issues.

What is hard now for every one of these candidates is first getting anyone to care what they are saying, including Iowans, where the earliest Democratic caucuses are but 255 days away. And second, for a specific candidate in the 22andMe throng, does anyone know I’m in the race and how can I distinguish my positions from everyone else’s, assuming somebody cares? At this point, it’s the very rare person outside of the political-media complex or the Washington DC beltway that cares at all.

Nevertheless, the media is overflowing with a plethora of “latest polls.” RealClear Politics lists 58 political polls being undertaken over just the past two weeks. At this neonatal state of the presidential campaign such polls hardly mean anything beyond whether the polled somebodies have ever heard of the candidate. Have you heard of Marianne Williamson or Wayne Messam? No matter who you now might possibly favor for president in 2020, there’s at least one extant poll that will support your choice in some fashion. Current polls about who’s winning the contest for the Dems’ candidate are essentially chaff, not kernels of worthwhile wheat. What else is excessive?

As of Apr 15, when there were only 15 announced candidates (not including Joe Biden), they had already raised $118.5 million. Bernie Sanders has the biggest war chest with $20.7M in his coffers (probably including the $6.1M left over from his 2016 campaign); Juan Castro was last at $1.1M. Naturally, the political-media complex has been reaping large sums of money from the candidates’ ads in this nascent stage of campaigning. According to the Federal Election Commission’s first-quarter filing, 12 of the Dem candidates spent $6.7 million on online advertising and assembling their digital strategy. Each and every Dem candidate is now in full, 24/7 primary voter acquisition mode. Realistically, the vast majority of these 23 candidates are at best competing for consideration as vice president, senator or governor in the Nov 2020 elections.  

These Dem candidates imply that ordinary people, together with their acolytes, won’t be paying any taxes for their plans, only the rich will be. Now they’re simply summarizing what their policies will somehow accomplish, like end inequality, perfect healthcare, put everyone back to work, pay reparations, provide debt- and tuition-free college education, reduce the voting age to 16 years and rapidly clean-up our environment. Such programs will require raising beaucoup government revenues, through increased taxes and public debt financing. Only a few candidates admit these fiscal consequences.

Meanwhile our strategy-free, solipsistic president persists in telling us that China has been paying for his tariffs (I’d give him 4 Pinocchios, adopting the Washington Post’s fact-checker icon) and that the Dems, especially these presidential candidates, are extreme socialists (another 4 Pinocchios), along with his ever-growing multitude of other fact-free fictions. His campaign now has $65.7M to spend, far exceeding that raised by any Dem. L

The Dem campaigns’ diminutive fiscal standing, together with our economy’s sustained strength (3.6% unemployment, 3.2% increase in average worker’s earnings, with 3.2% real GDP growth), represent ample challenges that any Dem will be facing to conquer #45. Defeating Trump will require victories in enough states beyond the coastal true blue ones so the winning Dem graduates triumphantly from the Electoral College, although probably not debt-free.

With rare exception, no candidate has revealed how their programs will specifically work or how they’ll be funded. However, Sen. Elizabeth Warren bravely stated in January that if elected, she would implement a new wealth tax imposed on the top 0.1% of income-earners and later added a new, larger corporate profits tax to finance several of her proposed pro-equality programs. Her policies would reduce student debt, provide free tuition and fees for students in public colleges and offer universal child care and early-childhood education. In making these and other definitive proposals she has positioned herself as the early race’s wonky, “I’ve got a plan” leader in the Dem candidate flock. Consequently, she has twice the number of paid campaign staff as Sen. Sanders. She needs such intellectual firepower to keep churning out thorough position/policy papers like no other candidate.

Actually implementing such wealth and profits taxes is far more problematic. Effecting such new taxes as federal statutes assumes the Dems keep control of the House, gain control of the Senate with her in the White House. Her proposed wealth tax will also need to overcome a number of legal and execution issues that have contributed to eight OECD nations getting rid of their existing wealth taxes. No matter; they are clever ideas that distinguish her from all other candidates. Successful politicians are rarely criticized for under-promising during their campaigns.

It’s quite safe for a progressive Dem like Sen. Warren to propose a wealth tax, because the people she’s casting votes for (progressives for sure, millennials and maybe folks who shower after, not before they work) rightly don’t consider themselves rich enough to be subject to her wealth tax. Her appeals for new government programs, like those of other Dem candidates, are portrayed as basically costless for their targeted potential primary voters. Other folks, the rich ones across the proverbial freeway or tracks will pick up the tax tab, not them. Each candidate knows a “free” program beats all others.

Progressive Dems are proposing momentous, major programs that, if enacted, will have substantial effects, including many unforeseen ones, on our economy and us. This is the “revolution” that Bernie et al. are focused on creating. Programs like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal will influence virtually every aspect of our lives. By voting for either Michael, Joe, Bill, Cory, Steve, Pete, Julian, John, Tulsi, Kirsten, Kamela, John, Jay, Amy, Wayne, Seth, Beto, Tim, Bernie, Eric, Elizabeth, Marianne, Andrew or even another Dem (are there any?), we expect our lives will be significantly improved and nirvana will move much closer to us.

At this point we consumers, taxpayers and eventual voters are mostly left in the dark about how these candidates’ policies and programs will actually affect our lives and what they will cost us. With such evidence we can make more knowledgeable decisions when we’re deciding who to vote for by also knowing how this person’s proposed programs will affect us. Such particulars can illuminate how a candidate’s policies will influence us individually and collectively.

As the Dems canter around their political race course and the field inevitably narrows, starting after the first debates on June 26 and 27, we will hopefully start receiving additional details so we can make more-informed judgements in the voting booth.

Knowing such details matters. Bernie’s single-payer Medicare for All Plan (M4A) has been endorsed by at least five other Dem candidates: Cory, Tulsi, Kirsten, Kamela and Elizabeth. When polls asking about his M4A state that it will eliminate all private health insurance and will increase individuals’ taxes, this program’s support drops dramatically to just 13%. Most published polls show a small majority of respondents favoring M4A; these polls never state the very likely (and unpopular) consequences in their questions.

Thus, we citizens should demand more details, the sooner the better, as well as abide by caveat emptor politico, denoting let the voter beware (my fractured alteration of the well-known 500-year old Latin phrase).