Seriously, What The Hell Does Hillary Clinton Stand For?

[kaleckim]

71. Nope

The Democrats DID support austerity, how in the heck can you claim otherwise? In fact, Obama was very much open to cutting the big three, which would have yanked even more demand out of the economy. Why do you think that hundreds of thousands of public sector workers have lost their jobs under his presidency? It is true that some Democrats, and Sanders, want more spending, increased investment in infrastructure and the like, but it is absolutely not true that the Democrats opposed austerity. Obama in fact, right after taking office, supported a smaller stimulus than what the left was proposing (and it would have made a big difference).

The ACA is okay, but lets not kid ourselves about it. In my state, Illinois, Medicaid was expanded, which is great. However, they expanded Medicaid by privatizing it. It is now basically managed care. The rate of increase in health care costs has decreased, which is good. However, it still outpaces wages growth for most people. It is still not sustainable in the long run, and the reason is that private health care companies are at the center of the system. As long as that is the case, we will continue to pay more than other countries, and have endless people die and go into bankruptcy because of our system, and we'll continue to have far worse outcomes as a result of the system. The unemployment rate has come down (don't know where in the hell you get 4%, the official rate is 5.5% and everyone knows the real rate is much higher), which is good, but we were losing 750,000 jobs when he took office. We've improved in that regard (hard not to), but I challenge you to name me a single thing that caused the crash that has been truly addressed. Is private debt not much larger than when Reagan took office (yes, and it is much larger than public debt, kind of a problem in an economy that relies on consumer spending), have we changed our trade model (which has caused mass de-industrialization)? Are the too big to fail banks smaller or larger? Is inequality higher or lower than when Obama was president? Is infrastructure improving and not what it was when was elected, or is it continuing to crumble? The black community was destroyed by the crash of 2008. Have most in the black community recovered? Obama made most of Bush's tax cuts permanent, and most of that benefits the rich (carried interest, dividends, the estate tax, capital gains). Did he have to (no)? What have they really done to get at the root causes of all of this, stuff like inequality? Nothing, in fact Obama is trying hard to pass a complete disaster in the TPP. Have you read, or read about, that bill?

Your party is less bad than the Republicans, but that is all I'll give you. On non-economic issues, it is much better. On foreign policy and judicial nominations, better, same with the environment. However, isn't it kind of an easy thing to say when we are comparing your party to the modern Republican Party? The plague wasn't nearly as bad as that party, so what is it saying that your party is better than the Republicans? The left has to have a breaking point with the Democrats. If it doesn't have one and let it be known, it will remain the pathetic shadow of its former self nationally.