Topic: Progressive ideals are popular, until you mention the price! (Read 260 times)

This is very true but I don’t blame those people who oppose it once they hear about price hike, put yourself in their shoes and you’ll realise that they’re already overburdened by existing taxes and expenses how do you expect them to support it. What the government needs to do is find a way to fulfill these dreams, without increasing additional taxes which I know is easy to say but difficult to implement. Do you’ll feel that Trump will be able to implement these policies, from the money he’s saving from cutting subsidies to so many countries?.

We are kind of saying the same thing, except I am more focusing on the rhetoric used to sell it and you are focusing more on the logistical aspects of it.

I mean it's not even about that. It's about the fact that the assumptions made in the paper couldn't and won't be able to come true even if this legislation was put into law. Bernie only has savings in is Medicare for all bill because of the fact that HE made assumptions in there about healthcare costs going down about 40 percent while increasing the number of people accessing healthcare by 10 percent.

It's an insane assumption, and it won't work.

It's all fun and free stuff until you realized you paid for it anyway and more.

This study is kind of like the inverse of the premise of the OP. The op examines the idea that people are all for these programs, but only if you totally disregard the negative effects of the cost, once that is part of the discussion, not so much. Your source is basically saying money can be saved, if you totally ignore the cost in the form of shit treatment, shortages, and the fact the government gets to dictate to you how you get your healthcare at every stage.

No system is the most efficient and the best one. All of them have inefficiencies.
I agree with you that people want free stuff but they don't want to pay more taxes. But this problem is caused because in many countries there is a lot of corruptions and politicians put tax money in their pockets.

I've almost given up at this point and just waiting for this system to collapse to shambles.  I just don't see how so many people can be complacent with billionaires having total control over government.  It will be very interesting to see how things play out as technology keeps on improving and there is no longer a need for most human workers.

This 'savings' isn't legitimate though, as the study itself is basing its estimates off of what the bill states would happen -- as they made some very bold claims about being able to lower reimbursement costs by 40 percent.

The researcher of the study even stated the following:

So the savings isn't going to happen, and the system IS going to cost more.

Check here:


There's no data or research that shows the system is going to be cheaper, there are data and research to show that the system is going to be more expensive. There's no reason to complicate what you 'beleive' will happen and what will most likely happen based on research by professionals.

Talking about cost is a great strategy for muddying the waters because its a mirage in that people hear the cost and don't realize it isn't extra cost but it is reduced costs from what they are already paying.  College and healthcare are too expensive right now and would be much cheaper if they were "free".  Muddying the waters on cost is literally the only way to reduce support for these policies since everyone does indeed support them.  Its a smart strategy but only works until people understand the whole story.

Healthcare for example is already too expensive in terms of both cost and outcome




The value of a degree would be reduced for people who didn't have the competitive academic merit to earn that spot in school and that degree because now, people with more academic merit, who previously priced out and could not afford college, will have that spot and will eventually be their competitor in the workplace.  This is the essence of the overall fear of free stuff.  People who have success simply by being born into money will start to become outcompeted by the meritocracy these programs could produced.  Some people who could afford the tuition won't even be able to get in at all if we let in smarter, poorer students.   Its a scary possibility for them.

By war and defense I mean specifically the wars that were offensive for trivial reasons rather defensive and the defense that's needed following a war I agree that the greatest defense budget do makes way for it to be the strongest country in the world.

I got this idea from somewhere and the math adds up. Like if I earn $30/hour instead of $10 for example... I can afford to buy the toothpaste whose price increased to $2 from $1 thus balancing the production costs vs sell if wages are increased. Idk what am missing here....

I don't think I'd say that spending massive amounts of money on Defense and War are progressive principles, I think thats a policy out of the non-hawk conservatives, libertarians, fiscal conservatives, and so on and so forth.

People do understand that we do have to spend some money on defense, though at our current time we do spend TOO MUCH money on defense. (Though in a post I made a couple of weeks ago, I did show that even though we spend a lot of money on defense  it does provide a large amount of benefit in the sense of diplomacy and leverage against other countries

That's not what would happen in a min wage increase, everything is going to go up in price due to the min wage increasing -- so people aren't going to spend more, they're going to be spending money on food, rent, etc.

The ideals are appealing and true that they cost a lot!

But if we apply other progressive ideas like opposing war, the cost can be covered up! The billions of dollars on defense and war can be applied for free education and health care

Raising the minimum wage would seem fatal for small businesses but like even the businesses themselves will sell more as their customers will earn more hence buy more which will lead to more production and balance in employment.

Kinda true that the value of degree in the competition world of getting job would reduce since if everyone gets free education. But for the greater good and human resources, that would be good. But I'm unsure on this

Every single one of the current most popular portions of a progressive agenda, such as Medicare for All/Single Payer, Free College, Taxing the Rich/Corporations more heavily, $15 min wage.

All of these policies, at face value, have over 55 percent approval in every poll that just asks about the policy itself. But once you start mentioning the price (which you would expect to be questioned in ANY poll regarding government policy)

But people start to change their view on these policies when more information comes into play:

Once people hear that Medicare for All would have to be financed by a tax increase by the Rich, AND THE MIDDLE CLASS, they don't seem to support the policy anymore - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/10/upshot/medicare-for-all-bernie-sanders-cost-estimates.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share and https://apnews.com/4516833e7fb644c9aa8bcc11048b2169

Increasing min wage, without protections for small businesses (such as tax credits, rebates, etc) would lead to the firing of many MORE workers at an increased pace while automating these jobs forever.

Free College - This is too expensive, and people think that this idea will just further degrade the 'value' of a degree. Which I think is true.

People love hearing about free stuff, but don't like to hear about how they're going to have to pay more in taxes to support the free stuff. Democrats can promise the world, but once Republicans start talking about price the policy is done.