Democratic Debate #2, Night 1 - this Republican’s take

I thought last night’s debate had some great back-and-forth on the issues of the day - and also some great entertainment value, between someone telling Bernie to stop yelling, the fly darting around Buttigieg’s face as he was trying to deliver his closing remarks, and the incredible Marianne Williamson — who almost tripped as she entered the stage but went on to deliver the biggest applause lines of the night and get millions of Google hits to show for it.

But I just wanted to remark on a few of the points that came up during the debate, from a conservative perspective.

There was a lot of debate over whether to support big, sweeping proposals like Medicare For All and Student Loan Forgiveness (Sanders and Warren), or whether to make more incremental improvements by providing help for those who need it and leaving the existing systems in place (i.e., don’t kick everyone off their private health insurance and put them on Medicare, and don’t forgive student loans for people who already have the means to pay for it).

I do think that John Delaney and others were right when they said that the huge, sweeping proposals aren’t good politics — they won’t help Democrats beat Donald Trump — because Republicans and conservatives are strongly against such proposals and they’d rather not see the country go that way.

With health care, conservatives want to help people in need, but we’re wary of putting every single one of us on Medicare as the way to do it. As I understand it Medicare currently only covers certain things, and by putting everyone on the program and having to keep a lid on costs, it seems inevitable that there will either be major restrictions in what type of care is covered, or long waiting lines if everyone is covered for everything.

Now you could argue that private-run health insurance has its own issues, and Bernie and Warren certainly argued that last night... but when you’re proposing to move over 100 million people off of their existing private insurance and onto Medicare, you got some ‘splainin to do. Jake Tapper asked candidates whether they’d raise middle-class taxes to pay for their health care proposals, and after Warren and Buttigieg didn’t answer the question, Bernie scolded Jake Tapper, “Your question is a Republican talking point!”

Well call it what you will, but I think it’s perfectly legitimate for Americans to be informed of the full cost-benefit of such sweeping proposals. I remember one poll showing that the majority of Americans do support Medicare For All, but then when they were told they’d have to pay more in taxes, the support went down and suddenly the majority of Americans did not support it.

I think many Americans won’t sign on to the risk of switching from their existing coverage over to Medicare, if there’s a chance they’ll have to pay more for it anyway.

Student loans is a separate subject, but conservatives generally oppose large-scale student loan debt forgiveness. Again, we want to help people in need, but we also want people to be accountable for the decisions that they make — under loan forgiveness, *other* people will be held accountable for those decisions. And that’s not fair to those other people to have to now carry an additional burden (when many of them already paid for their schooling, or don’t have a degree themselves), and ultimately it’s not fair to young people to put a system in place that says no, you don’t have to worry about the cost of getting this degree - just go on and get it because other people will pick up the tab. If there is no cost to making a decision, people have much less incentive to make a good decision - one that will “help them thrive”, as Marianne Williamson puts it.

But these are just some of my musings on the subjects. And when I say conservatives want to help people in need, I’m talking about doing it through charity and safety net programs, and by lowering costs and improving job opportunities. I do think we need to address the high costs of medical care and higher education - but by actually addressing the costs and not just ignoring them and throwing them on the backs of the taxpayer.

Also one last point, on the minimum wage. Pete Buttigieg said “So-called conservative Christian senators right now in the Senate are blocking a bill to raise the minimum wage, when scripture says that whoever oppresses the poor taunts their maker”... Well, much of the opposition to raising the minimum wage comes from the thinking that companies won’t just go along and pay the new, higher wage — but instead many lower-paying jobs will go away altogether, or be replaced by automation. The CBO recently found that if the minimum wage were increased to $15/hour there would be over 1 million jobs lost. If I’m concerned about whether lower-paying jobs will vanish altogether, leaving many people without options to work their way up... can I still call myself a Christian, Pete? 🙏

Would love to hear your thoughts on these and other issues. In the meantime I am looking forward to Night 2: THE REMATCH between Biden and Kamala Harris. 🥊