Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

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Then why is it that blue states have extended parental leave (18 weeks+), paid parental/family leave, paid sick leave, non tipped minimum wages, non compete bans, minimum salaries, daily overtime laws, access to women’s healthcare (abortion), legal marijuana (civil liberties), expanded Medicaid funding so more poor people can get better healthcare, etc?

The new wage transparency laws are coming from Colorado and Washington, also blue states. It seems very clear that at least some priorities of the blue team are pro worker and pro civil liberties.

On the federal level, the Republicans have passed two large tax cuts in the last 22 years and entered into two expensive wars. Democrats have passed the only large wealth transfer from rich to poor via Affordable Care Act in 2009, and followed it up with No Surprise Billing Act in 2021, while Republicans have tried to dismantled ACA for 13 years. Democrats passed a bill to expand infrastructure spending in 2021, and tried to pass federal paid parental leave and childcare laws. Republicans spent the same time trying to revoke women’s access to healthcare (abortion) and same sex marriage. Democrats withdrew military from Iraq and Afghanistan. Repubs spend their time defending literal traitors to the country.

Obviously Dems are not perfect, but how anyone can say both are the same is beyond me.

They are both the same as in they are both bad, even if in different ways.

In my country for more than 20 years people don't vote for a party (and we have more than 2), but they vote against what they see as the worst party. It is negative voting. If I would move and vote in US, I have very strong reasons to vote against both major parties, they look like the choice between getting shot to death or hanged to death: no matter what you choose, the result is bad.

Also some part of that enumeration implied as positive changes is not seen as positive in countries that did such things 20-30 years ago and saw the effects. Lots of people seem to wear horse blinders, they do things that were done by other countries ignoring the outcome in these countries. The emperor is naked and nobody wants to admit it.

Without specifics, I have no clue what you are talking about re horse blinders.

I have greatly benefited from the policies I specified, so I do not see why I should view both as “bad in different ways”. I do work to support ranked choice voting so that I can get more than 2 choices at the polls, but until then, I work with what I have.

Some of the policies you benefited are from a zero sum game, so your gain is someone else's loss. When you benefit, you turn a blind eye to the negatives (this is the horse blinder reference).

Politics is the allocation of limited resources without violence. I am aware that sometimes, the policies I benefit from takes from others, and many times I support policies where I lose and it helps others, such as healthcare and education for poorer people, or healthy school lunches for all kids. But I also believe narrowing the income/wealth gap ultimately helps me by increasing stability and social cohesion, even if it hurts my wallet.

As you said, you support some policies where you lose, don't assume others do too. Politics is the allocation of limited resources with the threat of violence or other outcomes (like prison time), same as gunpoint robbery, don't paint it like a peaceful paradise where everyone sings Kumbaya.

Why the downvotes? The parent seemed to give some solid examples of how different parties are in fact different.

>Democrats have passed the only large wealth transfer from rich to poor via Affordable Care Act in 2009

After ACA HMO profits went up. A lot. Along with premiums. It was a wealth transfer from middle class to rich. That was part of the deal for making sure everyone was covered.

HMOs were obsoleted many years ago. Managed care organization (better name for health insurance companies) profit margins are low single digits, for many years indicating a competitive market where excess profits are not possible, and this is public information from 10-Ks.

The wealth transfer is the out of pocket maximum in conjunction with premium tax credits. Premiums went up because the bottom 50% of society finally started receiving healthcare, and were not liable for astronomic healthcare bills due to the out of pocket maximum. Plus young people greatly subsidize old people because premiums for age 64 are capped at 3x the premium of age 21.

Unfortunately, the wealth transfer was neutered due to the penalty for not having insurance being removed, and due to allowing non ACA compliant plans to exist, as well as not forcing everything onto the same market and letting healthy, white collar employees to silo their risks in employer sponsored plans.

Obviously, the implementation of ACA is not the ideal, but that is what was possible due to near zero support across the political aisle. At least we got that, and it is irrefutable that more people have received more healthcare due to ACA than before ACA. The middle class wealth transfer is actually the 60% to 90% feeling the pain due to their money being used to provide for the 30% to 60% (whoever was not poor enough for Medicaid, but not lucky enough to work at an employer rich enough to provide good healthcare benefits).

Governments are extremely inefficient, and taxes are mostly wasted; higher taxes disincentivise people from making things. You might say taxes are necessary, but they're an evil. Obama blew up a bunch of middle-eastern kids. A lot of reds genuinely believe abortion is murdering babies. That's why they're against it; it's not really about the women, they just happen to be involved. They'd feel the same way if you had a baby growing in a tank. Meanwhile, the modern democratic party seems to encourage the already extant kids to cut off their genitalia. Dems defend 'traitors to the country', too (Snowden).

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