Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

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The difference between the left and right is mainly rhetoric. Speaking of “bailouts,” 68% of Americans wouldn’t pay even $10 per month more to mitigate climate change: https://www.cato.org/blog/68-americans-wouldnt-pay-10-month-....

Democrats are willing to talk about mitigating climate change, and Republicans aren’t, but the vast majority of Americans aren’t willing to actually incur decreased quality of life. Gas needs to be like $10+ per gallon. But even when it hit $4 last year, Biden was calling to suspend the gas tax to make it more affordable.

You’re correct that, on this issue, the right cares only about themselves. But so does most everyone else. Even most Biden voters want to be able to take their SUV to the beach this summer without high gas prices. Biden won traditionally red states like Arizona and Georgia blue, because Biden voters are leaving urban areas in the northeast and Midwest for places like Arizona and Georgia where they can afford bigger houses, more cars, etc.

> 68% of Americans wouldn’t pay even $10 per month more to mitigate climate change

The average American has zero savings and is living hand to mouth. If we hadn’t spent the last four decades hollowing out the middle class, maybe people would have the luxury of being able to look past their next paycheck and consider spending extra to avoid ecosystem collapse.

Median household income in America is roughly $70,000 per year. That is a roughly 20% real (not nominal!) increase over the past 40 years.

$10/month would represent 0.17% of that income.

Median household income on its own is an irrelevant fact. It is only relevant in context of median household expenses. By the fact that household debt has never been higher, I think my point stands - even people earning $70k/year are living hand to mouth because their expenses have risen to $69,500/year, if not higher.

1) Note that I indicated that the 20% increase was a real increase and not a nominal one. That means that to the extent that household expenses have increased, it's because households are using their newfound wealth to purchase more/better stuff! That's not a hollowing out of the middle class, that's a prospering one.

2) Household debt has declined significantly over the past 15 years:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HDTGPDUSQ163N

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TDSP

One could argue that Biden is not really left at all, and a true leftist like Sanders or Warren would have gone to the billionaires' pockets to fund all kinds of progressive policies. But since Biden won, it's up to all Americans except for the billionaires to pay.

It depends if “left” refers to a set of policies, or generally the left-leaning half of the country. The latter includes a lot of people who, like Biden, aren’t that liberal. Apart from white moderates, you have a lot of black people and immigrants for whom upward mobility-a big house and nice cars—is a major theme.

Warren barely finished ahead of Michael Bloomberg (2.8 million votes to 2.4 million votes). Sanders did better, but note that he’s extremely careful on environmental issues, since a large share of his support comes from working class hispanics.

Politics aside, “billionaires will pay for it” is the ultimate cop out for the left these days. Reaganism has won so completely that it’s unthinkable that any viable party could ask the middle class or even the upper middle class to pay for anything. They must maintain the illusion that we can have our cake and eat it too—we can mitigate climate change, but we don’t need to make any change to our standard of living or pay higher taxes because billionaires will pay for it.

Biden isn't really left at all, and one reason nobody goes to the billionaires' pockets to fund all kinds of progressive policies is that there isn't enough money in those pockets. To do major new social safety net services, you need ongoing (large amounts) billions of dollars. European-style social spending is funded by drastically higher tax rates on the middle class; the top marginal rate often kicks in at a CPS teacher's salary there.

I am all for taxing the hell out of billionaires, but deference to their interests isn't what's keeping you from having free grad school and high-speed rail; it's deference to the interests of ordinary people living in suburbs holding that back.

For those not familiar with Chicago politics, "CPS" -> Chicago Public Schools.

(tptacek lives in the Chicago area as I recall.)

Yup. I live in Oak Park. Our teachers are in high tax brackets even in the US.

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