“We are only as safe as the least insured person in America,” Bernie Sanders, in one tweet, succinctly captured the individualist United States’ failed safety net amidst a coronavirus pandemic with now 10,502 cases occurring while 27 million are uninsured and the working-class grocers, delivery drivers and caretakers are on the front-lines as emergency workers — without a  living wage. It turns out that the working-class is what keeps the global economy running, and while thousands of mass layoffs or unpaid leaves are taking place, corporations are begging for bailouts, asking employees to share their sick leave hours, and corporations are profiting off the global crisis. Corporations are doubling the price of potential coronavirus treatment chloroquine, and Wall Street is pressuring healthcare firms to hike up prices. The USDA is also fighting to purge food stamps recipients despite the pandemic. Capitalism and unfettered corporate greed is literally endangering millions of lives.

 This crisis makes Bernie Sanders’ platform and 50 year long fight for economic justice seem moderate. The COVD-19 pandemic has exposed the corporate greed of crony capitalism and failings of a privatized healthcare system with a middle-man insurance industry that leaves 27 million uninsured and 500,000 bankrupt yearly, all while ranking 37th in healthcare globally.

“Every worker deserves a living wage, paid leave, health care, and a union—at all times, not just during a national crisis.” – Bernie Sanders

Coronavirus has exposed the corporate rot and greed of this nation and the government isn’t doing enough to help families struggling without employment and healthcare. While businesses beg for bailouts after just a few weeks with no profits, it is the working-class — who are somehow supposed to have 3-6 months of savings — who need a New Deal to survive. Are the 27 million uninsured, thousands laid off, thousands more put on unpaid leave because of the deliberate destruction of our unions expected to deal with a crisis that could be bigger than the Great Depression with the United States’ weak safety net?

The crisis has led to bipartisan calls for a temporary establishment for the socialized programs progressives have been fighting for such as Medicare for All, paid sick leave, internet as a utility, and more. The COVD-19 pandemic has made presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders’ progressive platform look moderate. We’re in the middle of a global pandemic, Americans — whose wages have stagnated as inflation has risen 657% in the past 50 years  don’t have healthcare, live paycheck to paycheck, and those 40% who don’t have $400 in savings — can’t pay $1,600 for COVD-19 testing alone.

Progressives were right about everything. They were right about universal healthcare, unions, corporate greed and the working-class holding the true economic power that keeps nations running — and deserving fair pay for it. We can’t survive without the “proletariat.”

The Government’s Failed Response

President Trump’s 8 week delayed and inadequate coronavirus response has already cost 174 lives. He fired the entire pandemic response team in 2018 and called in a hoax at a campaign rally in January this year. Then he  insisted that his January 31st decision to restrict travel from China had contained the outbreak. By February 29, officials reported the first coronavirus  death in the U.S. The bill that the House passed this week only guarantees paid coronavirus sick leave to around 20% of American workers and they’re still debating over sending $1,000 to every U.S. household for a pandemic that could last up to 18 months (the time it could take for a vaccine to be produced.)

Privatized Healthcare Failing

The free market has failed the health, ability to sustain a living, and education of Americans. The United States privatized, most expensive healthcare system per capita — ranking 37th globally is facing shortages. We received supplies from Italy as healthcare workers face shortages of masks, swabs, and they lack respirators to treat this epidemic fully.

Many are calling for temporary Medicare for All, but amid such a crisis causing layoffs and affecting families nationwide, tying employment to the ability to get treatment illnesses without going bankrupt is finally starting to seem insane. The average cost of a hospitalization for COVID-19 could top $20,000 someone with insurance, with out-of-pocket costs of at least $1,300. We must permanently expand coverage to all Americans with a small tax hike and increase production capacities to address this crisis. Hundreds of thousands of people every year deserve treatment for other illnesses regardless of costs too. People don’t deserve to die rationing insulin.

A Yale study concluded that Medicare for All would save 68,000 lives a year, and $450 billion annually. Americans are paying more per capita and getting less through a middle-man insurance profiting off illness, that shouldn’t exist.

Eroded Safety Net

The pandemic has also exposed how eroded our safety net is with the government actively robbing the most unequal developed nation on earth of benefits. Amidst a pandemic, the USDA is fighting to purge food stamps recipients.  With healthcare the number one cause of bankruptcy in the wealthiest country on earth (with 78% already insured), the oligarchy’s stranglehold on the working-class now stronger than ever, with stagnant wages that haven’t kept up with the 657% rise in inflation the past 50 years despite a doubling in productivity, and a $1.6 trillion student debt crisis that stagnates economic growth, only a progressive agenda can address these key issues.

Income inequality is at an all time high since the Census Bureau began tracking it, yet we perpetuate the “bootstraps” notion that every hard-working person and child has equality of opportunity — an equal chance to succeed in life.  Despite being the wealthiest country on earth, and worker productivity doubling, 12.3% of families continue living in poverty, and 40 million go hungry.

The richest 10% of U.S. households represented 70% of all U.S. wealth in 2018, and the top 1% hold 42.5% of national wealth, a far greater share than in other OECD countries. In no other industrialized nation does the wealthiest 1% own more than 28% of their country’s wealth.  Economic inequality in the U.S. ranks higher than in any other wealthy, democratic country, and it has the most poor individuals than any other similar developed nations. Inequality has drastically increased since the 1960s were the top 10 percent of families owned around one-third of the national income, and the top 1 percent received less than 10% of all income . The Gini Index shows that the level of inequality in the United States is almost twice as much as in Sweden and a third more than most other European countries.

Unions Are Vital to The Workers On the Frontline Who Have Always Had the Economic Power 

While thousands are being laid off or put on unpaid leave indefinitely amid a pandemic, the importance of unions becomes even more pertinent as families struggle for their livelihood. The Whole Foods CEO told employees who are not sick should “donate” their vacation time to sick employees. Unions are vital to the working and middle-class who drive economic stimulus in this country. Union workers are more likely to have paid sick days and health insurance, and be paid fair wages.

Economic inequality has increased since the 1960s due to technology, decline of manufacturing, globalization, and government policies that have not grown the wealth of the middle-class. Because of this, people without access to the “college wage premium” have seen their earnings decline in this technology age with less manufacturing jobs. 

Deindustrialization has decreased these well-paying jobs for many Americans and only low-wage jobs have been growing for those who are non-college educated.  The stagnated minimum wage has exacerbated this income inequality as the rich continue to reap a higher share of profits produced by the workers.

It is those low-wage workers which are now being classified as emergency workers in Vermont and Minnesota who keep the economy running. Now people who derided working-class jobs as “low-skilled” ones undeserving of a living wage, know who are the essential workers. It is the care workers, the grocery clerks, the cleaners, the delivery drivers. They are the teachers, the nurses, the doctors, the transport workers. Not the 1%, not the traders, not the hedge fund managers.

All workers deserve a living wage and paid sick leave. If the minimum wage kept pace with the 657% rise in inflation & 176% rise in productivity over the past 50 years, it would be $21.72.It peaked in 1968 at $11.18  when a manufacturing job bought you a house for $26,600.00. These workers need a $15.00 min wage now — they needed it years ago.

Corporate Greed Amidst Crisis

The Trump administration turned down WHO’s test kits to help his son-in-law Kushner’s company make a profit.

Wall Street is pressuring healthcare firms to increase prices over the coronavirus crisis. Audio  was obtained of bankers asking drug companies and firms supplying N95 masks & ventilators, to figure out how to profit from the COVID-19 emergency.

A US drugmaker doubled price of potential coronavirus treatment, chloroquine, in January, as the outbreak spread in China.

While the outbreak spread, Senate Intel chair Richard Burr, sold off up to $1.6 million in stock one week before the market fell. His committee was receiving daily briefings.

Instead of helping American workers, the system wants to bail out airlines and other industries. Airlines like American blew cash on stock buybacks instead of reserving for a future crisis like working-class Americans are told to do.

A Second New Deal

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn’t just lift the United States out of the Depression — he altered the broken economic and political system to prevent it from happening again and championed the working-class. We have dismantled the very protections he set in place so corporations could reap higher profits and the New Deal’s safety net has withered away as a result. America’s individualist culture has failed us in pursuit of higher corporate profit.

We must demand that Congress pass a bill with paid sick leave, provide emergency unemployment assistance of $2,000 a month per person as Senator Sanders proposed, freeze evictions for all (not just public housing), and classify grocery workers as emergency workers.

We must enact Medicare for All in the long term so that healthcare — the right to life — is no longer tied to employment and the middle-man profiteering insurance industry which leaves 27 million unable to afford coverage and 500,000 bankrupt. This is a moral awakening and call we must answer.

If the federal minimum wage had kept up with the 657% increase in inflation and 176% rise in worker productivity  over the past 50 years, it would be $21.72. It peaked in 1968 at $11.18  when the cost of a four-year public university was $329.00, according to National Center for Education Statistics, a manufacturing job bought you a house for $26,600.00, and the cost of living was 657% lower. Net productivity was 77.1% in 1968 while it stood at a record 252.9% in 2018. Economic research has overwhelmingly concluded that a gradual increase to a $15.00 minimum wage would not increase the price level or the unemployment rate. In fact, it would stimulate economic growth through increased consumer demand, business investment and job growth. At a time when income inequality has hit an all time., with 40 million Americans facing hunger, a shocking number of homeless people, and inability of hard-working Americans to achieve socioeconomic advancement in part in the wealthiest country on earth, it’s time to stop the billionaire class from stealing profits from the working-class who has doubled their productivity since the late 1960s. Economists agree that a federal minimum wage increase to $15.00 by 2024 would not cause a rise in the price level or mass job losses. Instead, the spillover effects would cause a strong demand-side stimulus to the economy through an increase in disposable income to the demographic with the highest MPC, and increase middle-wages as well.

Productivity and the Cost of Living Has Skyrocketed But Wages Have Stagnated

Today’s $7.25 minimum wage is 29% less their counterparts made 50 years ago adjusted for inflation despite the fact that productivity has doubled since the late 1960s — CEO’s are literally stealing profit from American workers. The United States has one of the lowest minimum wages of any industrialize democracy in the world. The adjusted value of minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $11.18.  According to The Economic Policy Institute , the inflation-adjusted minimum wage has fallen far behind the growth of the economy compared to 50 years ago, when they were virtually equal.

Economic Inequality

Income inequality is at an all time high since the Census Bureau began tracking it, yet we perpetuate the “bootstraps” notion that every hard-working person and child has equality of opportunity — an equal chance to succeed in life.  Despite being the wealthiest country on earth, and worker productivity doubling, 12.3% of families continue living in poverty, and 40 million go hungry.

The richest 10% of U.S. households represented 70% of all U.S. wealth in 2018, and the top 1% hold 42.5% of national wealth, a far greater share than in other OECD countries. In no other industrialized nation does the wealthiest 1% own more than 28% of their country’s wealth.  Economic inequality in the U.S. ranks higher than in any other wealthy, democratic country, and it has the most poor individuals than any other similar developed nations. Inequality has drastically increased since the 1960s were the top 10 percent of families owned around one-third of the national income, and the top 1 percent received less than 10% of all income . The Gini Index shows that the level of inequality in the United States is almost twice as much as in Sweden and a third more than most other European countries.

Economic inequality has increased since the 1960s due to technology, decline of manufacturing, globalization, and government policies that have not grown the wealth of the middle-class. People without access to the “college wage premium” have seen their earnings decline in this technology age with less manufacturing jobs.  Deindustrialization has decreased these well-paying jobs for many Americans and only low-wage jobs have been growing for those who are non-college educated. The stagnated minimum wage has exacerbated this income inequality as the rich continue to reap a higher share of profits produced by the workers.

Spillover Benefits of a $15 min wage: Demand-side Economic Growth, Middle-Wage Increases, and Reduced Taxpyaer Spending on Assistance Programs

According to the Economic Policy Institute, $15 minimum wage by 2024 would result in $121 billion in higher wages for almost 41 million low-wage workers thereby providing a positive multiplier effect to the economy through the raise in disposable income of the demographic with the highest MPC. This demographic would stimulate consumer demand, business activity, and job growth. The increase would be indexed to growth in median wages, thereby securing that the wage floor keeps pace with growth of middle-wage workers in the future. 

A $15.00 minimum wage would directly affect 28.1 million workers by 2024 and another 11.6 million workers whose wages are just above the new minimum wage through “spillover” effects as employers adjust their scales.

Liberal economists agree that a  minimum wage raise will stimulate the economy and reduce taxpayer spending on assistance programs.

The Price Level Would Not Rise

Two years after Seattle raised its minimum wage to $15.00, a study found no significant evidence of price level increases associated with the minimum wage law.

The researchers analyzed prices for 106 food articles from six supermarket chain stores in Seattle and in six of the same-chain stores in King County unaffected by the ordinance. The price check occurred at four time points: one month pre, one month post, one year post, and two years post ordinance implementation.

Effects in Employment: Modest Increases — No Job Loses

Although some conservatives estimate that raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024 would put 1.3 million Americans out of work (CBO), minimum wage hikes in states and cities in recent years give us actual quantitative data on the effects of wage floor increases

Economics at UCLA  examined the effect of the statewide minimum wage rise in California from $6.75 in 2006 to $10.50 in 2017 (slated to hit $15 in 2022), and focused on the restaurant industry. They estimated that, “the increments in the minimum wage..were estimated to increase earnings in limited service restaurants slightly more than 10% but reduced employment by about 12%.” And that the rise up to $10.50 by 2017 raised earnings in those restaurants by another 20%, but reduced employment by another 10%..

Polar opposite to these findings, a U.C. Berkeley study looked at the effects of city-level minimum wage hikes in recent years. It compared the cities of Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Washington, to economically-comparable nearby ones. The paper found that wages were up while changes to employment were minimal: “We find significantly positive effects on wages and small effects on employment, consistent with many previous studies.”

Furthermore, a high-profile paper by David Card and Alan Krueger proved what many economists have agreed on — modest increases to wage minimums don’t cause huge job losses. “Many studies have found little or no effect of minimum wages on employment, but many others have found substantial reductions in employment (CBO).”

Over a decade after former President Felipe Calderon launched a militarized crusade against drug cartels, Mexico has recorded its highest homicide rate of 19.4 since the interior ministry began keeping records, with a staggering 29,168 murders in 2017. Despite lethal military deployment and a winning ‘kingpin-strategy’ (Nieto has neutralized 89% of drug-cartel leaders on his list), it has only culminated in spikes of drug-violence that have left over 175,000 dead in the last 10 years.  That is, because military force won’t halt the leading U.S. demand for drugs (and weapon smuggling), eliminate the incentive to join cartels in a poverty-stricken country with farmers hurt by NAFTA, or the corruption which the narco-state burgeons on.

The cartel violence reigning down in Mexico is the result of a profitable illegal industry competing for territory, empowered by corruption, and sustained by poverty. A decade of failing drug war policy requires a different kind of diplomacy – a way to remove the profit incentive altogether. The government  has amped up organized-crime-combatting efforts, but security analysts agree that they’ve unwittingly led to a violence-wave as kingpins fight for control. Legalization of drugs is the quickest death to cartels and their endless terror.

Although such a far-fetched proposal is considered political suicide on both sides of the border, it’s a strategy which has been economically and statistically proven to work by the growing number of U.S. states legalizing marijuana. Marijuana legalization has already slashed cartel profit and decreased violence in Mexico. Marijuana seizures on the U.S.-Mexico border are down from 4 million pounds (2009) to 1.5 (2015) with the Mexican army seeing a 32% drop in confiscations. (The lowest levels in the last decade.) Subsequently, this has resulted in what military force has failed to do – decreased violence.

Legalization eliminates the astounding U.S. demand fueling the black market. Nonetheless, to understand solutions, we must understand the causes. The U.S. is the leading consumer of drugs – more drugs are purchased by them than the rest of the world combined. After the Decada Perdida where 800,000 jobs were lost, by the 90s, 85% of U.S. cocaine came through Mexico. During Felipe Calderon’s term, the Mérida Initiative of militarized-combat was put into effect as the mean to a fruitless end. A whopping U.S.-sponsored $1.6 billion later, and the war between drug cartels  has killed 63,000 in the past six years.

Without demand for an illegal good, there would be no black market. Black markets fuel violence since disputes can’t be resolved within legal institutions, but rather with U.S. smuggled guns. (Seventy-percent of guns seized in Mexico and traced by the US Bureau of ATF from 2009 to 2014 came from the US). Without demand there would be no drug crime, or the skyrocketing levels of corruption generated by participants infiltrating municipal police forces, and bribing the legal system.  A level so high it leaves the country ranked at 123rd among 176 countries in the 2016 CPI. Legalization would eliminate the profit-incentive for cartels to exist – and therefore impose violence and corrupt the governmental system.

According to the Washington Post, it’s estimated that a “$2,000 kilogram of cocaine could be imported for less than $50 and sold for a small markup from its price in Colombia.” While criminalization drives the cost to $20,000, retailing for over $100,000. Without these profits, the cartels and their heinous crimes against humanity would cease.

Public health qualms about such a radical proposal are often raised, but countries that have decriminalized have seen little to no increase in drug use. For one, Portugal’s drug decriminalization has reduced drug-related harm. Drug use has decreased since, with rates maintained below the European average (far lower than the U.S.) Furthermore, state-control prevents overdoses and spread of disease caused by a lack of regulation.

However, drug violence doesn’t operate in a vacuum; the epidemic is created through decades of complex sociopolitical conditions. One of those being the 45.5% poverty rate of a country ranking 13^th in GDP. In a recent presidential debate MORENA candidate Obrador rightfully argued that reducing poverty was the only way to fight cartels. It’s join or starve for many that find themselves without job prospects or educational attainment. And cartels recruit from this urban unemployed sector. The 1980s economic crisis which resulted in 800,000 job losses exacerbated inequality and eliminated upward mobility opportunities.

These conditions were aggravated by NAFTA which hurt farmers with the removal of tariffs and quotas on imports. Farmers then resorted to growing marijuana to survive due to the removal of these subsidies.

Furthermore, corruption facilitates mass violence. The country earned the narco-state label due to the number of police are involved in kidnappings, extortions, and protection for organized crime in exchange for bribes. They’re considered the most corrupt public-institution in the country, with the lowest reliability for crime protection. To decrease corruption levels, they must continue down the path of firing corrupt officials as Attorney General Morales has with 10% of the police force. It must also raise police salaries of $588 a month. The benefits would exceed the cost (which is over 10% of GDP.)

Decades of the drug war has resulted in Mexico’s highest homicide rate since its recorded history. It’s cost the country not only US $134 billion, but endless lives. Mexico must eliminate the black market by decriminalizing, expand poverty-relief programs to prevent cartel recruitment, clamp down on corruption by overhauling its police force, and end weapon smuggling.

Why are people with the same economic interests so divided?  It’s not “economic anxiety”; a vote in Iowa is the equivalent of 5 California votes. The answer is grounded in American history spanning back 300 years when racial animosity was harnessed by elite landowners to destroy class solidarity and prevent rebellions. Divided, those with the same economic interests fell. This covert phenomenon rooted in the Reconstruction Era when the KKK emerged with lynchings because slaves were seen as competition to poor whites, culminated in major whole redistributions of wealth as experienced in the 1980s – through Nixon’s Southern strategy of white political realignment. Not much has changed as “economically anxious” coal-country Trump voters march on the streets chanting nazi mantras, call brown countries “sh*tholes,” and tell minorities to get out of ‘their’ countries. Convinced that it’s not the bipartisan iron triangle of excessive corporate influence, it’s not the crony oligarchy corrupting the democratic process running their economic prospects, it’s minorities as they’ve been indoctrinated. Thus, the white working class American votes out of resentment, against their best interests for the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation (they realigned) that pretends to care about said coal-country. While Democrats offer condescending rhetoric worthy of the “East-coast lib” caricature, tokenism, and identity politics over economic justice.

“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

During the Reconstruction Era, freed slaves were given “40 acres and a mule,” the first policy offering economic justice to African Americans in the form of land redistribution. But racist sentiment did not end with the 13th Amendment. Poor, non-land owning white men saw these policies being enacted and subsequently emerged the KKK. Equality of opportunity felt like oppression. Slaves were seen as competition too poor whites, and they became Southern Democrats (or modern-day Republicans), instead of standing in solidarity with other poor blacks. This, in short, is the history of racial class division, the source of the 1980s Southern strategy, and the 2016 election-winning Trump strategy targeting minorities.

What does all of this well-curated racism mean? A skyrocketing wealth gap where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer as they fight over Muslim bans and border walls aiming to keep brown people out. It’s not the “swamp” ruining my economic prospects, it’s minorities. It’s not my grades ruining my chances of getting into college, it’s minorities. In this alternative-reality all brown people are threats to the in-group, the Muslim ban which bans zero of the countries that have caused terrorism in the US nor the one that caused 9/11 because Trump has business ties there, is good because screw refugees that have never caused a terrorist attack in the U.S. in the last 30 years in the US. A $35 billion safety-blanket of a wall rendered useless by net negative illegal-immigration, the fact that immigrants have a lower crime rate than native-born Americans, and half of illegals fly here and overstay Visas (meaning they’ve already been vetted) is good because it’s a monumental ‘screw you’ to more brown people.

These are the real identity politics – the politics of fear, the politics of alternative facts raised as a modern-day Southern strategy to keep whites voting against their best interest, to keep them voting for their only interest under the imagined threat of immigrants.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s revelation stands tall, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” And empty their pockets they have: with transfer of wealth tax cuts in the ‘80s were the poor were left behind and the top 1% saw their income triple, with the Bush tax cuts which raised unemployment to 6%, and finally the failing Kansas trickle-down experiment of 2012 which caused job growth and personal income to lag the US economy. Most recently the MAGA tax-cut which laid off almost 10,000 employees and closed 63 Walmart stores. They’ll vote against job creation, against the Obamacare they’re on because “Obama,” and vote for cuts to their own Social Security.Who knew corporate tax cuts didn’t increase demand/a need for more hiring?

While Republican appeals to racism drew aggrieved racists to the GOP, the Democratic party ensured they had no incentive to leave. By pushing for their interpretation of social justice without economic reform, they’ve shed the New Deal-style agenda which successfully gave birth to a middle-class and watched it flourish. Democrats don’t have actual solutions to address the causes of poverty, the causes of bankruptcy-inducing healthcare, of widening inequality – they have band-aids. They simply pad problems with government money instead of offering progressive solutions directly addressing the root cause, as well as corruption. Instead of cracking down on price gouging and regulating the oil industry more strictly, they increase LIHEAP funding. Instead of Regulating pharmaceutical prices to lower the cost of American medicine, they throw money at each other. It’s all thanks to the unbreakable, bipartisan, iron triangle. Both parties take money from the same donors and pretend to care about working-class interests.

This, again, is not to say racists crawled to a white supremacist, historically incompetent Fuhrer because of economic anxiety of course. The Democratic party is still light years better than Republicans in terms of the working class (which isn’t saying much.)

Pretending like the Midwest was driven to such extremes because of “jobs” is complete bullcrap. Are the 95% of Democrat-voting black people wealthy elites? Are there are no working class democrats desperate for jobs? Are they not desperate for jobs? There are, but they’re not driven by racism – much less driven by racism to ‘empty their pockets’ for the exploited rich whose wealth will ‘trickle-down.’ Low income minorities did not elect Trump, “cultural” anxiety did. In fact, “views on immigration, Muslims drove white voters to Trump.”

As many tokens hiding corporatist, centrist agendas the Democrats posture for 2020 with the promise of change, there can be no equality without economic justice. The same people who gave us brought you winning Hillary are now pushing big Wall Street money recipients who decline to prosecute fraudsters like Munich for 1,000 cases of mortgage fraud, Senators who vote against lower pharmaceutical prices. They’re doing this and expecting something other than a rehashing of the 2016 election.

After the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Martin Luther King Jr. felt that the de-jure fight wasn’t over. The Reverend held a radical bastion of economic justice as the ultimate goal, and in the weeks before his assassination, he was advocating around an economic message for all people.  “Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For we know that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee?”He went on to start the Poor People’s Campaign in 1967 which demanded a progressive agenda based on jobs and higher wages.

Although he went further in his calls for universal basic income, his message did not stray from the core truth – a man isn’t free if he can’t afford the basic necessities to survive. As Anatole France is quoted, “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

The only way to lower partisan divide is through an economic message; no gimmicks, no pure opposition campaigns, and no identity politics. To stand behind ideas the majority of Americans support. Fifty-eight percent  of Americans support single-payer, 88% oppose cuts to Social security, voters in red states want Medicaid expanded, 68% think the wealthy pay too little taxes, 64% support regulating greenhouse gas emissions,58%  support breaking up big banks, 63% support raising the minimum wage to $15.00, 53% support labor union law, 64% think corporations don’t pay their fair share.

Time and time again, history has proven our economy to be better under democratic presidents and, thus Keynesian economic policy. It’s no mystery as to why republican Congresses have been responsible for the last four major economic crisis in the: 1930s, 1970s, 2001, and 2008. Supply-side economics simply doesn’t work in non-Stagflation conditions. As it turns out, lower income tax rates for the wealthy and an increased tax burden for the lower classes doesn’t deliver to middle-class Americans – the driving force behind the economy with the largest MPC.

The phrase “trickle-down” is a misnomer which obfuscates the dire effects the economic policy’s implementation has had on our US economy throughout history. From tripling the national debt, skyrocketing income inequality by solely serving as a transfer of wealth to the top 1% while the middle-class is left behind, and causing a deep recession in 1982 with an unemployment rate of 10.8%. To the Bush tax cuts which raised unemployment to 6%, and finally the failing Kansas trickle-down experiment of 2012 which caused job growth and personal income to lag the US economy. Logically, the President Trump thinks ‘lets do it all over again’ and bankrupt the US economy like one of his casinos by reducing corporate tax rates from 35 to 15 percent.

Reaganomics is not effective at growing the economy – just lining the wealthy’s pockets. Yes, Reaganomics pulled the country out of a recession but only because it wasn’t just any recession – it was one marked by high inflation, and unemployment – aka ‘Stagflation.’ This occurs when aggregate supply goes down because there is a shortage of goods due to a supply shock which has caused cost-push inflation. Under such a double-whammy, supply-side economics is the only solution to restoring the economy back to equilibrium. It increases GDP without increasing the price level. However, Reagan’s failure was adding a detrimental twist to supply-side by combining tax cuts for the wealthy with big spending.

But we haven’t experienced such a situation since the ‘70s therefore this economic policy should in way be looked at as precedent or a success story of economic prosperity – it wasn’t and never has been, not for the 99%.

Under our current conditions where aggregate supply exceeds demand, demand-side economics should be enacted to push demand even further to full employment. Although we’re already pretty close, more growth can’t hurt us to the point where we’re needing contractionary policy yet. It’s proven successful with the past three democratic presidents, but it’s important to look back at what doesn’t work and why first.

Although Ronald Reagan did end the left-over Stagflation, it’s by no means proof supply-side is the superior fiscal tool in boosting the US economy. Reaganomics as expansionary fiscal policy simply doesn’t work. As mentioned, it only works during periods of Stagflation to pull the country out of crisis but it does not propel tremendous growth or meet any of Republicans’ promises.

President Reagan’s tax cuts coupled with increased spending in the 1980s turned out to be a disaster. He cut the top tax rate from 70% to 28%, the corporate tax rate from 46-40%, while increase government spending by 2.5% per year, thereby tripling the national debt ($997 billion-$2.85 trillion in 1989.) By not just cutting taxes and lowering spending to run surplus, he created a domino effect of financial crisis. The deficit skyrocketed (because expenditures exceeded revenue by far) which led to inflationary problems such as high interest rates and subsequent low consumer purchasing power. This sparked a recession in 1981 and 1982 with an unemployment rate of 10.8%. High interest rates made the value of a dollar rise and exports decreased.The market eventually balanced itself out, but there’s no shadow of a doubt Reagan’s brand of supply side had dire effects – especially on the middle class.

As the consumerist 80s appeared to be outwardly flourishing as a nation, the middle-class trailed behind as income inequality worsened. This was a natural effect of cutting taxes for the wealthy and not for the majority of Americans who happen to have the highest marginal propensity to consume. Economic prosperity trickled up – as the transfer of wealth tax cut was designed to do – and the top 1% saw their income triple.

Why doesn’t the middle-class benefit as promised – why didn’t wealth “trickle-down?” Well because corporations don’t increase hiring or invest more. Tax-dodging corporations such as Verizon, Exxon-Mobil, AT&T had job growth of less than 1% since 2008, compared to 6% for the private sector as a whole, and slashed hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Who knew corporate tax cuts didn’t increase demand and therefore a need for more hiring? It’s astounding how Americans have been tricked into ignoring the basic rules of supply and demand to support the biggest scam. Corporations only hire people when increased demand requires it – when consumption by the middle-class increases, not when they receive massive tax cuts. No amount of tax cuts will increase demand for their goods.

Not only aren’t corporate tax cuts stimulating the economy, but top tax bracket ones aren’t either. As Gordon Gekko explained, the wealthiest earners have a low marginal propensity to consume, they spend 5-10% of their earnings, while the middle and lower classes spend 100-110% of theirs because they have the highest velocity of money/MPC.

The real growth-drivers in America should be the ones receiving tax cuts to increase demand, GDP, and actually incentivize (force) businesses to hire more people. By focusing on policies which allow working and middle-class Americans to have more spending money and increasing human capital through a focus on education we can drive economic growth through the roof. And that vision is precisely what Democratic economic policies are centered around – a vision which has proven time and time again to work.

Not only have Keynesian policies been effective at pulling us out of recessions caused by republicans, but by every important measure, our nation’s economic performance after their implementation outpaces that of the early 1980s.

Bill Clinton managed to become the most successful in terms of economics, out of the past six presidents by increasing taxes by about 8% on the top 5% of households in 1993. Following that, our country gained a surplus of $236 million, cut unemployment in half, and experienced 7 years of vast growth. Of course, this was only possible with a decrease in federal spending. Something that worked then because of the existing inflationary gap which he had to combat by decreasing aggregate demand.

Despite all of this, Wall Street savior Trump wants a rehashing of 1982, of the Bush tax cuts which increased unemployment to 6%, and of the Kansas trickle-down failure.  An experiment in wealth redistribution to the wealthy which left the state with an unsustainable billion-dollar deficit, withered services, and general lagging growth rates after taxes were slashed tremendously and business income taxes were completely eliminated. The tax-dodging  Con-Artist-in-Chief wants Kansas but on $35 billion dollar border-wall steroids. All while “eliminating” the $19 trillion national debt of course. By slashing the corporate tax rate from 35 to 15 percent he’ll cost the government $2.4 trillion over a decade. How’s that for conservative fiscal policy?

It’s clear that Reaganomics does not work as expansionary fiscal policy and is detrimental to the middle class. A scam that has been packaged as nation-wide prosperity which has many believing giving the rich more money to save is going to somehow increase their economic prospects. Because logic. We haven’t experienced Stagflation since the 1970s but let’s give corporations a tax break because somehow that’s supposed to increase aggregate demand, therefore hiring, and GDP growth fueled by consumerism. Oh wait, that’s what Keynesian policy does.We are to ignore history and ignore basic laws of supply and demand, and that the only way to gracefull employment, is by stimulating demand.

It’s time to stop putting political ideology over the welfare of the country. In the world-power that is the United States, medical expenses have long been the number one cause of bankruptcy, with 78% of filers already having health-insurance. It should be considered a serious issue when inhabitants of the wealthiest country have to choose between death or bankruptcy, food or medicine. The healthcare industry has turned into a for-profit business, which despite having skyrocketing costs, leave us at 33rd place in life expectancy and outcomes that are not notably superior. To put it simply, Americans are paying more tax money per capita and getting less. Whether one thinks healthcare is a right or not, you should favor the most fiscally responsible choice, a choice which happens to save millions of Americans lives. And that is the core of a single-payer system. People must wake up and smell the ‘red-scare’ the GOP has been harping on us, they’re beholden to their corporate donors – not fiscal conservatism or what’s best for the country. Healthcare is a basic human need that’s been served as a privilege and run as a business, a business profiting off the very ill it’s meant to help.

The hasty, botch-job Congress tried to pass as an Affordable Care Act replacement failed for a reason. That reason being that the culmination of 7 years of GOP temper-tantrums was a plan to uninsure 24 million, provide a $300 billion tax break for their swamp monsters, cut Medicaid, cut coverage,& raise premiums to a point where 64-year-old making $26,000 a year, would see a staggering $13,000 increase. Promoted by “policy wonks” who just literally have no idea how healthcare works. Per Satan himself, Sean Spicer: “I think if you’re an older man you can generally say that you’re not going to need maternity care.” And the party’s collective intellect/brain, Paul Ryan: “The whole idea of Obamacare is…the people who are healthy pay for the…sick. It’s not working, & that’s why it’s in a death spiral.” (It’s not.) A man who’s been dreaming about medicaid cuts since he was “drinking out of kegs.” A plan so villainous and nonsensical it made emergency services, maternity care, pediatric care, and even hospitalization optional for health insurance companies. Whenever you’re wondering why the government is doing something incredibly heinous, just follow the money. Ryan’s second largest campaign donation contributor is Blue Cross/Blue Shield. And he’s owned by billionaires in general, of course he’s pushing for their tax cuts, but I digress.

Here’s where the numbers come in. Our healthcare spending crowns us with the title of the most expensive and ineffective system in the world. We currently spend $20 trillion a year; $15 trillion through insurance premiums and $5 trillion through co-pays. With the government spending an amount per capita far more than any other nations at $3.2 trillion a year, 17% of our GDP, $10,000 per person. That’s double what the United Kingdom spends, and more than Germany and Canada, for a whole lot of medically induced bankruptcy here.

Contrary to popular American-exceptionalist-belief, this does not give us better healthcare:

“Despite having the most expensive health care system, the United States ranks last overall among 11 industrialized countries on measures of health system quality, efficiency, access to care, equity, and healthy lives, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.”

In a study, 68% of adults 65+ were found to have at least two chronic conditions compared to 33% in the United Kingdom and 56% in Canada. We are also 33rd in life expectancy and our healthcare outcomes are “not notably superior.”

At this point, you should be asking yourself, who’s to blame for this cost-ineffective system bringing us subpar care? The answer is – the for-profit industry sustained by insurance companies. We’ve created a broken system where the goal is maximizing profit. This inevitably leads to over-treatment, inflated prescription drug prices, and 30 million drastically uninsured. We’re quite literally profiting off illness. It’s a system where the same procedure is charged different amounts depending on your insurance.  For many, this industry pushes them into a house foreclosure or death. We’ve twisted the definition of ‘care’ into a greedy, bureaucratic one, antithetical to the reason why people become healthcare providers in the first place. Why are we okay with all of this? Why are we okay with investors and CEO’s making billions of off the most vulnerable in our society while they suffer then inevitably die?

It’s not cost-effective, it’s not outcome effective. The only people this crony system benefits is insurance and pharmaceutical industry CEO’s. Not the people providing healthcare, not the people receiving it. The only reason it stays, is because money has corrupted the democratic process and congressmen are paid to gatekeep for this absolute failure of a system. Done in part by fear mongering about “socialism” to people who can’t even define socialism. It’s an endless circle of misinformation and corruption that’s ruining systems designed to better society.

There’s also no “trickle-down” healthcare. Giving a $300 billion tax break to billionaires and hiking premiums is not the solution to such a disaster. Single-payer is. People dying, foreclosing their houses, and going bankrupt do have jobs (given that 78% of filers had health insurance.) We are the only industrialized nation that doesn’t guarantee healthcare to its people because we’re too busy running it like a business. Yes, other countries have higher taxes but that’s nothing more than a soundbite excuse considering a larger amount of ours go towards healthcare for inferior returns. Recall we spend more per capita for this failed system. And the majority of that goes straight to the insurance industry CEO’s pockets. Other countries cut out the middleman, and don’t spend more on healthcare but simply spend their money efficiently. Since when is that socialism? The United States must enact healthcare reform in this model, saving billions while doing it.

Under single-payer, not only are millions no longer dying because they can’t afford cancer medication, but the citizenry reaps a myriad of economic benefits any fiscal conservative should get behind. We’d all be at townhalls demanding medicare for all already if it hadn’t been smeared by gate keeping corporate shills and their propaganda machines. Single payer saves us trillions, stimulates the economy by helping small businesses and causes salaries to increase – all through a small tax hike. Math is free from passion, so here it goes.

As mentioned, we currently spend $20 trillion in healthcare costs – $6 trillion of that stemming from insurance costs, and $3.1 trillion in tax subsidies to employers. By eliminating the useless middleman insurance companies are through single-payer, we save $9 trillion total from that annual $20 trillion budget. There’s $11 trillion of costs left to take up that can then be covered by a 6.2% income-based premium from employers, and 2.2% income surtax from households. If we look to Bernie Sander’s plan, families of four making under $28,800 would see no such increase. So yes, taxes would increase for everyone else, but by paying a relatively small amount more in taxes for full-coverage healthcare, we’re all saving the enormous amount of $20 trillion we would otherwise pay. By enacting such a tax increase and eliminating the nonsensical insurance industry from the picture, Americans would save $9 trillion a year they would otherwise spend for premiums that don’t cover a papercut.

The economic benefits are endless. An average middle-class family of four, making $50,000 a year, would go from paying $5,600 a year for healthcare to $466 under a 2.2% tax hike. Does that sound like socialism? Moreover, those who would normally be covered by employer-sponsored healthcare would see a salary increase because they’d no longer have it deducted from their paycheck.  Small businesses wouldn’t be forced to spend time and money negotiating coverage with insurance companies thus increasing productivity. It’s preventative – saving people from having to go through extended hospital visits and chronic illness treatments. Single payer would also slash costs imposed on hospitals by the industry, to the tune of $400 billion a year. Which is already “enough to cover all the uninsured.”

Furthermore, all the problems under our current system, the shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act, bureaucratic nightmares, disappear. All medically necessary services are covered: doctor, hospital, preventive, emergency, long care, psychological, dental, vision, prescription drugs. People can choose their own provider. Priorities are no longer distorted and better quality of healthcare is provided no matter how much money you make. People would no longer be overtreated because they can pay more.

In addition, single payer would reduce incentives to over treat and lower drug prices according to the PNHP.

Healthcare is a human need, not a luxury. It’s utterly despicable and nonsensical for Americans to pay more per capita than any other nation for people to be led to medically induced bankruptcy, 27 million to be uninsured, 30 million underinsured, and to rank 33rd in life expectancy. To pay more and get less because the health insurance industry must butt in the middle of it so billionaires can line their pockets.

It’s a sad state of affairs when math is a partisan issue, and ideology is more important than what’s best for the country. When in Canada single payer surpasses party lines and conservative prime ministers have made no effort to move in our disastrous direction, yet we can’t have an honest conversation about single payer. When $4 trillion wars aren’t pie in the sky, but properly using our tax system to reduce costs and improve care is. And most of all when the most expensive and cost-ineffective healthcare system in the world is kept around for the benefit of a few multi-billion dollar insurance companies. Healthcare doesn’t trickle down. Single payer is our only saving grace. We must join the rest of the developed world by guaranteeing people healthcare and stop profiting off the sick.