Lunch at the Labs

Political Talking Points

Some suggestions for Democrats on how to frame political issues when running for office.

• Crony capitalism

  • The way socialism is misunderstood in this country gives it a bad name. So instead the campaign issue should be to eliminate crony capitalism with reference to quotes from Adam Smith himself, for example:

    "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices".

    "It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary".

    "Most government is by the rich for the rich. Government comprises a large part of the organized injustice in any society, ancient or modern.Civil government, insofar as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, and for the defence of those who have property against those who have none."

  • Emphasize how regulatory capture undermines democracy and propose restrictions on government officials becoming lobbyists and vice versa.

• Income Inequality
  • Avoid talking about taxing the rich and instead change tax policies that benefit them in the first place. For example before 1982 corporate stock buybacks were considered a form of stock market manipulation and illegal. Now they just make the rich even richer. If corporations have excess cash they can give the money to employees instead.
  • Return to Ronald Reagan tax rates. "Make America Fair Again".

• Those who benefit from a policy have to reimburse those who are hurt from it.
  • For example immigration helps the meat packing industry and farms requiring labor to pick crops. But this costs cities and states in terms of providing things like health care and education. Tax those who benefit financially to pay for the increased costs imposed on others.
  • Liberalizing international trade benefits many by reducing prices but hurts workers in sectors facing import competition resulting in job losses and lower wages. Make those who benefit from international trade pay to train those for new better paying jobs. Instead of keeping coal mining jobs in depressed areas, give money to create new, better ones (solar, etc?).
• Health Care Reform
  Instead of medicare for all (which is too easy to criticize) suggest ways to fix our broken health care system.
  
  • Set our Drug prices to be the same as in other countries.
  • Let Medicare negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.
  • Reveal how much money lobbyists give elected members of congress.
  • Allow individuals to import drugs into the United States for personal use.
  • Crack down on patent evergreening whereby slight modifications of old drugs are used to extend their patent life without any significant therapeutic advantage.
  • Do not let the drug companies write our health care laws.
• Law and order.
  • Don't let corporations get off with just paying a fine and not admitting guilt. Indict the corporate executives in charge and put them on trial.
  • Admit Obama was wrong to bail out the mortgage companies and not help the citizen mortgage buyers who were take advantage of.
  • As much as it is tempting to do so, forget about convicting Trump of anything. Those who will vote for him know he is a dishonest and a crook and they don't care.

• Fix our dysfunctional political system. This may be difficult since both Democrats and Republicans in office benefit from the current system.

  • Openly support Represent Us to "End corruption. Defend the Republic".

    We bring together conservatives, progressives, and everyone in between to pass powerful anti-corruption laws that stop political bribery, end secret money, and fix our broken elections.

  • Openly support Lawrence Lessig as in,
    How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It
    

    This new type of corruption is more subtle, indirect and harder to outlaw. Corporations legally donate money to the election campaigns of legislators, who in turn tend to vote in favor of the interests of those corporations.

  • Support term limits for members of Congress and all judges.