Does character matter? If it does, people will examine Kamala Harris and Donald Trump tomorrow night on style, tone, outlook, dignity, race, and gender. When people talk about these issues, I always wonder who they want their kids to be like. (Confession: I don’t want my kids — now grown up, to ever be convicted of 34 felonies with more trials to go.)
As a practical matter, Harris must decide to direct her words to the undecided. One question that always comes up with undecideds for the Super Rich, i.e., our very own U.S. oligarchs, rather than when the money pays for school lunch or to forgive student loans when the students are caught in the never-ending cycle of predatory lending.
I prefer feeding kids, forgiving loans, making decisions about infrastructure investments, and nurturing start-up businesses. These are the decisions that, over time, grow our economy, not weigh it down.
Quoting ProPublica word for word,
“The combination of Trump’s 2017 tax cut and the lack of any serious spending restraint helped both the deficit and the debt soar. So when the once-in-a-lifetime viral disaster slammed our country and we threw more than $3 trillion into COVID-19-related stimulus, there was no longer any margin for error.
“Our national debt has reached immense levels relative to our economy, nearly as high as it was at the end of World War II. But unlike 75 years ago, the massive financial overhang from Medicare and Social Security will make it dramatically more difficult to dig ourselves out of the debt ditch.“
It’s a tough job being president or vice president, but I believe our middle class deserves nurturing. I come from a family where my Dad rode the rails and thumbed his way from Alberta, Canada, to Des Moines, Iowa, to get a job on the Rock Island Railroad. It was in the depths of the Great Depression, and a second cousin had written him to say that if my Dad could get to Des Moines, the cousin could get him a job on the section gang.
I’m middle class now because of that job, my parents’ determination, and the railroad union. They started with nothing, but after WWII, everything was possible. Mom was a high school graduate, and Dad had finished 8th grade. They were hard workers. The results? Both their grandchildren graduated from college, and so did I.
We need to make this story routinely possible again, so count me in on the side that the U.S. “oligarchs” need to pay more. Balancing the budget is essential. Bill Clinton did it. We can do it again, but the wealthiest people in this country have been getting by entirely too quickly.
While we watch the debate, there are more things to consider, e.g.,
- Healthcare? Trump wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which the Republicans have tried to repeal at least 33 times. If Trump gets the job done, insurance companies could deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, and cheaper prescriptions would become a pipe dream.
- Harris is committed to keeping ACA and making it a better program.
- Who plays well with others? We all understand that there is safety in numbers when we walk down the street on a dark night, but “safety in numbers” is really important regarding national security. That’s why the U.S. is in NATO—democracies on both sides of the Atlantic are standing together. Trump blew off a lot of “security capital” when he was president before.
- Remember how he name-called various democratic leaders and pushed his way to the front so that he could stand in front of all the leaders in the pictures? Name-calling is not the way to build strong security alliances.
- Labor Unions? I know — sometimes they can be a bit of a nuisance, but the Unions of America built the middle class, and when it slipped, the Unions came back strong to make it again. As a practical matter, when many people do the same job, side by side, elbow near elbow, the companies rarely volunteer raises.
- It’s much more “fun” for companies to keep the profits, but workers are much more likely to get a fair share when they stand together.
- Sportsmanship? I live five blocks from the U.S. Capitol. The insurrection was a dangerous time for us all. Not one of those people Trump brought to town were “patriots.” They were insurrectionists. They were traitors, and Trump showed his true colors when he and his organizers recruited them to come to DC … to build gallows to hang VP Pence and Speaker Pelosi, to bring their ropes and climb up the West side of the U.S. Capitol, to break windows to crawl in.
- At Trump’s urging, they tried to overthrow the U.S. Constitution and a legal election. Some Trump-supporting Members of Congress called this dangerous time a “picnic.” They, too, should not be elected.
There is a lot at stake. Just how much trust should Trump have when he’s already been convicted of 34 financial felonies?
How much trust should we give Trump when he’s already led one attempt to overthrow the U.S. Constitution?
I trust the prosecutor.
Editorial, The Washington Post: Opinion – America has two presidential candidates. Let’s compare them.
Allan Sloan, ProPublica, and Cezary Podkul, ProPublica (1/14/21): Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years
Allan Lichtman, Nayeema Raza, Adam Westbrook, The New York Times: Harris or Trump? The Prophet of Presidential Elections Is Ready to Call the Race.