Talking Points

TALKING POINTS FOR BUBBLE UP ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC ISSUES

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Below are some talking points about Bubble Up Economics, moderated capitalism and regulation. They are meant as a starting point, example language and phrases, that candidates can modify or add to and make their own. The goal isn’t to have every Democratic candidate sound the same – it’s for them to all offer their own unique take on how Bubble Up economics can help their voters.

BUBBLE UP ECONOMICS
It’s Called Bubble Up Economics

The Democratic Approach to managing our economy is called Bubble up Economics:
We put money in the hands of working people.
They spend it and it bubbles up through the economy creating economic activity and value for our economy.
Everybody knows the Republicans have their approach: Trickle down economics.
Give more money to rich people and it trickles down and benefits the rest of us.
The Democratic Party has always seen things from the opposite direction.
The key to our consumer economy is to put money in the hands of consumers
When they spend it, it bubbles up through the economy creating value for all.
Bubble up economics is the core of much of Democratic policy.
Why do we support unions? It puts money in the hands of workers -
Bubble up economics.
Minimum wage? Bubble up economics.
Overtime pay? Bubble up economics?
Public education? Bubble up economics.
Because if we make sure that every person has access to a good quality education, regardless of their parent's circumstances, they will have a chance to get a good paying job lead a life that they're happy with and put money back into our economy.
Most of what the Democratic Party stands for can be boiled down to Bubble up Economics.
It worked for our country for decades. We need to get back to Bubble Up Economics.

Bubble Up is why Democrats do better on the Economy

Have you ever wondered why our economy does better under Democratic administrations?
And, yes, it is true.
Over the past forty years, Democratic administrations have done a better job on our economy. They have had better economic growth, job growth and better wage growth.
And we’ve accomplished this better growth with less deficit spending.
By every measure, Democrats do a better job of managing our economy than Republicans.
The reason? Bubble up economics.
Because, yes, our economy actually works better when we ensure people have money to spend.
The engine that drives our economy is consumer spending. It’s every day Americans buying food, housing, spending on vacations.
Democratic administrations do a better job of increasing spending power for everyday Americans.
And do you know what people do with that spending power? They spend. They buy groceries, and clothing. They fix things in their homes. They take vacations.
And that spending bubbles up through our economy, making our economy grow.
We need to get BACK to the approach that made our economy the largest in the world.

Big Beautiful Bill and Compassion

That Big Beautiful Bill It isn't just heartless. it is also bad economic policy.
It will hurt our economy in ways large and small. It will hurt farmers it will hurt rural hospitals it will hurt people that do have jobs that are working for a living.
We don't say this often enough, but compassion is good economic policy.
I say this with all due respect, but we Democrats always seem to lead with compassion.
Republicans respond with cold hard economic analysis. Except they lie about the economic analysis.
Over and over again, they say things that just aren't true, that history proves are untrue.
But because we Democrats talk mostly about the compassion, it's harder for us to call the Republicans on their economic lies.
Because compassion is both good for the soul and good economic policy, putting money and spending power in the hands of people that will spend it - Bubble up Economics.
Bubble up Economics is both compassionate and the reason we have the largest economy in the world.
if this Bill passes and Medicare is cut, rural hospitals across our country will shut down.
If hospitals in rural areas close, not only will more people on Medicare die, more people on Medicare will die and more people that have private insurance through their jobs will die.
And every time someone dies, it hurts our economic output. So it's not just compassionate to keep poor people alive, it's also good for our economy to not let poor people die.
Compassion – human compassion, is why the Democratic Party does a better job of managing our economy.

Trickle Down 2nd Home

Here’s an example of Trickle down economics in action: Make it cheaper for wealthy people to buy a second home, and the people who help build, furnish and service the home also benefit.
The problem, of course, is making it easier for some people to buy a second home makes it harder for other people to buy a first home.
It’s a tiny example of how trickle down policies we don’t even think about actively hurts the middle class and poor.
It’s a small part of the reason more and more people can’t afford to buy a home. It’s yet another example of economic rules that benefit a narrow part of our population at a cost to the majority.
We Democrats have to talk to voters about the economy.
That term, Trickle Down economics? We’ve been hearing it since the Reagan presidency, but Will Roger’s coined the term as a description of Republican economic policies in the early 1930s.
He was making fun of the idea that if government helps the wealthy, some of that money will eventually trickle down to the rest of us.
Republicans in the eighties had their own term, Supply Side Economics. If we ensure the wealthy get wealthier, they will use that money to create jobs for the rest of us. Needless to say, it didn’t actually work out that way.
The Democratic Party believes in the opposite approach – putting money in the hands of working people, who spend it, and it bubbles up through the economy creating value for all.
Since the 1930s, with President Roosevelt, every Democratic president has focused in putting more buying power into more peoples’ hands.
It is because the Democratic Party has done so much to increase buying power for working Americans that we have the largest economy in the world.

MODERATED CAPITALISM
FDR and Moderated Capitalism

History isn’t politics, but sometimes it’s important to remember how we got to where we are.
We have the largest economy in the world because of a compromise that the Democratic Party and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt forged in the 1930s – we moderated capitalism.
Instead of the extremes of state socialism or unregulated, predatory capitalism, we stuck the free market, however moderated it with democracy.
We used the power of government to ensure all Americans could share in the benefits, and had a chance to participate. The skills, knowledge and opportunity to pursue their own version of the American Dream.
To create a more level playing field, ensuring everybody played by the same set of rules.
Our government consciously extended equality of opportunity. This wasn’t just the right thing to do morally – it is the right thing to do for economy.
Because our economy actually works better, and produces more wealth, if we have a level playing field, tap into the talent of every American and ensure every American had money to spend.
For 40 years the Republican Party has been chipping away at moderated capitalism. And now this administration is actively trying to dismantle the very system which generated so much wealth, and provided so much freedom to so many Americans.
We cannot allow this to happen. We, the Democratic Party, need to get back to our roots.
We need to loudly and forcefully remind voters that it is the Democratic Party that created the economic system that produced our wealth, it is the Democratic Party that does a far better job of managing our economy.
It is the Democratic Party that is going to ensure that the next 240 years in America are as glorious as our first 240 years.

Democratic Party and Equality of Opportunity

It is the Democratic Party that does of a better job of managing our economy than the Republican Party.
The Democratic Party was, is and always will be, the party of economic opportunity.
By the numbers, it is definitively true. Since 1992, Democratic administrations have had better economic growth, job growth, income growth, and done a better job of reducing the deficit.
The reason Democratic administrations have better economic outcomes is because we believe that a fundamental purpose of government is to extend equality of opportunity.
We are all born equal. But we are not born with equal opportunity.
It is the role of government to extend equality of opportunity. By making sure all kids have access to a good education, and people can get to work on public roads, and have a safe banking system to save their money.
A thousand little things that give people a chance to create their own version of the American Dream.
It is the role of government to ensure that all Americans have an opportunity to participate in and benefit from our free market economy.
And it turns out that extending opportunity is good economic policy. Compassion is good economic policy. They enable more people participate in our economy, and succeed in our economy.
We Democrats follow an economic approach called Bubble Up Economics, our alternative to the Republican’s trick down.
Democrats focus on putting money in the hands of working people, who spend it, creating economic activity that bubbles up through our economy creating value for all.
Because the best way to extend equality of opportunity is a growing economy that gives people a chance to earn decent living.

Diversity isn’t a goal, it’s an outcome of Equality of Opportunity

Diversity” isn’t a goal. Diversity is an outcome of equality of opportunity.
Because talent, ambition, character, isn’t limited by class or race or sex. It’s spread throughout our society.
If we can actually achieve equality of opportunity, then people from across society will be able to take control of their lives.
We will become more diverse because we are extending self-determination to an ever larger part of our population.
The purpose of diversity, equity and inclusion programs isn’t to over-represent any one group, it’s to ensure that every individual regardless of their group has an opportunity to participate in, and succeed in, our merit based society.
It’s making sure that African Americans and other groups get a chance to show what they can do, to get into the game.
The term Diversity Equity and Inclusion might be a new and trendy phrase, and yes, like any idea a few people stretched it to cover some crazy claims.
But the idea itself, that every person should have a chance to decide the course of their lives, isn’t new. It goes back hundreds of years, to our Constitution.
DEI isn’t undermining our Constitution or our concept of individualism. It is a tool to help our country better live up to the promise in our Constitution, to ensure that every American has an equal opportunity to determine the course of his or her life.

Does government Give Freedom or Take Freedom?

A lot of the debates and arguments we have come down to your view on one question: does government give freedom or does government take freedom?
The answer is, government gives freedom by taking freedom. We all give up our right to drive on the left side of the road so we can get where we are going faster and alive.
The Republican Party has maintained for decades that government only takes freedom. For decades, the Republican Party has consciously undermined the federal government, claiming it was doing to protect individual freedom.
. Because when government gives freedom it does so by taking some other freedoms.
Part of what our government does is it redistributes freedom. Wealth is freedom.
We ask that the very wealthy give up a tiny part of their wealth, to help fund a government that extends freedom to those of us that aren’t wealthy.
We take a little bit of freedom from the people like Elon Musk to ensure that the rest of us with less money still have access to freedoms in our country.
Elon Musk can hire financial advisers to make sure the banks that he puts his money in
aren't fraudulent. The rest of us rely on the federal government.
So the Republican Party for decades has done everything it could to try and limit the power of our federal government to redistribute freedom away from the very wealthy to the rest of us.
And it's worth noting that it's the very wealthy that actually benefit the most from our rule of law from our democratic government.
In a non democratic government there is nothing to stop the government of the moment, the dictator of the moment, from coming in and taking a person's wealth. That happens all the time in the non democratic world.
The cost of living in a democracy is that government does have to redistribute some freedom from people like Elon Musk to the rest of us.
The Republican Party seems to think it's in a position where it can start rolling back the government's efforts to redistribute freedom to all of us.
We will not allow them to succeed. Because our country is based on the idea that all Americans deserve a measure of freedom.

Government Creates a Competitive Market

There is a difference between the theory of capitalism and the practice of capitalism.
In theory under capitalism the competitive market responds to opportunities. So if a company has a monopoly and is making a higher profit margin, competitors see that higher profit margin and they compete with that company and that competition brings the prices down.
What keeps that competition from happening is something called barriers to entry. Sometimes government regulation can be a barrier to entry. But more often, its economic factors.
Capitalists response to an uncompetitive situation is "Oh the market will fix that, we don't need government intervention we need government to get out of the way and let the free market handle it."
The reality of capitalism is actually quite a bit different. Capitalists do not seek out competition, they frankly seek out monopolies.
Most business people look for monopoly situations or ways they can put barriers to entry from their competitors.
And while the barriers certainly can be government regulation, more often they are just the economics of the situation.
In many rural areas, they have Life Flights, helicopters in rural areas who fly people to the major cities if somebody has an emergency situation.
Private equity firms started buying the life flights. When they did so they would typically double the price and sometimes even triple the price.
The reason they bought the life flights is because they are effectively a monopoly. There is not enough business to maintain 2 or 3 companies serving that area, so there is only one life light, only one competitor.
And when somebody's child is dying, they don't worry about the cost, they go to the helicopter, they put the kid on and then they get a Bill for $70,000.
Even though there are no government barriers to more market entrants, there are financial barriers to market entrants and that gives the Life Flight Company an effective monopoly.
And private equity is using that monopoly to get as much money as possible out of the people facing medical emergencies.
That's it, capitalists look for monopolies because it gives them control over pricing.
So this is the gap between the theory of capitalism and the practice of capitalism.
The theory of capitalism says that the market will respond with competition.
The practice of capitalism does everything it can to avoid competition and create monopoly situations.
We talk about our economy as if the only thing to achieve a competitive market is for the government to get out of the way and let the market handle it.
In reality it is just the opposite. Unless the government plays the role in maintaining competition and protecting against monopolies, monopolies will tend to happen.
To actually achieve a competitive marketplace the government has to play an active role in protecting against the accumulation of monopoly power.
We need strong government because it creates a competitive market, not takes it away.

A strong environment for Small Business

The best way we can support small business is for government to do what it’s supposed to do
If government does its job, we create an environment in which small businesses can thrive -
If we keep our roads and bridges in good shape it’s easier for customers and materials to get to them
If we make sure our financial system is regulated and transparent, they can keep their fees down and have access to loans
If we make sure our children receive a good education, small businesses have an easier time finding qualified, high character employees
And when we make sure our children have the education they need, we are also creating more participants for our economy
Sometimes I think we forget, but you can’t have a consumer economy without consumers.
Extending equality of opportunity, making sure every student graduates with the knowledge and skills they need to participate in our economy – Is good for our economy. It generates growth and wealth.
It helps creates customers for small businesses to serve.
That’s how government can best help small business–by doing its job.

THE DEMOCRATIC MESSAGE
Acknowledging What We Got Wrong

The next Democratic Congress is going to have a lot of work to do just fixing what Donald Trump destroyed.
We are going to have to rebuild the support structure of social security recipients, and food safety, and parks, and the FAA.
This is perhaps the most incompetent administration in US history, and it will unfortunately take years to fix what he had broken.
But we also need to acknowledge that it’s not just a matter of returning to the status quo. Donald Trump got elected in part because people were frustrated with our government.
Frustrated that our government was no longer making life better for our citizens. Frustrated that our quality of life was declining, and too many of us were struggling to pay our bills.
Frustrated that it seemed like the promise of the American dream was out of reach for an ever larger part of our population.
It is not enough for Democrats just to promise to fix what Trump broke. We also need to fix what was broke before Trump was elected.
We need to get back to what we know works, and will work again. We need to aggressively use the power of government to make people’s lives better.
Change won’t come from some grand idea. It comes when we make government better in lots of different ways. When we increase people’s buying power. When we protect them from catastrophic medical bills.
We aren’t returning to the way it was. We will again ensure that every American has an opportunity to pursue their own version of the American Dream.

We Need to Get Back to Our Economic Message

The Democratic Party needs to get back to its foundation: economic opportunity.
The Democratic Party was, is, and will always be, the party of Economic Opportunity.
The party that believes that EVERY American deserves an equal right to participate in our economy.
To choose the course of their own lives. To live their own version of the American dream.
The Democratic Party believes that every American should be able to get a good job, earn a decent living and live a life they are happy with, and proud of.
Sometimes it seems like we Democrats tend to lead with compassion. We forget to talk about economics.
Yes, compassion matters. But first and foremost, people need to be able to pay their bills. People need to have the economic wherewithal to choose the course of their lives.
That is the message that made us the majority party. That is the message that voters need to hear.
This doesn’t mean other things don’t matter, that we should forget compassion.
It just means that economics matter first.
Because if we can't manage to give people a good economy, and access to that economy, not much else matters.
If they can't pay the bills, nothing else matters.
Again, the Democratic Party does a better job of growing our economy. We do a better job of extending economic opportunity.
At every opportunity, we need to remind voters that it is the Democratic Party that has enacted the laws and regulations that have made our economy the largest in the world, and has given them their opportunity to participate in the American Dream.

The Economy is the Enemy

Sometimes, when Democrats talk about the economy, it sounds as if we think the economy is the enemy, something we have to protect people from.
Part of that is because we tend to lead with compassion, and because yes, an unregulated economy can harm people, whether that’s selling them food that’s not safe or releasing pollution into our streams.
But the fact is, our economy only works for us because it is regulated. Because we use the power of government to ensure that more people benefit from it, more people can participate in it, and most importantly, play by the same set of rules.
The government helps create a more level playing field.
And using the power of government to make our economy work for all of us, is actually good economic policy. Because our economy – our capitalism – works better if we do those things.
There are more people with more money to spend, and it creates more economic activity.
Moderating capitalism leads to Bubble Up Economics. It puts money in the hands of working people, who spend it, bubbling up through the economy creating economic activity and value for all.
This is why Democratic Administrations actually do better with our economy. Yes, it’s true. Over the past ninety years, our economy has done better when we had a Democratic president able to implement Democratic policy ideas.
Better economic growth, better job growth, and better income growth.
All because of a compromise that Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt forged in the 1930s – moderated capitalism.

Oligarchy

Oligarchy is a four dollar word. I’m sorry, but four dollar words do not win elections.
In general terms, an oligarchy is a government of the wealthy, for the wealthy.
So what does it even mean to say “end oligarchy”? How does that translate into solid policy proposals?
Does that mean not allow rich people to be in government?
Good luck with that.
It’s worth pointing out, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was rich.
John F. Kennedy was rich.
Gavin Newsome is rich. JB Pritzker is REALLY rich. And both of them are in government and going a good job for their states.
Of course we shouldn’t have a government that benefits just the wealthy.
But the problem isn’t that we have rich people in government. The problem is that we’ve allowed second sets of rules to be inserted into our system that only benefit a narrow part of our population – that only benefit the wealthy.
We have a second set of rules that allow the wealthy to get even wealthier.
There are all sorts of examples of second sets of rules, another outcome of relentless Republican efforts to undermine regulation.
All sorts of ways our government has stopped ensuring a level playing field

Reality Bats Last - Shutdown

Reality bats last.
When one of your Republican friends repeats back a wacko Republican talking point about the budget, you say to them Reality bats last. You tell them Reality bats last.
Republicans can say any kind of crazy, untrue thing they want about the shutdown, but at the end of the day, all that matters is reality. Reality bats last.
The Republican party can tell people that Democrats are trying to get extra money to pay for healthcare for illegal aliens.
But in reality, that extra money is to help Americans, mostly working Americans, be able to afford health insurance.
It’s hard working Americans, most of whom have jobs, not illegals. And helping to subsidize their healthcare costs also benefits the rest of us – it helps keep costs down, and helps keep rural hospitals and clinics open.
So eventually, the Republicans are going to pass their budget, without that money for healthcare.
And at that point, millions of Americans are going to lose their access to healthcare. Not illegals losing healthcare. Our friends and neighbors and relatives. People we know and care about.
There is going to be a lot of pain when this reality happens.
Lots of hard-working people who’s employer doesn’t provide health insurance. And lots of us with good health insurance, who will suddenly see their costs go up and some of their local healthcare providers shut down.
Because no matter what else Republican party says, this budget bill is making life harder for working people, and easier for the wealthy.
That’s reality. And reality always bats last. No matter how many untruths the Republican Party tries to spread.

REGULATION
The Importance of Regulation

I’m not going to tell you that government regulations and regulators have never gotten it wrong.
However one of the untruths that Republicans say over and over again is that regulation kills capitalism.
It is exactly the opposite. It is only with effective regulation that our capitalist system actually works.
The Democratic Party, because it understands the importance of regulation, to the success of capitalism, has done a far better job of making our capitalist economy work and produce wealth and benefit our country.
We have the largest economy in the world because of a regulatory structure that the Democratic Party set up and championed.
The Republican Party has spent decades trying to undermine and subvert government regulations. Because there is a part of the Republican Party that actively wants the government to fail.
We need to get back to effective, efficient regulation. We need to make sure our free market economy has the right regulatory structure to allow our economy to thrive and produce wealth.
The free market is not the absence of government regulation. Instead, the free market is created by government regulation.
It is government using its power to level the playing field that creates a competitive environment, and that competition benefits our country.
Yes, we need to be cautious to limit the scope of regulations, and make sure they are fairly implemented. But we also need to make sure we have effective regulation that creates a competitive market.

Covid and Vaccines

I’m not going to tell you that all of the communications around Covid was perfect, and I know this has led to some distrust.
But it’s important to remember – the right to swing your fist ends at my nose.
The reason we mandate vaccines is because the people that don’t get vaccinated don’t just put themselves at risk – they put the rest of us at risk.
The unvaccinated make it easier for the viruses to evolve to learn how to defeat the vaccines. Your right to die of a preventable disease ends at my right not to be infected and die because of your foolishness.
So to protect the freedom of everybody, we require everybody that enters the public space to get vaccinated. That’s how civil society works. We all give up some freedoms, so we can enjoy other freedoms.
We give up the freedom to drive on the left side of the road for the freedom that comes from getting where we are going faster and alive.
Imagine how crazy it would sound to say: What right does the government have to make use drive on the right hand side of the road?
Look, there is an emotional truth and a factual truth in most situations. The emotional truth, for many people, is that we are too trusting of modern medicine. But the factual truth, in this one situation, is that vaccines have saved more human lives than any other advance in science.
So I understand your hesitation. But getting vaccinated is the best thing people can do for themselves and their families, and best thing they can do for their fellow Americans.

Original Intent

Every so often I hear people say that we should adhere to the “Original Intent” of the Founding Fathers.
I’m not altogether sure they know their history.
The Original Intent of our Founding Fathers – the first effort to document our form of government – was actually something called the Articles of Confederation.
It didn’t work – the government it created wasn’t strong enough for our growing country. So then the Founders wrote the Constitution.
But that wasn’t quite right, either – the government was stronger, but many Founding Fathers were worried that government was too strong, and would infringe on individual rights.
So then they modified the Constitution, adding the Bill of Rights to more clearly protect individual freedoms.
And it’s worth noting, our Founding Fathers modified the Constitution again just a few years after adding the Bill of Rights.
When Republicans talk about “Original Intent”, what are they talking about?
Are they talking about the first intent, or the second intent, or the third intent?
The original intent of the Founding Fathers was a living document that could be interpreted and amended to meet the needs of the time.
And so far Congress and the Courts have done a pretty good job meeting the spirit of the founders in our every changing world.
There weren’t phones when the Constitution was written. But the Constitution’s protections against intrusions by the state was interpreted to mean that police had to get a court order and show cause before wire tapping someone’s phone.
And of course, there are dozens of examples, hundreds, even, when Congress and Courts have dealt with a new technology by applying the core principals of the Constitution – individual freedom, the right to privacy, the right to pursue our lives.
This was the intent of the Founders of our Nation – to create a nation of laws able to evolve to meet the challenges each generation faces

The Scariest words are “You are on you own”

For 45 years, the Republican Party has been trying to convince us that government is incompetent and often evil.
President Ronald Reagan used to joke that “the scariest words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.
But the Republican Party has it wrong. The scariest words in the English language are “Yes, this is the government, but you are on your own”.
This administration is trying to shut down FEMA, and not have the federal government help cities respond to natural disasters. This Administration is telling people they are on their own.
As with so much else this administration is doing, it is rejecting the fundamental purpose of government, to improve the lives of its citizens.
Mother Nature doesn’t care whether humans live or die, if other creatures kill us, or diseases kill us, or weather kills us. Nature just doesn’t care.
Throughout human history, humans have banded together to give themselves a better chance of actually surviving nature. Tens of thousand of years ago we started joining together in communities to increase our chances of survival.
And it’s still true today – we live in a crowded, interconnected society. Government is how we organize to make sure nature doesn’t kill us.
One of the primary responsibilities of government, even today, is to help the parts of our community that were harmed by natural disasters civil society that were destroyed by nature, to recover.
Because it is not efficient for a City to maintain a disaster response infrastructure. It’s not efficient for states. But it is efficient for the federal government, because it can be deployed across the country, whenever a natural disaster strikes.
With natural disasters, we need the Federal government to take the lead, to make sure that nature doesn’t take people’s ability to lead their lives.
In ways large and small, the Trump Administration is hollowing out the basic functioning of our government.
In ways large and small, the Trump administration is stepping back from the government’s responsibility to improve the lives of Americans.

Swing your fist

The right to swing your fist ends at my nose. What does that mean? The personal freedom of one person cannot infringe upon the personal freedom of another person.
The next time a right winger says something foolish about freedom and vaccines or wearing masks, you just say to them “the right to swing your fist ends at my nose”. Say it with me: the right to swing your fist ends at my nose.
This isn’t a new phrase. It’s been used for almost a hundred years to describe the balancing act of personal and civil liberties. It’s pretty much at the core of most our laws, particularly laws for our modern, interconnected world.
Why is it illegal to pollute the river that runs through your property? Because the pollution limits the freedom of every property holder downstream.
The right, especially the Libertarian right, offer these strange arguments about individual freedom that seem to ignore the modern world. That seem to ignore the impact of a person’s actions on other people.
They argue that vaccine mandates are examples of government over-reach, unnecessarily taking away a very personal individual freedom to make decisions about our own health.
But vaccinations aren’t an example of the primacy of individual freedom. They are an example of the compromises we all make as part of our crowded, interconnected world.
Vaccines only work – and I mean only – if almost every person is vaccinated. Something called herd immunity.
Because diseases are living, evolving organisms, just like everything else nature created. So what happens if too many people choose not to get the measles vaccine?
Those people get infected with measles, which then use that host body to figure how to evolve, to keep on spreading.
The measles starts trying to figure out how to defeat the vaccine and infect people that did choose to get the vaccine.
Because the vaccine is targeted to stop a given strain of measles at a given stage of evolution. As measles evolves in the growing number of unvaccinated people, it is learning how to jump to vaccinated people, to make them sick or kill them as well.
And measles has an incubation period where a person is infected, and can infect others, before symptoms show, typically about four days.
So that unvaccinated person who gets infected by measles? They spend four days spreading the disease every time they talk to someone.
Their freedom to get sick and possibly die doesn’t just affect them. They are taking away the freedom of everyone around them to stay uninfected.
We do not have the person freedom to infect other people. Our right to get sick from measles ends doesn’t include the right to deny other people their health.
So the next time you hear someone spout something foolish about vaccines and personal liberties, call them out on it. Ask if they believe they also have the right to infect other people, or make the rest of our population less safe?
Because the right to swing their fist ends at your nose. They do not have the right to put yours and your family’s health at risk because of their irresponsible behavior.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI
Mamdani and the definition of Socialism

Yes, the new Democratic Mayor of New York City sometimes refers to himself as a Democratic Socialist. And a lot of attention has been focused on that word, Socialism.
It’s worth noting that many young people, including Mamdani, define socialism differently.
In their definition of socialism, and particularly Democratic Socialism, things like public roads and public education are examples of socialism.
A road isn’t a factory, but without the road workers can’t get to the factory, materials can’t be received, and products can’t be delivered.
So if you take a really broad view, public roads could be categorized as an example of government ownership of a part of the means of production.
Young people describe the mixture of public roads and private factories and businesses as a mixed economy, a combination of the free market and government ownership.
So when someone like Mamdani says they are a democratic socialist, they aren’t calling for government takeover of the factories and farms. What they are talking about is improving basic government services.
Making government do a better job of providing the services that allow citizens to lead their lives.
They are talking about making sure the roads are in good shape and the trash is picked up, that students have access to a high quality education. They are using a different set of words to describe basic government services.
The word itself gives a lot of us heartburn. But the policies they are talking about are updated versions of what President Roosevelt first implemented in the 1930s.
So yes, the word makes a lot of people nervous, but it’s the policies that are important. No matter what you call it, we need our government to step up.
We need our government to again use its power to make sure everyone benefits from our economy, we all have a chance to participate, and we all play by the same set of rules.

Why Mamdani got New Yorkers excited

It's worth noting that the word “socialism” didn’t win Mamdani the election.
Instead, it was that message: government can be used to make life better for the residents of New York City, captured with one word, affordability.
Many voters were excited about him because it sometimes seems like the Democratic Party has given up on the hope of making our lives better.
Sometimes it feels like the party is beaten down and defeated, and believes that life is just going to be bleak for most of us.
Mamdani got people excited because he rejected that defeatism. He rejected the idea that we couldn’t still use government to improve people’s lives.
He rejected the idea that our government didn’t have an obligation to attempt to extend equality of opportunity.
Even if they didn’t agree with how he planned to do so, it was still exciting to have a candidate talk about the moral obligation of government to try to make life better, to make sure every resident had the ability to lead a life they were happy with.
And Mamdani and younger voters are right: we can still use government to make people’s lives better, just as we have done in the past. Our government stopped doing many of the things it needs to do to ensure we all benefit from our economy.
It isn’t this way because it had to be. It is this way because we allowed it to be.
We can get back to using the power of government to improve people’s lives, to ensure they can afford to live a life they are happy with, and proud of.
That message resonate with voters everywhere. Because it’s the outcomes that matter, not the labels.
And the outcome that we need, is a government that again uses its power to make sure everyone benefits from our economy, we all have a chance to participate, and we all play by the same set of rules.

Mamdani and the Grocery Stores

Yes, something Mamdani has promised to try is establishing government grocery stores to try to reduce grocery prices.
I’m not sure it’s going to work, but he is right that there is a problem. There has been so much consolidation in the food industry that there are just a handful of companies that control most of our food supply.
A handful of very large consumer goods companies. Just a few meat and poultry processors.
And because a few companies control so much of the market, they also control prices.
One of the things that was so disheartening about the pandemic is that all of these major food suppliers increased their prices.
Not because their costs had gone up. Just because they thought they would get away with it.
We do need to counteract the concentration of monopoly power in food production. And yes, that might mean breaking up some of the larger companies, to ensure competition.
That really is the best answer – make sure we have a competitive market, and allow the competition to bring prices down.
Mamdani is going to attempt to use government grocery stores to bring in more competition. It might work, it might not.
But at least give him credit for having an open mind, and trying to make things better. And he has also said, very clearly, that more than anything else he is a pragmatist.
He just wants to make it work. If the grocery stores don’t work, he’s not going to force it.
And ultimately, that’s what we need. Leaders who view it as their obligation to make life better for all Americans, and are open to looking at solutions.
The goal isn’t to force government into some rigid ideology. The goal is to make government work better for us. For government to be more responsive, and more efficient.
That is pragmatism.

Young People and Capitalism

Yes, many younger people are increasingly skeptical of capitalism, and we need to address that.
We need to remember that a whole generation of younger people weren’t alive when the Soviet Union collapsed, or when moderated capitalism was working.
Younger Americans grew up with repeated examples of inconsistently regulated and sometimes even predatory capitalism.
Hedge funds buying and stripping companies, pharma companies avoiding oversight to push addictive, destructive painkillers. Bank executives that created fake accounts to pad their bonuses while causing unending problems for the account holders.
Twists in the tax codes that allow those that benefit the most from our economy to pay the least in taxes.
For many young people especially, the only capitalism they have known is the unregulated capitalism of Neo Liberalism.
Given everything they’ve seen, is it really surprising that the younger generation doubts our ability to effectively moderate capitalism?
But moderating capitalism really is the only answer. We need to remind younger people that the Democratic Party was able to effectively moderate our economy for decades, and that moderation is why we have the largest economy in the world.
Worth remembering, Capitalism actually works better when it’s moderated, ensuring more of our population benefits and can participate.
The Democratic approach, “Bubble Up Economics”, put money in the hands of people who then spent it, driving economic activity and making our economy the largest in the world.
It’s not that moderating capitalism doesn’t work. It’s because we’ve backed away from this approach that our economy is stumbling and our middle class is stagnant or even shrinking.
We need to get back to moderating capitalism.

TRANSPARENCY
The Disappointment of DOGE

Information technology has advanced in leaps and bounds over the past decade, with the improved ability to gather and analyze data transforming numerous industries.
Government, serving broad constituencies and with different legal requirements, is often slow to implement new information technologies and better leverage the power of data.
However better data collection and analysis, properly implemented, can bring the same benefits to government.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency started with the promise to use technology to make our government work better.
Unfortunately, this seems to have been a cover for gutting government, to make it less effective and efficient, particularly those regulatory agencies that oversee Musk’s many different business interests.
Musk withdrew from active participation in government, but he left a diminished, less effective government, not a more efficient government.
A less transparent government, not a more transparent government.
Musk can point to no improvements in government transparency or efficiency that DOGE accomplished.
DOGE continues a trend. Over the past forty years our country has backed away from transparency, in ways large and small.
Our country and economy were changing. Our regulations often didn’t keep up, allowing more and more activity to happen away from the light of transparency.
New industries actively fought efforts to regulate their businesses. The groups that benefit from absence or non-enforcement of regulations, work against transparency – they want everything kept in the shadows.
The Republican Party has been on a mission to render government less effective. For decades, Republicans have blocked any proposed transparency that would lead to public support for a more active role for government.
And now the Trump administration is actively working to roll back even existing transparency, gutting and or eliminating the government’s ability to track data in a wide range of areas, from weather to housing to banking.
For all of Trump’s talk of improving government efficiency and “draining the swamp” his administration’s focus seems to be on making government less efficient and hiding what happens in the swamp.

The Democratic Support for Transparency

The Democratic Party believes that it is the obligation of our government to extend equality of opportunity, to give every American the ability of self-determination; this is the promise of our Constitution.
For all of the focus on the large government programs, effective government is more often the cumulative result of thousands of government actions and programs done well and efficiently.
Improving government requires improving lots of little things, which cumulatively will have a material impact on government outcomes and our society.
The starting point for efficient, effective government is always transparency – we have to understand what is actually happening, good and bad.
It’s hard to know what needs to be fixed and improved unless it’s first measured and unless we fully understand and quantify the challenge.
Our government is more effective when we shine a light on a problem from many different angles, and from the perspectives of all of those who are affected by the problem.
Transparency, by forcing a fuller understanding of our challenges, also tends to move us towards compromise.
There are answers to every problem facing our country - there just aren’t usually easy answers.
The hard answers only work when there is broad support, and broad support is only achieved when the many different perspectives are reflected in the answer – when we reach a compromise acceptable to a broad majority.
Yes, the path to answering most of our problems is through compromise, and compromise almost always follows transparency.

Trump and Transparency

Donald Trump is dismantling the government’s ability to tell you how bad of a job he is doing. He is trying to make it harder for people to understand just how much this administration is failing.
And yes, his administration is failing our country, in ways large and small.
Quantifiable Government” is the ability to use data to track the performance and outcomes of government. You’d think with all of the early focus on DOGE, on government efficiency, that the Trump Administration would be all over quantifiable government.
But over and over again, Trump is ending or limiting the ability of the Federal Government to track and report its performance.
To name just one example, he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, because, well, the data shows that the instability of this administration is starting to have an impact on hiring and our economy. It’s starting to show the damage Trump has managed to do in just half a year.
But even before that, Trump was cutting the staff that did things like check prices to measure inflation. Yes, Trump has made it harder for the government to report if prices are going up.
The Trump Administration stopped reporting wait times for people calling into Social Security.
And even before that, Trump fired the Inspector Generals, that essentially audit government performance.
All of these actions make it harder for Americans to know how their government is doing. All of them make it harder to see the damage that Donald Trump is doing to our country.
And I promise you, that while things are getting worse, Donald Trump is going to claim they are getting better. But there’s an old, old saying: reality bats last.
But no matter what Trump tries to tell people, no matter how he tries to keep government from reporting statistics, voters are going to know.
The damage Donald Trump is doing is going to be obvious, no matter how much he tries to hide it.

The importance of Quantifiable Government

“Quantifiable Government” is the ability to use data to track the performance and outcomes of government.
Decades ago a famous statistician, Edward Deming, created a process called continuous improvement. Continuous improvement has transformed every part of our economy,
The key to continuous improvement is tracking data. Measuring and quantifying whatever you are doing, in ever smaller steps, so you can know what is working and what isn’t.
If you can quantify what it is doing, you can improve performance. You can find ways to reduce Social Security call wait time. We quantify government so we can make it work better for citizens.
One of the questions for our time is: Is Donald Trump purposely trying to tank government? Or he just incompetent at running government, like he has been at running his private businesses.
Which is it? Incompetence or bad intent?
The nice thing for Donald Trump is, making it harder for the government to report on its performance serves either goal.
It hides the terrible job he is doing, whether he is purposely trying to undermine government, or he’s doing it because he’s as incompetent at running government as he is at running a private business.
The only path forward is to restore transparency. All of those things that Donald Trump has done to hide the damage he is doing to our country, will have to be restored.
Because unless we have good information – unless we truly and honestly know what’s working, and what’s not, we won’t be able to improve government.