Democratic Party Policy Ideas Not Popular Enough to Win 2020 Presidential Election

I have to love the optimism of my self-identifying progressive friends when it comes to them thinking that "progressivism" will win the hearts of Americans and win the 2020 presidential election. While I find that sentiment to be cute, I really do have to wonder if my country is that liberal. On such issues as same-sex marriage and marijuana, I would agree that Americans have become more open and accepting on these topics. When it comes to immigration, Trump has become belligerent and ridiculous enough where Americans have become overall more supportive of immigration (Gallup). In spite of some issues being in the Democrats' favor, what I am going to argue that when it comes to the major issues, the United States is by and large not ready for a Left-leaning agenda.

1. Medicare for All. When asked about whether they support Americans, 51 percent support it, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) poll. Support drops when asked about particulars. If Medicare for All is to result in delayed treatment (which other single-payer systems have experienced), then support for Medicare for All drops to 26 percent (KFF, 7/2019). Support hovers around 37 percent if Medicare for All raises taxes and eliminates private health insurance (ibid.).  
2. $15 Minimum Wage. Generally speaking, 63 percent of Americans support a $15 minimum wage. What changed was when they were told about the economic impact as found in the recent Congressional Budget Report (see my analysis here). When they were told that 27 million people would get a pay bump while 1.3 million would lose their jobs, support dropped from 63 percent to 37 percent (Business Insider).
3. Abortion. On the one hand, 60 percent think that Roe v. Wade should not be overturned. On the other hand, support for abortion drops to 28 percent for abortions performed in the second trimester, and down to 13 percent for abortions performed in the third trimester (Gallup).
4. Reparations. Especially during the Democratic primary debates, there has been a shift on discussing reparations for the descendants of enslaved men and women. While the idea is gaining traction amongst Democrats, two-thirds of Americans are opposed to giving cash reparations to descendants of slaves (Gallup, 7/2019). Rasmussen had a similar finding in April. 
5. Universal Basic Income. Andrew Yang has been a particular proponent of a universal basic income, although other candidates are starting to catch on. It might not sit so well with voters: 52 percent are opposed to the idea (Gallup, 2/2018).
6. Political Correctness.  While this could have some economic effects, the concerns here are primarily cultural in nature. 52 percent of Americans, along with a majority of independents upon whom the Democrats would have to depend on to win in 2020, are against political correctness (NPR, 12/2018). 
7. Climate Change. Climate change has become an increasingly large concern amongst Americans. A Washington Post poll found that 64 percent think fighting climate change is very or extremely important. In terms of solutions, 25 percent support a 25¢ increase in a gas tax and 27 percent support a $10 increase in electric bills (Washington Post). Another poll confirms this notion: 68 percent of Americans would not want to pay an extra $10 a month in utility bill payments to fight climate change (AP/NORC, 1/2018). In short, people feel that climate change is important, but they don't want to have to foot the bill in any significant way. 
8. Providing Health Care to Illegal Immigrants/Undocumented Workers. All 10 candidates at the second night of the first round debates back in June said they would provide health care to illegal immigrants. The issue is that 58 percent of Americans do not think that should happen (CNN, 6/2019).
9. Student Loan Forgiveness and Free College Tuition. Elizabeth Warren has a plan for student loan forgiveness and free college tuition. Only 38 percent are in favor of student loan forgiveness (Rasmussen 7/2019), whereas 52 percent oppose making college free (Quinnipiac, 4/2019). 
10. Taxation Levels. Democratic presidential candidates have proposed multiple initiatives, whether it is the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, or free college tuition. One of the major blind spots of proposing these initiatives, however, is how they are going to pay for it all. Candidates such as Sanders love to cite Scandinavia as an example, but he ignores how they pay for their large government programs. Over there, it is not only the one percent that pay forty-plus percent in taxes. It is everyone, including the poor. 45 percent of Americans think that they pay too much in taxes, whereas an additional 48 percent think they pay the right amount (Gallup). Getting Americans to pay more in taxes will be a hard sell, and it wouldn't be at all surprising if the Republicans played that fear to their advantage in 2020.  
11. General Trust in Federal Government. Trust in the federal government is key because so many of the Democrats' ideas involve the federal government as the solution. What is interesting is that trust of the federal government is at a twenty-year low. 41 percent of Americans think that the federal government can solve problems, whereas 35 percent believe that the government can solve domestic issues (Gallup, 1/2019). 23 percent think that the government is the most pressing issue to resolve (Gallup, 7/2019).
12. Democratic Party Preferences. Another factor is the direction in which Democrats would like to see their party shift. From the looks of the presidential primary debates, you would think that Democrats unambiguously want their party to become more Left-leaning. However, polling suggests that only 41 percent of Democrats want the party to lean further Left. 54 percent would rather have a more moderate party (Gallup, 12/2018). This puts the Democratic party at odds with its own base. If a majority of Democrats don't want their party leaning further to the Left, if would stand to reason that the majority of the country doesn't want policy to lean more to the Left.  

When asking general questions about certain policy issues, one might think that the citizens of the United States lean more to the Left. It's when surveys ask about the details about the implementation about policy when we start to realize that the United States does not lean anywhere far to the Left, certainly not enough for Democrats to win the 2020 presidential elections based on issues. Can sentiments change? Yes, although historically, they do not typically shift that quickly. Do people vote solely on issues? No. For one, this country has become more polarized and is more likely to vote based on party lines than they did (e.g., Pew Research). To that point, there are a myriad issues not having to do with policy ideas that influence election outcomes, including the state of the economy, media, approval of the current president, and potential scandal. I'm not here to say who will win the 2020 election, but I can say that for the most part, having a "progressive"/Leftist agenda is not a sound campaign strategy. 

Is the One Percent Finally Paying A Smaller Percentage In Taxes Than the Poor in the U.S.? Probably Not.

Income inequality continues to be a rallying cry for the Democratic presidential candidates. Whether it is the idea of raising the estate tax or creating a wealth tax, the Democratic candidates want to soak the rich with taxes. A study by two economists give additional fodder for the "soak the rich" platform. According to economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman in their latest book "The Triumph of Injustice," we have reached the point where the billionaires are paying a smaller percentage in taxes than the poorest 20 percent when factoring in federal, state, and local taxes. The New York Times had a field day with this finding (see figure below).

If Saez and Zucman's (herby referred to as SZ) findings are true, it would strengthen, at least in a political sense, the Democrats' arguments for higher taxes on the rich. Rather than give into knee-jerk reactions about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) that the Republicans passed, let's actually take a closer look at what went behind SZ's findings:

• Where are the 2018 federal income tax figures coming from? Normally, such figures would come from the IRS. However, the IRS has not released the 2018 figures. If that's the case, how could SZ possibly assert that the rich paid a lower percent than the poor? They took 2017 figures and extrapolated. As the Left-leaning Tax Policy Center points out, that is no easy feat because the TCJA made such changes to the tax code. Any findings on the TCJA have been preliminary, and as such, SZ's findings are premature at best. While I cannot be certain until we receive those figures, I would bet (if I were a betting man, that is) that the richest are not paying a lower tax rate than the poor, so let's get into why I would make that assertion, shall we?  
• The U.S. tax code has been progressive, and most probably remains so. Historically, the U.S. tax code has been more progressive than its European counterparts (see 2016 CBO figures as an example). What is even better is that the TCJA made the tax code more progressive, not less. That is not just based on the estimates from Joint Committee on Taxation, but also the Tax Policy Center. In response to SZ's book, JCT economist David Splinter wrote a response with an alternative estimate to SZ showing how the tax code remains progressive (Splinter, 2019; see Figure below). Obama's former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Jason Furman, also takes issue with SZ's claim about tax progressively. With these estimates from Left-leaning sources and the JTC, it becomes more difficult to accept SZ's thesis. The federal tax code seems to remain progressive, even with the TCJA. Perhaps state taxes are the thing causing the increase in the tax rate for the poorest.

• Skepticism on state and local tax calculations. I'm not only skeptical of SZ's estimates on the federal figures, but the state figures as well. For one, I have to question why SZ include state- and local-level consumption and property taxes. Everyone pays the same tax percentage. There is no "tax injustice" going on here, only a recognition that lower-income households pay a higher percentage of their income on these taxes because they spend a higher percentage of their income on the goods and services upon which the taxes are assessed. If you remove these taxes from the equation, it's unsurprising how the richest manage to have a higher tax rate than poorest, thereby diminishing SZ's argument. 
• Skepticism on state and local tax calculations, Part II. But for argument's sake, let's give SZ this assumption and include state- and local-level consumption and property taxes. It's still problematic. Why? The Left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy releases its study, Who Pays?, on state tax levels. ITEP found that the difference in state taxes between the Top 1 Percent and the Bottom 20 Percent is 4 percent (ITEP, p. 4), which is nowhere what it would need to be for the poor to pay a higher tax rate than the rich. What is even better is that ITEP estimated what taxes paid and total income would be. It turns out that in terms of tax rates and shares of total federal, states, and local taxes, the rich still pay more. Figures from Left-leaning sources show that the higher the income, the higher the tax burden, which serves to imply that SZ's estimates are simply over the top. How is that the case?

• Omission of Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and other means-tested welfare. What SZ are measuring (or in this case, not measuring) is affecting their numbers. SZ consider the EITC as a transfer of income rather than a negative income tax. As the Tax Policy Center argues, while the EITC and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) feel like spending, they are features of the federal tax code to offset the burden of the regressivity of the payroll taxes. Since the EITC and CTC are administered through annual tax filings and contribute to net tax rate, the Congressional Budget Office has included them in their calculations. By treating the EITC and CTC the way they did, SZ raised the effective tax to a rate much higher than otherwise would exist. When those tax credits are accounted for, the Tax Policy Center has the effective federal tax rate for the poorest 20 percent at 2.9 percent, and not the 20-plus percent that SZ have calculated.
• Addition of health care premiums. Not only do SZ omit aspects of the tax code explicitly created to ease the burden of the poor, but SZ highlight something else peculiar on their website: they consider private health care premiums as a "health insurance poll tax." If that ends up playing out in the data they used for their book, it is a peculiar choice indeed. While there are aspects of health care premiums intertwined with the tax code, it is equally true that private health care premiums are not taxes. Treating private health care premiums as part of taxation while excluding the EITC and CTC as part of taxation (when they are de facto negative income taxes) only serves to exaggerate the tax rate of the poor. 
• Treatment of Corporate Taxes. When analyzing the incidence of corporate taxes, some of the incidence falls on shareholders and part of it is passed through other forms of capital (e.g., disbursement through the non-corporate sector). SZ toss aside that assumption and transfer the entire incidence to shareholders, which is contrary to reality and standard economic practice (e.g., Smith et al., 2019; Splinter, 2019). This heterodox approach is significant because using this assumption attributes an excessively high amount of wealth to the rich, thereby giving the appearance of a lower tax rate than they actually have. 

Postscript: When looking at the tax data with reasonable assumptions, the U.S. tax code has not become overly regressive, certainly to the point where the rich pay a lower rate or amount than the poor. The best-case scenario is that SZ are using unconventional means and assumptions to arrive at their numbers. Combining the spurious assumptions with how they frame the issue in a "politically slanted narrative" (e.g., their website promoting the book has an interactive data simulator with tax proposals from the Democratic presidential candidates, boasting on their university website how it will affect the Democratic primaries), it becomes more difficult to accept the best-case scenario, thereby casting doubts on their intentions since they blur the line between scholarship and politics. These severe methodological flaws do not take away the need for debates about what tax policy should like (e.g., simplify the tax code to remove tax avoidance mechanisms, adapt to the increasingly global nature of firms) or what to do about income inequality. At the same time, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and others who are of similar ideological mind should base their policy ideas on reality, not on what they would like for reality to be.

Why Vegans and Environmentalists Should Cut Back on the War on Meat

In efforts to fight climate change, there have been multiple proposals to cut back on carbon emissions, including carbon taxes, geo-engineering, or the infamous Green New Deal. A crusade to make for a healthier citizenry has seen similarly ambitious recommendations with soda bans, Medicare for All, or e-cigarette regulations. There is an issue that caught my eye that combines the environmental and health policy angles: a ban on meat. During one of the Democratic presidential debates, Kamala Harris called for reducing meat consumption. And with the recent FDA approval of selling Impossible Burgers in supermarkets, it seems like meatless meat is trending upward. With the increased demand of plant-based substitutes for meat and louder calls to do something about climate change now, meat has become a target, both on health and environmental levels. I want to take the time here to bring some skepticism to the war on meat.

Health Concerns with Meat-Eating
Most of the empirical evidence on meat-eating told us that eating red meat is bad, that it will shorten average lifespan. It was one of the reasons I decided to go vegetarian a decade ago (I have since reverted back to eating meat). It made sense at the time, although I did learn from my own eating habits while I was vegetarian that vegetarian did not automatically translate into healthy eating. That notion was upended last week with the release of five systematic reviews published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine (Zeraatkar et al., 2019) found that the effects of meat-eating on one's health are negligible. As the Left-leaning Vox explains in its coverage on the meat study, this recent study was able to overturn previous research through better science and sounder methodology. This is not confined to nutrition science. It happens in psychology frequently, and it is something that has been going on in the minimum wage debate. This is a good thing: as we gain better information and better methods, we get closer to the truth. That might be fine and dandy for an individual's health, but what about the health of the planet?

Environmental Concerns with Meat-Eating
"What about the planet?," indeed. What would happen if every human being stopped eating meat and did not use the resources (e.g., water, corn) that are used for meat production? How would that affect carbon emissions? Would that greatly stop the rise in global temperatures? After all, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report in August explaining how we should greatly decrease meat consumption to avert climate change disaster. The World Resources Institute shows how animal-based diets create more greenhouse gases (GHG) than plant-based diets (Ranganathan et al., 2016).

First is realizing that there are bigger causes of GHG emissions than meat production, such as fossil fuels and deforestation (Skeptical Science). Animal agriculture accounts for 13 percent of GHG emissions, although it is lower in developed nations. As an example, animal agriculture only accounts for 2.6 percent (White and Hall, 2017) to 2.8 percent (Pitesky et al., 2009) in the United States. Reason Magazine did a back-of-the-envelope calculation, and found that even if every citizen of the United States went vegan and stopped all livestock production, it would only reduce U.S. emissions by 3.6 percent. Based on Union of Concerned Scientists data, the United States is responsible for 16 percent of global emissions, which means that ceasing U.S. meat consumption would only reduce global carbon emissions by 0.58 percent. One could counter by saying that every bit helps, but even if the world went vegetarian, it would only reduce GHGs by 4 percent (Grabs, 2015). Reducing meat consumption might do something to mitigate anthropogenic global warming, but we should stop pretending that veganism or vegetarianism can be the silver bullet to save the planet.

A Simpler Solution to Address Corruption Than Elizabeth Warren's Anti-Lobbying Tax

Much like with her other policy prescriptions, Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren wants to show that she means business. It is why her unofficial campaign slogan has become "she's got a plan for that." Lobbying seems to be no exception. Earlier this week, Warren proposed an anti-corruption measure in the form of a lobbying tax. What are the tax rates? Any company that spends between $500,000 and $1 million will get hit with a 35 percent tax. If the entity spends anywhere from $1 million to $5 million, they will be levied a 60 percent tax. Anything above $5 million and they will get hit with a whopping 75 percent tax rate. Warren's goal is to ultimately curb corporate influence, especially Big Pharma, Big Oil, insurance companies, Defense contractors, electric utilities companies, and Wall Street. She wants government to work for everyone, not just the corporations.

One thing that Warren has going for her on this proposal is that lobbyists are not well-liked in this country (see Gallup polling). That would certainly explain the populist appeal for the lobbying tax. It also has the ability to bring in some revenue. Warren's own proposal estimates that there would have been $10 billion over the past ten years, which averages to $1 billion per annum (see above). It's not exactly a ton of revenue, but it seems like Warren's lobbying tax is more for deterring certain behavior than it is revenue collection.

That is where I see the benefits of Warren's lobbying tax ending. Even if it had the effect of reducing what she deems "excessive" lobbying, her tax would not just affect the corporate world. Yes, it would hit the National Rifle Association or the Chamber of Commerce, which Warren would deem adversarial. But it would also hit such organizations as Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. Her lobbying tax is such a blunt instrument, not too dissimilar to that of Trump's tariffs, that she would undermine democracy by targeting many advocacy groups.

This segues into another issue with her proposal, which is that the courts would likely deem it a violation of the First Amendment, especially that part about the right to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances." If Warren can say what is excessive petitioning, that means she would also have the right to say what is "excessive" speech or "excessive" practice of religion.

If Warren really wants to address corruption and stop "excessive" lobbying, I have a really simple solution for her that she's not going to like: shrink the size of government. AARP wouldn't feel the need to lobby if the behemoths known as Social Security and Medicaid didn't exist. Big Oil wouldn't throw as much money at lobbying if the government didn't give them subsidies and tax breaks. Blue Cross Blue Shield wouldn't care so much if they knew they could help to get such bills as Obamacare passed, which de facto acted as a subsidy to health insurance companies. In short, if government policy did not have such an overreaching and expansive role in our lives, corporations would not care nearly as much. Yet they do and here we are.

As Lord Acton once said, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The reason why "excessive" lobbying exists is that over time, we the people have allowed for the government to become too big and too powerful. The $3.4 billion that was spent on lobbying in 2018 is a drop in the bucket compared to the $4.1 trillion the federal government spent in 2018. If Warren were at all sincere about anti-corruption measures, she would be fighting to make the government smaller, not larger.