Democrats Want Free College, Paid Leave, and to Expand Social Security. But How Do They Want to Pay for It?

We asked them at the DNC.

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Democrats Want Free College, Paid Leave, and to Expand Social Security. But How Do They Want to Pay for It?

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From Social Security to college tuition to mandatory paid leave, Democratic leaders have spoken about the many federal programs they'd like to expand in their remarks before delegates at the Democratic National Convention (DNC).

But one issue they (and GOP'ers at the Republican National Convention) have failed to address is the staggering $19.4 trillion debt.

Reason TV caught up with Democratic delegates at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA during the DNC to find out what new federal programs they'd like to see, how they planned on paying for them, and if they were concerned about the country's growing national debt.

Approximately 5 minutes.

Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Alexis Garcia. Additional graphics by Joshua Swain.

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Comments

[AddictionMyth]

Another anti-Hillary screed. Reason is in the tank for Trump. Just admit it already.

[colorblindkid]

Reason is only "in the tank for Trump" if you completely ignore half of their articles.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

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[Haha, charade you are]

Malaysia.

[Suicidy]

I think AM is going heavy on the sarcasm with that comment.

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[straffinrun]

No one noticed they were at "The Wells Fargo Center"? The govt created the student loan bubble which made banks like WF billions and drove tuitions sky high in the first place.

[bartzman86]

So I'm starting to think that Reason has a deal going on with my local liquor stores. Because posting depressing footage like this at the end of the week only makes drinking seem all the more appealing now.......

[Half-Virtue, Half-Vice]

Do they do liver transplants for drunks or just the rich and lucky wait-listers? Asking for a friend...

[pronomian]

What are you talking about? These were some of the democrats brightest.

[Dilligaf]

Seriously people, read a Book sometime. Is that so hard!

[Suicidy]

Interesting, but I only read stroke books.

[Dog Star]

I only read them for the pictures.

[wearingit]

Not surprising really. Each group just wants to redistribute the current funds to their own interests (which makes sense to some degree.)

Sad though that most don't ever think about our current debt that we have to take care of.

[LarryA]

"We owe it to ourselves. It never has to be repaid."

[Chocolate Starfish ( . )]

So when "they" say "we" they mean all taxpayers in the country. But when "they" say "ourselves" they mean ...?

I gots ta get me sum a dat!

[Chipper Morning Wood]

What if we put a tax on rainbows?

[LV]

Unicorn farts, the ultimately "renewable" resource. We only need to invent / discover them.

[IWasADemocrat]

The last guy there was correct in saying that "debt is not the biggest issue by far".

I believe he is correct in the sense that we cannot predict how much debt is too much. I think this is primarily because the threshold is different for different countries at different times in history.

From the markets perspective, debt is never too much until it is. It will depend on what the most current sentiment is. From a financial modeling perspective, it is called a "jump process".

Objectively, debt is generally not an issue if you have assets. But the trouble will certainly come (and very quickly) if the value of assets decrease because the value of your debt is generally fixed.

Having that said, if your debt level climbs really quickly and persistently as a percent of GDP, then that "jump process" is more likely to happen sooner rather than later.

[IWasADemocrat]

For anyone interested, just watch the first 3 minutes of this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxnQtKg_yHg

[Sevo]

"I believe he is correct in the sense that we cannot predict how much debt is too much."

There is another consideration which makes nearly any amount of debt "too much": If you are using borrowed money for day-to-day expenses and have no way of ending that practice, that's too much debt.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

General rule: The loan length should not exceed the expected lifetime of what is being purchased.

I don't think the government obeys that rule.

[GroundTruth]

A corollary would be that the load should only be paid by those who benefit from it. The biggest problem with all of this debt is that it hits the next generation so it is effectively invisible when the commitment to borrow is made.

[IWasADemocrat]

Sevo,

I know what you mean, but you must separate the issues.

The Federal Government can print money, so by definition, it could print its way out of debt.
(Of course the longer-term consequence is inflation etc ..)

Because of this characteristic, the sentiment toward government's ability to borrow is very different versus the judgement toward how much a family can borrow.

We must consider the public sentiment, which ultimately dictates borrowing cost (mostly through the perception of changes in prices).

Again, this is not to say that growing debt isn't an issue. It is an issue because the government cannot spend money/resources as efficiently as the individuals can. A big government also means growing restrictions on dividuals etc .. (the list goes on and on).

My point is: debt itself probably isn't "the issue", but it is everything else that has led to the ballooning debt.

[n00bdragon]

The relatively stable value of a currency is the key to its value. Inflation doesn't matter only so long as people know how much currency will be worth at some point in the future. If my dollary-doo can buy a loaf of bread today and I know for certain that the same dollary-doo will only buy half a loaf of bread in ten years that gives the dollary-doo value and incentivizes me to keep it and use it as a store of value. When I don't know whether it will buy almost a whole loaf of bread or just a crumb then you have problems and I'm likely to store the value of my work in something more stable.

A sovereign country can always print its way out of debt, but the real value of what it's spending that money on never gets washed away. In essence, inflation is a form of tax that does not need collecting. When the real value of your debt payments becomes more than you can extract from taxes you get hyper inflation and become the next Zimbabwe or Venezuela.

[JWW]

Exactly. Printing money is what the government does when it doesn't have the balls to raise as much money in taxes as it wants to spend.

It is not hard to understand, but only libertarians seem to actually get this.

[John C. Randolph]

Inflation doesn't matter only so long as people know how much currency will be worth at some point in the future.

Wrong. Inflation is theft of purchasing power, and that's not mitigated by predictability.

-jcr

[Eman]

On the plus side, You'd be eating, a lot of French toast

[Rational Exuberance]

The Federal Government can print money, so by definition, it could print its way out of debt.

Much of the US government debt is held by US pension plans, US retirement savings, other branches of the US government, and the Federal Reserve. It would be political suicide to start printing massive amounts of money to get out of that debt.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Congratulations! You understand more about economics than 90% of all politicians (the exceptional 10% are mostly local) and 99% of all Media workers.

[Suicidy]

Unfortunately, popular perception is that China owns nearly all our debt. Which is a fallacy.

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Objectively, debt is generally not an issue if you have assets.

The government has assets it's not using and instead leasing other assets:

"The government spends $1.7 billion a year on 770,000 empty buildings, and one Central Valley congressman is fed up"

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

you also need to realize we don't manage the budget of a country like we balance our checkbook

Actually, yes, we do. The US government uses modified cash-basis accounting, not accrual-basis accounting.

[dchang0]

This all comes down to the fact that people over age 18 can vote for their own interests (more spending, lower taxes) while people under 18, including the unborn future taxpayers, cannot vote to protect themselves from their elders.

WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!

[LynchPin1477]

It seems like progressive are fond of the "grow your way out of debt" argument. Which is surprising** coming from people who often criticize capitalism for unrealistically assuming never-ending growth.

** It's not really surprising when you remember that there aren't any deeper principles at work.

[Dog Star]

Math is hard. It's harder when you're stupid.

[pronomian]

That's why we need an asian president.

[I am the 0.000000013%]

They'll have to get in the queue of firsts for the democratic nomination.

I think the next spot is after the little person candidate.

[JWW]

Nope the next check boxes filled on the presidential diversity scorecard will be:

Black woman
Gay man
Gay woman, no wait, she'll be taken out by the first trans woman candidate
Hispanic ( note republicans will likely run one of these before this spot in the list but they won't count because evil fucking republican).
Full on commie of some type, after that no more presidents.

[Suicidy]

Obama wanted to be that full on commie, but there is still enough of the constitution intact to prevent him.

[Just Say'n]

"I'm not an econ major"

That about sums up the Democratic Party. In order to be a Democrat one must believe that 'addition' and 'subtraction' is a right-wing conspiracy.

[Zeb]

You are giving them too much credit. Check your privilege. You are assuming that they think about their positions rather than simply emoting.

[pronomian]

I'm not an econ major so I'll just throw out some spoon fed talking points.

[pronomian]

I say screw it. Spend like a drunken sailor, it'll eventually work its way out. A total collapse could help with obesity.

[Hank Phillips]

It worked for Germany in 1923-4. Even the poorest people had wheelbarrows full of cash. When George Holy War Bush began exporting asset-forfeiture to South America, the same sort of thing happened there.

[Suicidy]

I'm shocked you did;y insert some additional raving about abortion in there.

[Suicidy]

I'm ok with that, as sailors actually only spend their own money.

[primenumbergrrl]

LOL, who doesn't enjoy watching the intellectual equivalent of "shooting fish in a barrel." If Reason didn't do the same thing at the RNC they should have. Entitlement and state based theft is not owned by a single party.

[Hunthjof]

Don't need to watch it to know. Muh tax 1% Muh off-shore tax havens Muh Hedge Funds Muh Corporations who outsource. Good summary?

[Rational Exuberance]

We care about the debt being completely out of control

You can think of the "big" guy that said that as personifying the budget: his weight is completely out of control, he must make excuses for eating too much every day, but he just can't help himself. And he wants the rest of us to have the same physique as him because... equality!

[Hank Phillips]

Brilliant production. Let's have more interviews with the mindless idiots whose votes keep both halves of the looter kleptocracy fastened on us.

[JFB76]

There is no debt issue, after all it is not my debt, it is the national debt. I don't care about anyone else's debt.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

"Democrats Want Free College, Paid Leave, and to Expand Social Security. But How Do They Want to Pay for It?"

They don't. They don't believe they have to. They expect to tax it out of some mythical "Rich" people without causing the economy to tank. Oh, excuse me; tank further. They also believe in the Santa Clause of the Constitution (nobody Liberal ever has to pay for anything) and the Medical Care Bunny.

There have been dumber political movements in history, but they are the dumbest now.

Except maybe the Westboro Bab-tist Church, and that's more a family of inbred mutants than a movement.

[Dog Star]

Funny you should mention Westboro Baptist. The leader of that merry band of loudmouthed malcontents, Fred Phelps, happens to be a Democrat. In fact, he has run for office four times as such. No surprise, really, when you consider the history of bigotry in the Democratic Party--not that the Party of Trump is much better--but the Democrats are truly in a class by themselves in terms of abject stupidity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps

[Suicidy]

There are no greater bigots than democrats.

[Dog Star]

And as with all of their self righteous emoting, their hypocrisy on the subject is staggering.

[JWW]

Well, when every thing is the property of the state they won't have to "pay" for anything will they....

[Browncoat]

One thing I have never seen a leftist mention is that if you want "free" college in the European style, with the restrictions for entry, they would not be the ones likely to be able to attend. For a vast majority of them, the only reason they can go to college is the current system does not filter them out.

[John C. Randolph]

Man, can you imagine the screams from the leftards if they had to demonstrate academic achievement to get into college?

-jcr

[Dog Star]

Discrimination on the basis of academic merit? What a monstrous notion! Mobilize the hash-taggers STAT!

[Rational Exuberance]

One thing I have never seen a leftist mention is that if you want "free" college in the European style, with the restrictions for entry, they would not be the ones likely to be able to attend.

There are few entry restrictions on European universities these days; European universities have become places to railroad jobless youth.

No, the thing about European universities is that everybody is taxed steeply to pay for them; at around $60000/year, you're nearly in the top tax bracket in Germany.

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[eamonkelly]

Fascism...how else can they achieve their world-view?

[Uncle Jay]

RE: Democrats Want Free College, Paid Leave, and to Expand Social Security. But How Do They Want to Pay for It?
We asked them at the DNC.

No problem.
The democrats will have all the little people for paid leave, free college, expansion of SS, etc.
So what if the debt rises?
The Soviet Union had an enormous debt.
Nothing bad happened there.

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