Citizen vs. Government (Elections)

Hope and Change?

Austin Bragg and Andrew Heaton | 11.3.2020 12:00 PM

A citizen and the government have a friendly chat about elections.

Written by Austin Bragg, Meredith Bragg, and Andrew Heaton; starring Austin Bragg and Heaton; produced by Meredith and Austin Bragg; cameras by Meredith and Austin Bragg, and Ben Gaskell.

NEXT: Why Electing Biden (or Trump) Won't Settle Anything for Long

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Agammamon 5 years ago

Amazing work, as always.

Heaton! Get a haircut, damnit!

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1. Sometimes a Great Notion 5 years ago
  
  But Heaton is just a citizen with all the rights that go along with that class. He'll need to get into the Nancy Pelosi's class to get that kind of freedom.
  
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  1. pefexo53 5 years ago
    
    President Trump set out his stall on immigration just a week after his inauguration, closing US borders to travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries. Currently 13 nations are ........Read more
    
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    1. vifam23402@sovixa.com 5 years ago
      
      I quit working at shop rite and now I make $65-85 per/h. How? I’m working online! My work didn’t exactly make me happy so I decided to take a chance on ast something new after 4 years it was so hard to quit my day job but now, I couldn’t be happier So i try use.
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What's that smell? 5 years ago

Just voted in PA. They removed all voting machines and replaced with paper ballot. They give you a pen (Covid anyone?) you bubble your choices, no chance to change your mind and turn it over to a poll worker who can see your vote, they scan it and you leave...now!
I guess it doesn't matter much anyway DA Josh Shapiro claimed Biden won....yesterday

Let the get harvesting begin!

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Dillinger 5 years ago

it's funny because it's true

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1. Ken Shultz 5 years ago
  
  It's not true.
  
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  1. Dillinger 5 years ago
    
    Simpsons clip, Ken ...
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYBMbGPAqsU
    
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Ken Shultz 5 years ago

This would have made more sense if both parties were advocating for the Green New Deal or if one of the parties hadn't just shut down the other party's $3.5 trillion stimulus package.

If there's a difference between implementing the Green New Deal and not implementing the Green New Deal or if there's a difference between spending $3.5 trillion or not spending $3.5 trillion, then there's a difference between the parties in this election.

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1. Ken Shultz 5 years ago
  
  Because there was very little difference between Bush Jr. and Obama does not mean there is very little difference between Biden and Trump.
  
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  1. mad.casual 5 years ago
    
    Forcing open the Overton window. There's very little difference between Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul or Thomas Massie so why choose between them? It's not like one of them is a different color or has a vagina so...
    
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2. sarcasmic 5 years ago
  
  I think the point is that the outcome of the election has little if any effect on the roughly two million people who work for the federal government. They just keep doin what they're doin.
  
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  1. Ken Shultz 5 years ago
    
    I think the point was that it makes no difference to the people--when all the government does is change from red to blue.
    
    Unfortunately, there are huge difference between the outcomes of the election this time.
    
    If Biden is elected and the senate goes Democrat, for instance, there will be a $1 trillion bailout of the states--and the unfunded pension liabilities of California, Illinois, and New York. If Trump is reelected, that won't happen--and California, Illinois, and New York will be forced to slash their budgets and deal with their unfunded pension liabilities.
    
    That's just one example. We could talk about the Green New Deal or Biden's war on guns, too. Huge differences between the parties, and the impact on average people will be tremendous depending on whether the Republican or the Democrat wins.
    
    It wasn't like that between Bush Jr. and Obama. ObamaCare's expansion of Medicaid was a continuation of Bush's Mediare prescription drug benefit. Obama continued to conduct the War on Terror much like Bush had before him. Obama even continued Bush's violation of our Fourth Amendment rights by way of surveillance. Obama used TARP funds differently from Bush Jr. , but they were fundamentally the same. Reason ran a cover of Bush Jr's. and Obama's faces morphed together, and it was entirely appropriate considering that they were largely the same.
    
    2012 was eight years ago, and that was the last time the observation that there was very little difference between the parties was accurate. Because neither party is libertarian doesn't mean that one isn't vastly superior to the other. And the differences between them may be felt for generations depending on which one of them wins.
    
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    1. sarcasmic 5 years ago
      
      Biden will get all that done as soon as Trump finishes his wall.
      
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      1. Ken Shultz 5 years ago
        
        I would like to believe that there are Democrats as opposed to bailing out the states and the Green New Deal as there were Republicans who were opposed to Trump for various reasons--but I don't see any good reasons to believe that.
        
        Nancy Pelosi's $3.5 trillion stimulus package included $1 trillion to bail out the states already--and it passed the House.
        
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    2. Overt 5 years ago
      
      Ken- The counter to your point is that a Democrat will innevitably be elected in the next decade, and that person will ram a new deal down our throats while bailing out the states. So no, it doesn't really matter as much as you claim.
      
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      1. sarcasmic 5 years ago
        
        The pendulum always swings back.
        
        For a while I thought that a green new deal wouldn't happen because Americans wouldn't tolerate the economic destruction, but the last year has made me reconsider that idea.
        
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      2. Ken Shultz 5 years ago
        
        "Ken- The counter to your point is that a Democrat will innevitably be elected in the next decade, and that person will ram a new deal down our throats while bailing out the states. "
        
        Actually, there are time constraints on both of the examples I mentioned.
        
        1) If the Democrats don't push the Green New Deal through, well, entrepreneurs like Tesla keep getting more efficient and more productive every day. Telsa says that through their supply chain optimizations and improved scale, their battery manufacturing costs will drop so low that within three years, they'll be selling Teslas for less than $25,000. If local utilities wire homes to compete with oil companies for that new expanding market like cable and telco companies wired America for high speed internet, there won't be as much of an argument for the government to shell out $2 trillion on the Green New Deal in 2024 as there is today.
        
        And Tesla is just one example. As natural gas continues to displace coal, as energy efficiency continues to improve, as the price of solar continues to fall, why wouldn't that increasingly obviate the need for the Green New Deal as time goes on?
        
        2) The pandemic and the lockdowns have forced the states to slash spending and payrolls. The states have already laid off millions of government employees. The only reason they haven't laid off more is because they're hoping that if Biden is elected, they'll get a bailout and they won't need to cut that spending. If Trump is reelected, they'll have no choice but to slash their spending--millions more state employees will lose their jobs, and they'll be forced to deal with their unfunded pension liabilities by cutting spending. They can't go another years spending like they are now without a bailout.
        
        You might say that they can increase spending again in the future when the economy improves, but that's always the case. Should we oppose cutting spending because someone in the future might always increase spending again--or should we simply support cutting spending? Incidentally, this is the only way spending ever gets cut in places like California, Illinois, and New York. In times of recession, the revenue dries up, but the government won't cut spending until they have no other choice. Taxpayers were already fleeing those states in droves before the pandemic because taxes were too high, so raising taxes is off the table. There is really only one thing that can stop them from cutting spending--a federal bailout. If Trump is elected, they won't get a bail out. If Biden is elected, they will.
        
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Laura William 5 years ago

trumph and biden are going very close. it reminds me the first presidential winning of Obama. obama and bush were also very close at that time.

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Laura William 5 years ago

trumph and biden are going extremely close. it reminds me the primary official winning of Obama. obama and shrub were likewise close around then.

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