Once upon a time, the Democratic Party tried to favor the working class. Not anymore, and never has it been more apparent.
Consider Democratic ‘President-elect’ Joe Biden’s immediate goals.
He wants to:
— Increase taxes. All taxes are regressive and impose the most harm on those who have the least.
— Impose a minimum wage that puts entry-level fast-food workers on par with young mechanics, EMTs and others who have sacrificed to make skilled-labor wages.
— Save the planet from climate change with policies that jeopardize mining, drilling and agricultural jobs.
— Redirect funding away from traditional law enforcement, an upper-level segment of the working-class demographic.
— Cozy up to China, a country that steals American jobs and technology.
— Allow a massive influx of immigrants to compete for American jobs.
— Increase regulations that suppress the gig economy, wage growth and investments in new jobs.
With Biden’s election, President Donald Trump’s “America first” doctrine is out the window, along with policies that had the middle-class, working-class and all ethnic minority groups flourishing economically. Trump likes and relates to working-class America, as evidenced by those who attended his rallies and voted for him.
In the 2020 election, as in 2016, Trump won among working Americans without college educations. These are typically small-business entrepreneurs, construction workers, laborers, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, welders, first responders, truck drivers and others who drive for a living. Some of these workers have impressive higher educations. Most do not.
Chat with Uber drivers in any large city, of any ethnicity or national origin, and nearly all support Trump — regardless of their educational backgrounds. That is, at least partly, because Democrats want to reclassify gig-economy workers as employees whom they can more easily regulate and tax. It threatens to erase the appeal of jobs in which people download apps and work for themselves, on their own terms, with flexibility previously unavailable to the working class.
Time will reveal the objective truth, but it seems safe to predict the working class will be worse off after four years of traditional Democrats running the government’s executive branch.
One Biden goal smacks of contempt for the working class: Student loan forgiveness.
Biden ran on a pledge to forgive at least $10,000 for every borrower. It is part of an education plan financial analysts estimate will cost taxpayers $2 trillion. It helps explain Biden’s strong support among college-educated voters. He will save them $10,000 in debt.
Aside from the obvious federal fiscal ramifications, there is an enormous problem with student loan forgiveness. It passes white-collar debts onto entrepreneurs, construction workers, laborers, plumbers, electricians, welders and more — many of whom succeeded without college debt.
Additionally, it makes a mockery of those who delayed the gratification of buying homes and new cars while sweating their loan repayments until they were paid in full.
Tens of millions of Americans have chosen and will choose career paths that do not require the traditional higher education path few can afford without accruing federally backed student loans. Nearly all of them contemplated the burden of debt when choosing to forgo college. They are neither superior nor inferior to their friends and neighbors who owe on student loans. They merely chose a less-expensive option.
Nothing will exacerbate class hostility like making blue-collar workers pay even more for the educations of their white-collar peers.
There is a reason working-class Americans pack Trump rallies and chant “we love you.” Tax cuts and massive reductions in regulations quickly improved their lives. Reversing those policies will quite likely harm them.
In these times of cultural division, Biden should reassess his plans and work to avoid the mere appearance of a war on the working class.
The Gazette Editorial board
___
(c)2020 The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
Visit The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.) at www.gazette.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
Biden will never reassess his plans. The “moderate” Joe Biden is a radical.
Democrat trained Old man “Spend and Borrow” Biden understands the concept of borrowing TRILLIONS based upon a fake COVIS emergency the Democrats will not let go to waste, flooding the American economy with tons of cash that will only pursue the same limited amount of goods and services that drives the value of commodities up and the value of the dollar down to where $15/hr wages in soon to be future devalued money, will only buy $5.00 worth goods and services of today. The more you pay people more than what they are worth, the less efficient the businesses and economy, but from the Democrat beguilers and deceivers point of view, they DO get mandated minimum wage votes today in spite of the business losses and job losses to overseas tomorrow, not to mention the power over government today to enrich the Socialist leaders today at the expense of our children taxpaying workers who have to pay off the debt tomorrow. Can a USA Venezuela not soon follow? We already are short the toilet paper and Like Venezuelans, cannot even wipe the political excrement from our backsides and clean our own American House.
AND don’t keep saying “JOE, don’t do this or that..” CAUSE YOU KNOW HE WIL!
History is about to repeat itself by putting Biden and his cronies in office. The sad thing is that the graduates of the last 5 years who are all for this relief will never feel the pinch of hard work if they chose the right professions. Those that did not chose professions that would help pay back the loan and whine, need to do the work we did in te school of hard knocks. Not give them relief for making a bad education decision because they listened to mom and dad about going to college and got that underwater basket making degree and not something useful.
Time to become two nations. All liberals go west and all conservatives go east. Find a liberal who has a home comparable to yours and swap.
Apparently failure, like the one we saw during the Obama years, is the majority of America’s comfort zone. Its “The time machine” movie all over again with this election Progressing America 800,000 years into the H.G. Wells described future, where the Democrat Morlocks who vote and dwell beneath the basements of the earth now rule and live to feed upon the Conservative human sheep they have mind corralled for consumption who have forgotten who Created them, for what purpose they were created, and whose image they were designed to reflect…..definitley not that of a Morlock, If you don’t believe me just look at the images of most of their Nadler and Tlaib men and women.
WITH How even CENTRAL states are being ruined by liberalism, its hard to find ANY SAFE state anymore.
Considering the education that colleges offer, the schools should pay their students to take it.
MOST Sit on hundreds of millions in endowments, SO THEY CERTAINLY SHOULD BE able to pay students to take their BULL CLASSES.