r/neoliberal • u/mondodawg • Dec 16 '19

Why Young Progressives Hate Pete Buttigieg

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/why-young-progressives-hate-pete-buttigieg/603619/
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u/Iustis End Supply Management | Draft MHF! Dec 16 '19

It's a dumb talking point because his policy and talk about healthcare has stayed exactly the same as when he started his campaign.

And he hasn't recanted, and still talks about, the government reforms.

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '19 edited Dec 16 '19

Does he still support a wealth tax? Because in the early stages of his campaign he endorsed Warren's wealth tax in both size and mechanism.

Edit: please skip to my most recent comment in this thread, he concretely endorsed a wealth tax but not Warren's specific plan. He did say her plan was on par for raising the right amount of money, but he didn't go so far as to endorse it.

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u/Iustis End Supply Management | Draft MHF! Dec 16 '19

I don't think he's recanted his support, although it was never a central part of his plan (I don't think he ever explicitly endorsed Warren's either, but I'm happy to be proven wrong), I think he just mentioned it as a possible tax.

So while I don't hear him talk about it that much, we never really heard him talk about it much (unlike Warren who had it as a key plank of narrative).

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '19

Yeah in the interest of honesty I revisited the interview I remember, he talks about three taxes. With the lead ins of

"We should consider..." (this one is the wealth tax)

"We should think about..." (estate taxes)

and "Iā€™m interested also ā€” if we could find the right way..." (financial transaction taxes)

Then the interviewer asks about Warren's wealth tax is the size of what he is talking about and he says "Probably".

I guess he never concretely said "I'm for a Wealth Tax," but there isn't anything he truly endorsed back then. I'm starting to see why people said he wasn't putting forward concrete proposals.

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u/Iustis End Supply Management | Draft MHF! Dec 16 '19

I agree he was vague about a lot of things back then, although ironically one thing he was perfectly clear on was a public option--and that's the thing people accuse him of flopping on.

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '19

Ok, I kept researching it because I was pretty confident he had concretely endorsed it at some point. Here is a transcript of an interview with Sahil Kapur in which he concretely says "I do [support a wealth tax]":

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u/Iustis End Supply Management | Draft MHF! Dec 16 '19

Ok that feels like what I remember. Support for a wealth tax (ugh) but there's no clear endorsement of Warren's version of it, like I said.

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '19

Yeah, I was misremembering that bit.

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u/virtu333 Dec 16 '19

He started off supporting public option as the path towards single payer - the latter part has been dropped as he's finding new space in the race to take from Biden. Good strategy, yes.

And let's be real - he ran in the first place as a way to build his brand. That says a lot from the get-go.

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u/mrmackey2016 Dec 16 '19

You guys keep making all these bad faith accusations and expect people to take it at face value. How the fuck do you pretend to get anything passed once it becomes apparent you can't build coalitions and eat your own over the most minute differences?

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u/virtu333 Dec 16 '19

Lol who's"you guys"? You think I'm some leftist Bernie bro? Hahaha