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James Medlock Profile picture
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24 Nov, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Good. If the left has any leverage on staffing, it should be used against Bruce “end welfare as we know it” Reed
He was a key architect of welfare reform, and he said as recently as 2016 that he still thought it was a success. In 2004 he bragged about how he had outflanked the GOP on support for work requirements
This is the most bizarre contrarianism
Reed is not just on the right of the party by today's standards - he was on the right of the much more moderate late 90s Democratic party economist.com/united-states/…

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More from @jdcmedlock

James Medlock Profile picture
23 Nov
I sometimes check on this guy, and it's always pretty depressing. The "selling pep talks about how to grind your way to getting rich" industry is one of the worst grifts
The commodification of being a Winner Image
Similar shit right here
Read 4 tweets
James Medlock Profile picture
23 Nov
That’s wrong.
Conservatives want people to be dependent on family based welfare, while social democratic policy is about freeing people from reliance on family support to increase capacity for individual independence Image
If we must rely on the family, I propose we all marry each other, as a society
Read 4 tweets
James Medlock Profile picture
19 Nov
We shouldn’t fetishize small business and we should also enforce antitrust more effectively. These don’t have to be conflicting views
I’m sort of a class traitor, as a small business person, but I really do think the idea that everyone should own a little business is bad - for one thing, I suspect asset ownership and status as an employer is connected to more conservative views
And for whatever reason, they do seem less likely to be unionized, and harder (at least politically) to regulate (see all the exemptions in the ACA for small businesses).
Read 5 tweets
James Medlock Profile picture
18 Nov
Just getting around to reading this from @mattyglesias and it’s very much in line with what I’ve been thinking about lately given dim prospects at the federal level. We need to do big things in blue states! slowboring.com/p/make-blue-am…
Housing shortages lead to tax fatigue. Building more housing will not only expand the tax base, but I think it’ll make blue state tax increases more palatable
Treating public infrastructure as more of a jobs program than a way of efficiently providing public goods undermines faith in government and makes less room for other spending (esp at state level)
Read 5 tweets
James Medlock Profile picture
15 Nov
A student debt forgiveness executive order is a good idea, because the senate is basically guaranteed to not do enough fiscal stimulus. The marginal dollar of relief money would be better spent elsewhere, but an executive order wouldn’t come at the expense other priorities
I dont think student debt forgiveness is progressive on the whole (though the poorer people it does help will be helped a lot), but it’s probably a much more effective form of trickle down than tax cuts. We should be pumping money into the economy however we can
I do worry a bit about the potential for political backlash, giving rising educational polarization. Debt forgiveness is one area where I have no problem with means testing if it’s administratively feasible - could avoid viral stories about giving forgiveness to super rich people
Read 4 tweets
James Medlock Profile picture
10 Nov
Seems clear at this point that prop 15 will not find enough support in the remaining uncounted votes to pass. My guess is that without covid it would have narrowly passed, but people got nervous about the impact on small businesses during the crisis. What are y’all’s takeaways?
Prop 13 is such a third rail in California politics, it’s incredible we even got this close to overturning half of it. Ads targeting homeowners saying this would be a slippery slope to taking away their protections probably had a big impact too
Property taxes are the least popular form of tax, in part because they violate people incorrect but intuitive sense of fairness (having to pay on something you “own,” and detached from your current flows of income). Should keep pushing, but also be pragmatic on using other taxes
Read 4 tweets

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