美国国家公共电台 NPR Here Are The 'Outside The Box' Progressive Ideas 2020 Democrats Are Pitching

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

With November's midterm elections already a distant memory, Democrats¹ are now shuffling² to see who will top their ticket on Election Day in 2020. And a part of that is, of course, testing out new policies. As NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben reports, some of their economic ideas would have been unthinkable for mainstream³ candidates just a few elections ago.

DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE⁴: Early this month, Bernie Sanders appeared on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," where he took a victory lap for one of his signature policies.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT")

BERNIE SANDERS: A few years ago when we said that we should create a "Medicare for All" single-payer system, I was told I'm crazy, it's extreme, I'm a fringe guy. Seventy percent of the American people in the last polls that I've seen now support "Medicare for All."

KURTZLEBEN: When Sanders introduced a "Medicare for All" bill in 2013, he had zero co-sponsors. In 2017, he had 16, several of them now rumored⁵ to be running for president in 2020. And that's part of a bigger trend around Democrats and economic policy.

STEPHANIE KELTON: I think it's pretty clear that Democrats are swinging for the fences right now.

KURTZLEBEN: That's Stephanie Kelton, an economic adviser⁶ to Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. It's not just "Medicare for All." Some of the most prominent 2020 names are backing other sweeping⁷ and uber-progressive policy changes. Those include a $15 minimum wage, debt-free college and guaranteed jobs, just to name a handful.

JARED BERNSTEIN: There's a kind of a nuance⁸ or a specificity to the signaling in this round that looks kind of different to me.

KURTZLEBEN: That's Jared Bernstein, who served as an economic adviser to Vice⁹ President Joe Biden.

BERNSTEIN: I think there's more kind of checking a box by progressive candidates that they're willing to get outside the box. Too many boxes in that phrase - but you know what I mean.

KURTZLEBEN: Given how outside the box some of these proposals are, they also draw economic criticisms. For example, even left-leaning economists¹⁰ have said a $15 minimum wage is too high. And a "Medicare for All" program would mean overhauling¹¹ a huge sector¹² of the economy. Bernstein knows many of these criticisms exist. He even makes some himself. But he stopped short of shutting these policy ideas down completely.

BERNSTEIN: I would actually caution many of my fellow kind of progressive wonks out there not to immediately reject these ideas because of their technocratic¹³ limitations.

KURTZLEBEN: Is that a nice way of saying, like, some of these policies aren't - like, they wouldn't work exactly as they are laid out?

BERNSTEIN: It's more that they're not really laid out.

(LAUGHTER)

KURTZLEBEN: In other words, he thinks these Democrats have some admirable goals but, in many cases, need to workshop the policies that would get them there. Even enacting¹⁴ these policies is practically impossible in this political environment. But Kelton believes that pitching these ideas now is the first step in a years-long project of building out the safety net.

KELTON: It's important to put these things on the table and to begin that conversation because as support builds around them, it can become increasingly difficult for lawmakers to resist acting¹⁵.

KURTZLEBEN: There will be plenty of pushback. Michael Strain of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute is skeptical¹⁶ at best of many of these early Democratic economic proposals.

MICHAEL STRAIN: All of them strike me as a really bad idea. Certainly, I don't like any of them. And I can't even think of any where I'm kind of shrugging my shoulders.

KURTZLEBEN: And of course, progressives aren't the only Democrats plotting presidential runs. While people like Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren are staking out the liberal territory, other would-be candidates are differentiating¹⁷ themselves. At a Washington think tank event this spring, former Vice President Joe Biden distanced himself from Sanders' populist rhetoric¹⁸.

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JOE BIDEN: I love Bernie, but I'm not Bernie Sanders. I don't think 500 billionaires are the reason why we're in trouble.

KURTZLEBEN: Fortunately, all 2020 candidates have a little over a year to show voters what they stand for. Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News.