via freebeacon
Although backed by redistributionist rhetoric, many programs pushed by 2020 Democrats would primarily benefit highly educated professionals, often at the expense of the bottom fifth of earners, a new report released by the conservative Manhattan Institute concludes.
The report examines the distributive impacts of major proposals, including Medicare for All, student debt forgiveness, and the repeal of key components of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). It argues that while Democratic candidates talk big about supporting workers and the poor, these programs primarily serve the interests of the wealthy.
“The benefits of the new programs they have proposed, from Medicare for All to student debt forgiveness and free college, would flow predominantly to the professional class—upper-middle-class, highly educated households,” Manhattan Institute senior fellow Brian Riedl writes. “Many of their tax proposals, meanwhile, would disproportionately burden low-income households or benefit high-income taxpayers.”
The report is just the latest evidence of a sea change taking place in the Democratic Party. Long branded as representatives of the working class, the Democratic Party has come to appeal primarily to the college-educated, often affluent residents of urban America, data indicate. This shift was key to President Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 and, the new report indicates, may well be driving 2020 contenders’ policy preferences.
Take, for example, the push by leading Democrats—including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), and Michael Bloomberg—to cancel some or all of Americans’ $1.6 trillion in student debt. Such debt relief would disproportionately benefit well-off Americans. “Roughly half” of the benefit would accrue to those with high-paying graduate degrees, including doctors, lawyers, and business executives. In total, Riedl estimates that student loan forgiveness would pay out $544 billion to top earners, compared with $192 billion to the bottom quartile.
any policy is going to be used more by the professional class
– who can take advantage of the provisions
– by following the red tape rules of the bureaucracy
this is compounded by
– those people writing the laws and regulations in the first place
– that are designed to encourage more of what they want to do
– by working in government and leftist policy making
Remember big corporations support bureaucracy
– as they are barriers to entry
– only the big can afford to have the expertise and time to manage the red tape
dr P