The Questions that Hillary Clinton should answer

Dear Friends,

Hillary Clinton endured 11 hours of questioning on Benghazi yesterday, and absolutely nothing new was learned.  The salient facts have not changed.  The attack was a terrible tragedy.  We have made significant changes to reduce the risks of such a thing happening again.  It was not Hillary Clinton's fault.  In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Hillary Clinton and the United States government made statements about the cause of the attack that they knew to be false. Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration have never given a reasonable explanation for that lie.  It certainly does not disqualify Hillary Clinton from being President, but it does raise some concerns.

For me there are far more important concerns and more important questions for Secretary Clinton to answer.  Here are some.

We all know that in 2007 and 2008, the biggest banks were too big to fail and had to be bailed out.  Those banks are even bigger now and control even more of the assets of the industry.  Thus they are even more too big to fail.  Given those facts, why do you not support breaking them up now, before another financial crisis ruins regular Americans lives, jobs and finances?

Given the facts above about too big to fail, why do you continue to refuse to support reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act?  Why do you say that instead we should focus on shadow banking?  The two are not mutually exclusive.  You can reinstate Glass-Steagall and regulate shadow banking at the same time.

Why did you call the pharmaceutical and insurance industries your enemies when you have taken millions of dollars from them in contributions?  If you have time read this article in US News (here) entitled, "Hillary Takes Millions in Campaign Cash From 'Enemies'".

Medicare is the most efficient and well liked healthcare plan in the country.  The United States spends  more and has worse results than other countries.  Here is the first paragraph from The Commonwealth  Fund's 2014 update on its healthcare study (here).

The United States health care system is the most expensive in the world, but this report and prior editions consistently show the U.S. underperforms relative to other countries on most dimensions of performance. Among the 11 nations studied in this report—Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States—the U.S. ranks last, as it did in the 2010, 2007, 2006, and 2004 editions of Mirror, Mirror. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last or near last on dimensions of access, efficiency, and equity.

Given all this why do you refuse to support universal single payer healthcare (Medicare for all)?

The United States middle class was built in part on an educated population as a result of free universal public school education through high school.  We all know that a high school diploma is not sufficient today; that a college education is required to succeed.  Why do you refuse to support free public college education?

In 1960 the maximum United States tax bracket carried with it a 91% marginal rate.  We can afford to pay for universal single payer healthcare, free public education through college, rebuilding our infrastructure, providing for those among us in need of help and many more things if the richest among us pay their fair share.  How high are you willing to raise the federal income tax rates in order to make America great and rebuild the middle class?

There are more questions that Hillary Clinton should give clear answers to but they will have to wait for another day.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Why Sanders defeats Trump, but Trump defeats Clinton

Dear Friends,

The title of this post is the title of an article on The Hill  (here) by H.A. Goodman.  The first paragraph of the article is a great summary:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) currently leads Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump by 4 percentage points more than Hillary Clinton does, according to RealClearPolitics. However, while the polls have Clinton over Trump now, it's Sanders who represents the best chance for a Democrat to beat the reality star. The Vermont senator is the worst nightmare for a GOP challenger, primarily because his value system is the antithesis of Republican stances on war, foreign policy, Wall Street and the economy.

The article goes on to discuss the well known baggage that comes with Secretary Clinton as well as the fact that Trump and Clinton both have close ties to Wall Street and have similar views on some issues.  One of his major points is that to defeat Trump, the Democrats have to present the exact opposite of Trump and that is Bernie Sanders.

On the other hand, Sanders isn't linked to scandal, he's vehemently against billionaires controlling politics, and his brand of democratic socialism serves as a stark contrast to Trump's brash billionaire persona. Everything Sanders warns about is personified by Trump; billionaires in politics, Republicans and Democrats uniting to coddle Wall Street, a rigged economic system, etc.

As we saw in the last Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton is not in favor of breaking up the big banks that are too big to fail, she is not in favor of reinstating Glass-Steagall, and she does not speak forcefully about taxing Wall Street and billionaires as Sanders does.

The article concludes

Ultimately, the only hope for Democrats beating Donald Trump is Bernie Sanders. He's honest and brings tremendous enthusiasm to progressives and he's raising more than enough money, without a super-PAC, to win the presidency... He experienced a greater boost in the polls than Clinton after the debate, so Democrats are rallying around the Vermont senator even as loyal supporters defend Clinton at all costs. When given the choice between Sanders or Clinton, Trump and the GOP would choose Clinton and her scandals over an energized base of progressives championing a Sanders presidency.

The more people see and hear Bernie and his ideas and positions, the more they like him.  His support will continue to grow particularly among new voters.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Bernie, Hillary and Big Banks

Dear Friends,

I cannot believe that the media has not spent any time on the big difference between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on breaking up the big banks.  Since the great recession starting in 2008, the five largest banks in the United States have increased their share of the total industry assets to almost 45%.  So the too big to fail banks are getting even bigger.  

Bernie Sanders is clearly for reinstating Glass-Steagall and immediately breaking up the big banks that are too big to let fail.  Hillary Clinton is for closer regulation but not for taking any action now.  Amazingly enough she actually said this during the debate:

I represented Wall Street as a senator from New York, and I went to Wall Street in December of 2007 before the big crash that we had, and I basically said, "Cut it out." 

She spoke the truth; she represented Wall Street, and she has done a good job of that.  She continues to be on their payroll in the form of political contributions.  Her approach was to tell them to "cut it out".  Well we all know how that worked, the banks ignored her and millions of Americans lost their jobs and homes and retirement plans.   Wall Street never has and never will be self regulating.  We need to break up the big banks, and we need to deal with shadow banking as well.  Bernie will do that and Hillary will not.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal