(02-13-2020 05:07 PM)ShrackUAB Wrote:  18% of GDP on healthcare (projected to hit 20% by 2027) is absolutely insane, especially when many other countries have everyone insured for less. And again, I'd be glad with the Bismarck model, but no one is running on it afaik.

And that pisses the crap out of me.

Right now, I think if Trump could push through Bismarck and a subsistence-level universal basic income (like Milton Friedman's negative income tax or the Boortz-Linder prebate/prefund), paid for with a consumption tax (which would also generate enough income to balance the budget), and legalizing marijuana and decriminalizing other drugs, he could win in a walk in November. He'd defuse the health care issue that republicans lost big on in 2018, and he'd make inroads with both youth and black voters, particularly if he accompanied it with some sort of amnesty for those imprisoned for minor drug offenses. And that would pretty much stall the march to socialism. I cannot understand for the life of me why he doesn't.

Maybe I'm being too Libertarian here, but that just seems like a wining combination to me.