How aligned are you with Andrew Yang's policies?

culgin(72)

Published in

#yanggang

Words

1126

Reading

6 min

Listen

Play

Recently the #YangGang tag is quite popular on Steem and this is pretty much spearheaded by @theycallmedan. I just want to start by saying that I am not a US citizen and in fact I have never been to the US. However, the USA is a world superpower and whatever happens in the US is always going to impact the rest of the world. That is why I always pay some attention to US politics.

Before this initiative by @theycallmedan on Twitter, I actually had not heard of Andrew Yang. I know that the front-runners in the polls to represent the Democrats in the upcoming US Presidential Election are Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Andrew Yang is actually lagging quite behind as shown in the polling average from "New York Times".

So the initiative got me reading about Andrew Yang's political viewpoints. The best resource is of course his campaign site, Yang2020.com, and that is precisely where I started reading.

Key Policies

If you head over to Andrew Yang's campaign site, you will find that there are 3 key policies that he is fighting for. Freedom dividend, Medicare for all and Human-centered capitalism.

Let's start with "Human-centered capitalism". In the detailed page, it was described that The central tenets of Human Capitalism are:

Humans are more important than money
The unit of a Human Capitalism economy is each person, not each dollar
Markets exist to serve our common goals and values

These are values that I agree with and I categorize them as populism policies. The problem here is that Mr. Yang, did not really describe in more details how all these values will be translated into actual actions.

Next, "Medicare for all". This policy is quite straightforward. In the USA, Medicare primarily provides health insurance for Americans aged 65 and older, but also for some younger people with disability status. Andrew Yang's proposed policy of Medicare for all will mean that all US citizens will be enrolled by default.

I think this is a good move as healthcare costs get really expensive at old age without early preventive actions. If health insurance coverage can start early, the population as a whole will likely be healthier and potentially lowering the overall healthcare cost for the country. Of course the effect will likely be seen only after a generation or 2, but in my opinion, the long-term benefits will outweigh the short-term costs.

Finally, and arguably the most controversial policy, "Freedom dividend". Freedom dividend is a fancier name for universal basic income (UBI). If you are on Steem for some time, you probably heard of Steem Basic Income (SBI). They are similar in the sense that both wants to provide a basic amount of money to everyone who are in the system.

In Andrew Yang's proposal, all US citizens above the age of 18 will receive $1,000 a month, regardless of income or employment status. Absolutely no strings attached. In the FAQ, Andrew Yang answered several key questions that many will ask, including me 😉. My first question was how will the government fund this initiative? And here is Andrew Yang's answer.

Are you convinced? Personally, I fully agree that big corporations should be taxed more, but I doubt the taxes will be enough to cover the cost. There are currently an estimated 247,813,910 adults in the US, and that means $247 billion will need to be given out each month!

According to Trading Economics, the US corporate profits were almost $1.9 trillion in the third quarter of 2019.

While that seem like a lot of money, about a third of them will need to be taxed in order to fund the UBI. That does not seem feasible and I think the government will likely have to take on more debts to finance the initiative. Given the rising debt to GDP ratio, further increase debt is likely to be unsustainable and may result in higher inflation thereby lowering purchasing power per dollar. The overall effect will be hard to predict.

I will instead propose to increase corporate taxes and direct funds to provide free education and trainings to improve productivity of the population as a whole. I will also rather provide a set of basic necessities to the have-nots for free instead of just giving money indiscriminately.

Alignment with Andrew Yang's political views

There is a quiz on Washington Post for you to try and see which Democrat candidate agrees with you the most. Based on my answers, my views are the most aligned with Andrew Yang's. Do try it out yourself and post your result here as a comment 😁.

Despite my disagreement on UBI, I am largely still aligned with Andrew Yang's political stance. You can also quickly learn about Andrew Yang's other political views at this site and there is one particular viewpoint that I find rather interesting.

Interesting isn't it? So if Andrew Yang does get elected as President, I think he will likely be pro-cryptocurrencies. Which will in turn be good for us crypto hodlers 😎.

Conclusion

Andrew Yang's policies are largely populism in nature. Which is very much what many people will favor all over the world. While I doubt UBI is going to work, I agree with the objectives and values that Andrew Yang are preaching. Through his policies, I can sense his aspiration to make the USA an even better place.

It is interesting to point out that the other front-runners for Democrats candidacy are all baby boomers. On the other hand, Andrew Yang is a Gen X. Perhaps that is the reason why he is able to appeal more to the younger generations. Being someone who lives in the opposite end of the world, I can only hope that Andrew Yang manages to gain more popularity and put up a strong challenge for presidency.

10% of post rewards goes to @ph-fund, 5% goes to @leo.voter and another 5% goes to @steempeak to support these amazing projects.

The "Raise to 50" Initiative

Under 50 SP and finding it hard to do much on this platform? I might just be able to raise your SP to 50. Check this post to find out more!

This article is created on the Steem blockchain. Check this series of posts to learn more about writing on an immutable and censorship-resistant content platform: