What is the conservative plan on economic growth?

[breadisfunny]

The plan is to be more competitive and stop obsessing about the lowest common denominators of society.

in other words "screw those poor people" although i could rephrase several other ways including "only the strong will survive"

[Mihalik]

Pray for Divine intervention? It says it on the money- In God We Trust!

[PC2]

in other words "screw those poor people" although i could rephrase several other ways including "only the strong will survive"

We have welfare and Obamacare for poor people.

I'm tired of both the "economic growth at any cost" and "equality" obsessions. I'm much more interested in technology and science, which are mainly furthered by a relatively small group of elites.

[Xeones]

We have welfare and Obamacare for poor people.

I'm tired of both the "economic growth at any cost" and "equality" obsessions. I'm much more interested in technology and science, which are mainly furthered by a relatively small group of elites.

Elites? More like educated. The conservative war on education is pretty strongly against your interest. As is their obsession with cutting Nasa funding.

[GodlyBob]

We have welfare and Obamacare for poor people.

I'm tired of both the "economic growth at any cost" and "equality" obsessions. I'm much more interested in technology and science, which are mainly furthered by a relatively small group of elites.

Science and technology are furthered by increasing the general education level of the entire population. The more people who understand how to balance a chemical equation working at McDonalds, the more people are able to advance Quantum Mechanics at your local university, the more complex research at the highest level becomes. The cutting edge is still defined by "a relatively small group of elites," but since science is a building on established knowledge rather than a distribution of a finite and corporeal commodity (wealth), increasing the baseline increases the top-end in an absolute sense.

[PC2]

Elites? More like educated. The conservative war on education is pretty strongly against your interest. As is their obsession with cutting Nasa funding.

Elite as in cutting edge thinkers and innovators. If you look at the present and past, far less than 1% of the population has been responsible for most all of the inventions and advancements that we enjoy in everyday life.

In the US we started handing out degrees like candy. Most of them are mediocre though and not worth a lot. So now we have a bunch of college graduates with no jobs and a lot of angst.

[Deleted]

from a UK perspective.

Conservative plans seems to be
Tax Breaks for the rich, Tax Additions for the poor.
Cuts to vital services & All round austerity.
God help you if you are unemployed and looking for work.
if your ill then you might as well dig your own grave and work from it.

[GodlyBob]

Elite as in cutting edge thinkers and innovators. If you look at the present and past, far less than 1% of the population has been responsible for most all of the inventions and advancements that we enjoy in everyday life.

In the US we started handing out degrees like candy. Most of them are mediocre though and not worth a lot. So now we have a bunch of college graduates with no jobs and a lot of angst.

The more people you have with those mediocre degrees, the bigger your base is to draw those 1% of innovators from. That is how education works and why it is the single most important thing for any country to invest in. Also, those other 99% of degrees are far from worthless, The children of those graduates will benefit from the increased education of their parents. This means that those kids will likely be able to achieve a higher level of education than their parents, which moves that theoretical bar of advancement further.

[PC2]

if your ill then you might as well dig your own grave and work from it.

Or you could go get free medical treatment through the ACA.

[breadisfunny]

We have welfare and Obamacare for poor people.

I'm tired of both the "economic growth at any cost" and "equality" obsessions. I'm much more interested in technology and science, which are mainly furthered by a relatively small group of elites.

so your in favor of a plutocracy...

[PC2]

The more people you have with those mediocre degrees, the bigger your base is to draw those 1% of innovators from. That is how education works and why it is the single most important thing for any country to invest in. Also, those other 99% of degrees are far from worthless, The children of those graduates will benefit from the increased education of their parents. This means that those kids will likely be able to achieve a higher level of education than their parents, which moves that theoretical bar of advancement further.

Yes, that would be optimal. However in a world with 7 billion people on the planet you will quickly run into diminishing returns and resource issues.

so your in favor of a plutocracy...

No, but I also don't trust the populist left.

[breadisfunny]

Elite as in cutting edge thinkers and innovators. If you look at the present and past, far less than 1% of the population has been responsible for most all of the inventions and advancements that we enjoy in everyday life.

In the US we started handing out degrees like candy. Most of them are mediocre though and not worth a lot. So now we have a bunch of college graduates with no jobs and a lot of angst.

yeah let's just ignore the fact that those still have to be repaid as your supposed evidence that we handed them out like candy and the government is making interest off those loans at a really obscene rate.

[Daelak]

We have welfare and Obamacare for poor people.

I'm tired of both the "economic growth at any cost" and "equality" obsessions. I'm much more interested in technology and science, which are mainly furthered by a relatively small group of elites.

A small group of elites? You are incredibly misinformed. The cutting edge breakthroughs in science and technology are not by some endowed elite superhumans, as much as conservatives love to suck the dick of the benighted wealthy as, it is done through the collective work of millions upon millions of researchers all over the world. Spare me your elitism claptrap and learn something.

[Chain Chungus]

No, but I also don't trust the populist left.

So what then? These modern day, feudal lords hoarding all of the grain for themselves?

Sounds like one big case of Stockholm syndrome to me. "Yes my almighty masters, I will do whatever you say and continue to defend you as you slowly torture me to death! Go Reaganomics!"

[Kryctos]

For everyone to get up off their butts and get a job.

Been looking for a job for a couple of months now all the "NEW JOBS BEING CREATED" are temps, seasonal, or part time so they dont have to pay benefits or get rid of you without a hassle. Source dozens of job interviews.

[Yvaelle]

All of the conservative / GOP plans are slightly different, so let's talk specifics a bit.

All of them want to cut taxes on the top 1% of earners. All of them claim that cutting taxes on the rich will increase jobs for the rest, though there is a mountain of evidence (in addition to common sense) that proves this isn't the case.

They disagree on the details beyond that - but they all agree on that point.

Rand Paul has proposed a 14.5% flat tax - everyone pays the same % regardless of what they earn. This proposal would decrease tax revenue by $2 Trillion dollars, all of which becomes added deficit/debt until an equivalent value of programs are cut. This would actually be an increase over the 11% effective income tax rate that the top 1% currently pay, but he has additional exemptions and deductions planned for them which he has alluded to but not outlined yet.

Paul and The Tax Foundation say this will increase GDP by 10% over the next ten years, but the Tax Foundation is funded entirely by Koch Industries and Exxon Mobil, and have a long and storied history of being horrifically bad at predicting economic effects. As a poignant example, The Tax Foundation was also the group whose analysis was the evidence for the Bush Tax Cuts, which were meant to pay off the US National Debt by 2015. It's 2015, the US is $18 Trillion in debt - and that number was never in decline over the last 15 years. They're the only economists who claimed it would decline or disappear - but they're the Conservative economic thinktank - so somehow the media pretends they get half the legitimacy of any debate (despite being a minority voice in the field).

The Ryan Plan - the economic plan of Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee - touted up until the time it was actually published to be the magnum opus of some young economic genius (Paul Ryan the VP nominee) - proposed ~deleting medicaid/medicare, shutting down and selling off all government libraries, museums, and potentially parks, and providing colossal tax cuts to the very rich. Specifically, he proposed abolishing the Estate Tax (inheritance tax), abolishing Corporate Income Tax, abolishing the Capital Gains Tax, abolishing Corporate Tax on overseas profits.

Despite all those cuts, Ryan claimed through references to nonexistent sources, in conjunction with basic errors of addition/subtraction, and a terrible assumption that underlay his entire plan ('broadening the base') - for which there was no real evidence that it would occur, but without which everything he said was rubbish - that the budget would become more than balanced and the economy would grow rapidly as a result. That mystery meat revenue had zero explanation of where it would come from except the repeated claim that his plan would 'broaden the base'. Further, he also suggested he'd cut defense spending by half - but made no mention of which half of the army he planned on firing / selling to the highest bidder.

Jeb Bush hasn't assembled an economic team yet to my knowledge, and he has no specific economic plan. He claims he's going to make the economy grow at 4% per year, but since he has zero idea of how he will do that - it's complete nonsense until he can put a specific plan forward.

Trump has a 5-point economic plan at least. I hate to say this makes him the more credible frontrunner but it actually does..... what a time to be alive....

1. The first is that future wars will be billed to the country America declares war on. So Iraq/Afghanistan would be trillions in debt, in addition to hundreds of thousands dead and all their infrastructure destroyed.

It's the exact opposite of the Marshall Plan (which was brilliant), and the exact same idea that caused hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic which created the environment under which Hitler rose to power (when Germany was billed for the costs of WW1). I'm confident it would only make radicalism worse in the middle east (but yes, that's my opinion man).

2. He wants to sue OPEC to end the global oil cartel.

Sounds like a very manly position to take - but it's not very realistic. It would reduce the role of OPEC in the world to virtually nothing (powerful as they are right now, OPEC is their only means of exerting collective influence - without it they are individually nothing). The pushback on it would be colossal - it could even lead to a world war ~Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela would lose what little power they have. That's the ~entire Middle East and North Africa: two already very unstable regions.

It would also significantly reduce the cost of oil globally, which would undermine Russia's influence on the EU. If it worked (and that's a huge if) Russia might feel emasculated too. I'm sure some people smile at that thought, but realistically it's a stupid idea to completely destablize the global oil price. Reducing it is important, but it needs to be done so at a stable rate - and that requires OPEC to exist. We need them to exist and play ball, it would be worse for everyone if they ceased to exist in short order.

3. Crack down on China's currency manipulation.

This is a surprisingly smart point from Trump, and I don't completely disagree. With that said, like the above - currency manipulation is essential to the Chinese economy and global trade - it's the lynchpin in their economy as much as oil is to the OPEC countries: they're going to guard that with everything they have, and if you do manage to pull it from them - you're risking total economic collapse of a superpower. I'm impressed that he sees how it is what makes them exceptional at manufacturing (not some magical talent for cheap labour and hard work, as the popular mythos suggests).

4. Trump's tax plan.

Personal Income Tax:
- Up to $30,000, you pay 1 percent
- From $30,000 to $100,000, you pay 5 percent
- From $100,000 to $1 million, you pay 10 percent
- On $1 million or above, your rate is 15 percent

- no corporate income tax, no corporate overseas tax, no capital gains tax

This is essentially like the Rand Paul plan now that I look at it - but Trump's is even more aggressive on the income tax reductions - which suggests to me that the cost will be greater than the $2 Trillion that Paul says his proposal will reduce in tax revenue.

5. Build a Great Wall to keep out the Mexicans, rewrite the immigration policy to an unspecified degree, end Obamacare, welfare, and food stamps.

I think the idea of a wall is really silly. It's trying to address a symptom (illegal immigration), when the solution is always to attack the problem (sociopolitical unrest in a neighbouring state, and bad immigration processing). Mexico needs to be fixed from the inside, and America should take a leading role in making that happen - it makes far more sense to fix Mexico than it does to fix Iraq (caution: I am not recommending bombing Mexico into submission, 'fix' is not a euphemism).

The US needs to help the Mexican government address the sociopolitical conflict in Mexico - and that is driven by the Cartels. The Cartels are in turn run by Drug Money, the value of which is artificially inflated by the US War on Drugs, but that same war has increased production and consumption of drugs within the US or Mexico. Ending the War on Drugs would decrease the profitability of the Cartels, would decrease their power within Mexico, would decrease unrest in central America - would decrease illegal immigration to the US.

End the war on drugs, help Mexico get rid of the cartels and weed out the systemic corruption they have caused, and work with Mexico to rebuild their economy (which is growing rapidly, but should be doing even better). A strong Mexican ally benefits the US in the long-run far more than a weak neighbor-state they can use as a boundary to Central and Southern America. Doing this would end illegal immigration, and may actually reverse the flow - as people see an opportunity to return to their families in a vibrant and booming economy - once stability is restored - once the drug war ends.

Game of Thrones analogy: The First Men didn't just build a wall and repel the White Walkers - ultimately they made a mutually beneficial deal: and that is what ended the first Long Night. A wall slows an invading army, an accord is what ends it.

[PC2]

So what then? These modern day, feudal lords hoarding all of the grain for themselves?

So go get the 1%. Instead you'll opt for a more authoritarian populist government, knee jerk laws everytime 'shit happens', and colleges that don't teach people how to think, but exactly what to think.

[Darnash]

A small group of elites? You are incredibly misinformed. The cutting edge breakthroughs in science and technology are not by some endowed elite superhumans, as much as conservatives love to suck the dick of the benighted wealthy as, it is done through the collective work of millions upon millions of researchers all over the world. Spare me your elitism claptrap and learn something.

The modern city would not exist without Andrew Carnegie. The personal computer, as well as a lot of related technologies (smart phones, tablets, car computer systems, etc.), would not be the same without minds like Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak. Electric cars and solar development would not be as far along without Elon Musk.

Each of these men built on the work of these millions and millions of researchers in unique ways. We know their names, and not the names of the other researchers, precisely because they had something to offer that no one else did, and offered it in a way no one else could. The narrative of "great men" (and women) is often exaggerated, I give you that. But negating that narrative with one of anonymity, magic collaboration, and altruism is even more disingenuous.

We live in a world that is more interconnected than ever before. Globalism is a reality, but it is also a new one. Progress, up until this point, was most certainly NOT defined by global, or even widespread, collective work. A lot of it was certainly done in teams, but those teams were not in the business of sharing their work. Even today, global collaboration tends to be aimed at solving global problems. And while those problems certainly do need to be solved, the vast majority of progress, in terms of improvement to daily quality of life, is coming from small teams of researchers. And a lot of those teams remain funded by private individuals or groups whose primary motivation is profit.

[Teebone]

The conservative economic plan? It's quite detailed. Let's start with Capital Gains..


HEY LOOK! AN INTER-RACIAL GAY COUPLE BURNING THE AMERICAN FLAG!

*changes a few rules*

And there we have it. Now go about your business, if you're not making enough money to survive then you are obviously stupid and/or lazy. Good day.

Note: on the HEY LOOK part I honesty tried to find the clip of Brian from Family Guy saying that too =( no luck.

[Rukh]

The conservative economic plan? It's quite detailed. Let's start with Capital Gains..


HEY LOOK! AN INTER-RACIAL GAY COUPLE BURNING THE AMERICA FLAG!

*changes a few rules*

And there we have it. Now go about your business, if you're not making enough money to survive then you are obviously stupid and/or lazy. Good day.

Note on the HEY LOOK part I honesty tried to find the clip of Brian from Family Guy saying that too =( no luck.

As exemplified by "Primarycolor" above. Conservatives don't have a plan, they have fearmongering.