Church of God News

Key takeaways: Should the 2020 Democrats go big or get real?

July 31, 2019

DETROIT (AP) — Should Democrats be going big or getting real? That’s the question that dominated the Democratic presidential primary debate as progressive favorites Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders fended off attacks from lesser-known moderates. The display amounted to a sometimes testy public airing of the party’s anxieties about how far left is too left and how to beat President Donald Trump. Here are the key takeaways from the debate:

EVOLUTION VS. REVOLUTION

The battle lines were clear at Tuesday’s debate from the opening remarks. This was the pragmatists against the front-runners seeking transformational change.

Over and over, moderate candidates like Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and former Rep. John Delaney argued Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ plans — from “Medicare for All” to the Green New Deal — are unrealistic and would scare off voters.

Bullock bemoaned the candidates’ “wish-list economics.” Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar dismissed free college even for wealthy families as unworkable and touted her ideas “grounded in reality.”

Hickenlooper called for “an evolution, not a revolution,” on health care.

The attacks weren’t shocking in a debate that featured the progressive standouts Warren and Sanders onstage with a handful of lesser-known moderates looking to seize the spotlight. But the two senators’ unified front in fighting them off was notable. https://www.apnews.com/95e20f6865394096895b3336afabc684

Updated July 31, 2019

U.S. health care policies took center stage Tuesday night at the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate, with more moderate challengers attacking Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, the leading progressives looking to oust President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. …

Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who has called for more incremental health care policy changes, said, “I have bold ideas, but they are grounded in reality.”

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said that Democrats had picked up 40 seats in the House of Representatives in the 2018 mid-term elections and not one of them had pushed for the Warren-Sanders Medicare for All plan.

“I’m a little more pragmatic,” Hickenlooper declared.

‘Recipe for disaster’

Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan called for a plan allowing Americans to buy into government-run insurance if they want to, but said that closing down the insurance industry “is a recipe for disaster,” especially among union members who would face the loss of hard-won health care benefits through collective bargaining.

The moderate candidates also attacked Sanders and Warren on immigration issues, even as several candidates assailed Trump’s immigration policies, including his since-abandoned practice of separating migrant children from their parents.

The moderate challengers criticized Sanders and Warren for proposing to end the filing of criminal charges against the thousands of undocumented migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexican border.

“We’ve got 100,000 people showing up at the border right now,” said Montana Gov. Steve Bullock. “If we decriminalize entry, if we give free health care to everyone, we’ll have multiples of that.” He said that by effectively encouraging migration to the United States, “You are playing into Donald Trump’s hands.”

Ryan said, “If you want to come into the country, you should at least ring the doorbell.” …

Throughout the night, the candidates sparred over foreign policy, Warren’s controversial plan for a wealth tax and debt-free college, payment of reparations to the U.S. descendants of slaves, trade, the city of Flint, Michigan’s prolonged drinking water crisis, and even the age of the candidates. Buttigieg, who is 37, stood next to Sanders, who is 77, and was asked by CNN’s Don Lemon whether Sanders was too old to be president.

Buttigieg demurred, saying, “I don’t care how old you are, I care about your vision. … We need the kind of vision that’s going to win. We can’t have the kind of vision that says, ‘Back to normal.'”

Sanders readily agreed with Buttigieg, boasting of the ideas he has advocated to dramatically alter the health care system and bring the pharmaceutical and insurance industries to heel. https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-politics/senators-warren-sanders-under-attack-democrats-presidential-debate