Bernie Sanders, Presidential Candidate and H-1B Skeptic

Presto Vivace writes: The H-1B visa issue rarely surfaces during presidential races, and that's what makes the entrance by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) into the 2016 presidential race so interesting. ... ...Sanders is very skeptical of the H-1B program, and has lambasted tech firms for hiring visa workers at the same time they're cutting staff. He's especially critical of the visa's use in offshore outsourcing.

Comments

Can he win?

[knightghost]

Does Sanders have any chance to become president? Bush and Clinton... been there, done that, both long term disasters.

Re:Can he win?

[I'm New Around Here]

Here we go again. The deficit from Clinton's years was due to Republican Congress setting the budget. It was also disappearing by time he left office. Bill Clinton did not leave a thriving economy that George W. Bush simply pissed away. Or did you not hear about the Dot Com Bubble, and a slight economic road bump in September of W's first year in office? Bush did a lot wrong, but the economy wasn't one of them.

You guys are so transparent. The same old mistaken arguments every time, yet you ignore any bad news from 'your team'.

Re:Can he win?

[jcr]

Contrary to popular belief, the president has no power at all to deal with the national debt. Our country's finances have always been the fault of the congress and its creature, the Federal Reserve.

-jcr

Re:Can he win?

[pwizard2]

Bush's tax cuts for the rich in addition to two unfunded wars sure didn't do the economy any good. Not to mention we were hemorrhaging 800K jobs per month when that dumbass left office.

Re:Can he win?

[pwizard2]

No, you got crumbs, and even that was an unintentional byproduct. The rich got a hell of a lot more benefit out of Bush's policies than you did. Look at what happened to the debt under Bush. The only POTUS who did a worse job was Reagan with his bullshit trickle-down economic policy. Unfortunately, the repubs took that as gospel and we've had 30 years of it. As a consequence this country is a withered husk of what it used to be.

Re:Can he win?

[Feral Nerd]

And what has Obama done with the national debt? Hmmmm?

I don't recall bringing Obama into this but since you have done that for me he is not what I'd call a competent president. However, ham-handed Obama may be he is also saddled with the legacy of what is arguably the biggest incompetent among a long sequence of incompentents evert to take up residence in the White House: Nixon, the blessed Saint Ronal Reagan, Bush the elder, Clinton, Bush the younger and now Obama. The last president the USA had that was worth his salt was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bush Jr. not only doubled the national debt he violated one of the longest standing axioms of US foreign policy 'never fight a land war in Asia' (and did not do it once, he did that twice), went on record as saying God had told him to do it and openly referred to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as crusades. That man is probably the biggest gift radical militant Islam has ever gotten. A man really has to be a special kind of moron to accomplish all that in his first term of office.

Re:Can he win?

[hey!]

Well, to be fair he did want to let the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010, which would have cut the deficit considerably. These were sunsetted when they were put into effect so that the Bush administration could claim minimal impact on long-term debt.

It was a deal with Congressional Republicans. Obama got a reauthorization and extension of unemployment benefits (this was in the Great Recession), an inflation adjustment for the alternative minimum tax so it wouldn't bite middle income people, an extension of the child tax credit and earned income credit. Congressional Republicans got an extension of Bush tax cuts on people making more than $250,000 and a reduction of the estate tax.

Basically when push came to shove, both parties preferred to kick the debt can down the road for a few more years. It may have even been the right choice at the time given the weak private sector spending. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no deficit hawks during recessions.

Re:Can he win?

[schnell]

You're damn right this country was great back when we had strong union jobs and a family could live comfortably on a single income. There were strong regulations and the top tax bracket was near 90%. Things weren't great for everyone but at least we weren't fucked like we are now.

Unfortunately, the period you're referring to was an inherently unsustainable one caused by the fact that the US emerged as a victor from a World War, and coincidentally the only one of the major powers in that war whose population and infrastructure were not seriously ravaged by it. Even among the victors - Britain, China, France, let's not even mention the Soviets - all paid a heavy price on their home territory. The losers received economic support from the magnanimous Western powers, but that was cold comfort to a populace largely bombed into ruins.

So the US got to live in a bubble for a decade or two where the rest of the world didn't have the technology or the infrastructure to compete with us in any meaningful economic area. (They either were rebuilding it, never had it in the first place, or were too busy tearing themselves apart in postcolonial revolutions.) As a result, we had near-autarky in an industrial economy buoyed by barely sustainable Cold War military and aerospace spending. Times were good.

But you do get that it was never going to stay that way, right? Eventually the US was going to have to compete with the rest of the world for things. And lo and behold, they could make transistors cheaper in Japan, then they could make automobiles cheaper (and noticeably better!) there, too. Textiles disappeared to Southeast Asia, and steel and other raw materials manufactures moved to Asia as well. By the time the '90s and NAFTA rolled around, it was pretty clear that American consumers would much rather pay a quarter for a can of Coke made in Mexico than 50 cents of one bottled in Virginia. Unless it shut itself off from the world completely - thereby hosing its own exports market - the US could not sustain living wages in low skill jobs forever. The modern equivalent of $55/hour for high school graduates in Detroit who welded three car doors together an hour between smoke breaks was never, ever going to last.

Re:Can he win?

[pwizard2]

Don't blame Clinton for the shutdown. I'm not sure what was in that budget, but it must have been terrible since as a moderate, Clinton was willing to negotiate most of the time. You seem to overlook the fact that the repubs were the ones issuing threats. How little has changed. They're still a bunch of spoiled children, as evidenced by their last shutdown a year or two ago.

Re:Can he win?

[meglon]

Here we go again. The deficit from Clinton's years was due to Republican Congress setting the budget.

Then explain why it is that the first year Bush is elected, with that SAME republican controlled congress, they pissed away a projected 5.7 trillion dollar 10 year projected surplus? The last 4 years of Clinton budgets resulted in: 1998 - $69.3 billion budget surplus, 1999 - $125.6 billion budget surplus, 2000 - $236.2 billion budget surplus, and 2001 - $128.2 billion budget surplus; the first four years of Bush's budgets...with that same republican controlled congress... netted us this: 2002 - $157.8 billion budget deficit, 2003 - $377.6 billion budget deficit, 2004 - $412.7 billion budget deficit, 2005 - $319 billion budget deficit.... and it only got worse from there.

A 5.7 trillion dollar surplus over the next 10 years would have come very close to eliminating ALL US debt... instead, Bush and the rest of his party of fiscal irresponsibility chose to ignore the debt, and give (most of) that money to the wealthiest.

Bush did a lot wrong, but the economy wasn't one of them.

Bullshit. Pure and utter bullshit. Two wars paid for by deficit spending, tax cuts that wiped out our surplus and transferred even more deficit spending directly to the wealthiest, and a massive unfunded (yes, MORE deficit spending) give-away to big pharma. There wasn't a thing Bush touched involving the economy that he did fuck up like a 5 dollar whore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

http://economix.blogs.nytimes....

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You guys are so transparent. The same old mistaken arguments every time, yet you ignore any bad news from 'your team'.

Perhaps you should be looking in the mirror when you say that. It would take a fucking idiot to not see the damage Bush did to this country.

Re:Can he win?

[meglon]

Unfortunately, the period you're referring to was an inherently unsustainable one caused by the fact that the US emerged as a victor from a World War, and coincidentally the only one of the major powers in that war whose population and infrastructure were not seriously ravaged by it. Even among the victors - Britain, China, France, let's not even mention the Soviets - all paid a heavy price on their home territory. The losers received economic support from the magnanimous Western powers, but that was cold comfort to a populace largely bombed into ruins.

So the US got to live in a bubble for a decade or two where the rest of the world didn't have the technology or the infrastructure to compete with us in any meaningful economic area.

And you'd be right on that if you weren't so wrong. I understand, it's a common talking meme of people who never learned the recent history of countries other than the US, but.....

The Marshall Plan helped reconstruction for most of western Europe (including West Germany) and by the time funding for the plan ended in 1952, the economies of all 18 countries had surpassed pre-war levels. 1951 was more than 1/3 better than 1938 for all countries involved. This idea that the US was the only ones around doing anything is not only absurd, but incredibly wrong.

The poster you replied to had it right.... our growth in the 50's and 60's also had 90% top marginal tax rates attached to them. People didn't "gain" as much wealth by pulling it out of companies then, because so much of it was consumed by taxes. It was better to reinvest it into the business to avoid those high taxes, and play the long game by growing the business. As soon as it became less of a tax burden to remove money (profits) from businesses, that's what owners did.. preferring the get-rich-right-now approach instead of actually growing businesses.

Higher tax rates made reinvesting profit into the businesses preferred, the GI bill was turning out hundreds of thousands of higher educated individuals, that damn socialized national roadways thing the commie lover Eisenhower pushed seemed to explode the growth potential of pretty much everything (other than horse and buggy sales), and then that other socialist kid Kennedy said "lets go to the moon," which helped do a number on pretty much every piece of solid state electronics EVER (and we just happened to have hundreds of thousands of highly educated people hanging around just looking to do something.... odd how that worked out).

But all that growth for those decades had dick to do with western Europe rebuilding, because that took a lot less time than most realize.

Re:Can he win?

[dywolf]

Bullshit.

Clinton (both of them) is a centrist, a "new democrat", almost identical politically to the moderate republicans of the 50s, with the biggest exceptions being things like gay rights. He was only "liberal" in comparison to the extreme conservatism the GOP has carved out for itself as it pushed ever more rightward.

He's also an interesting candidate for this

[spencerg83]

If you'd like to focus on Bernie Sanders' view on H-1B Visas, that's fine. But let's not forget that his remarks and avowed beliefs of Socialism are what really make him an interesting candidate for the Democratic Party, contrasted with the free-market, capitalist beliefs of his opponents.

Re:He's also an interesting candidate for this

[I'm New Around Here]

I could certainly see myself voting for Bernie Sanders. And I tend to vote conservative. I would rather have an honest socialist in office than a chameleon who claims to agree with me.

Re:He's also an interesting candidate for this

[Anonymous Coward]

While he calls himself a democratic socialist, I'd think more in the vein of Scandinavia and less of a Marxist dictatorship (ie, in Soviet Russia...). He's not anti-capitalistic, but he is anti-crony capitalistic. The difference is important-- he thinks that without government maintaining a fair playing field, those who have economic and political advantages will further tip the scales against those who don't.

To say he's not a capitalist though is misleading. He wants a free market, but one that works for all and isn't consistently being rigged by those who accumulate more power/wealth in a feedback loop of wealth leads to power leads to advantage leads to wealth leads to power leads to advantage leads to wealth ad infinitum as we have in our current U.S. system.

Bernie Sanders (any real shot at winning?)

[King_TJ]

Just a personal opinion, so take it for whatever you think it's worth. But IMO, Sanders is more of a campaign disruptor than a serious contender for the next presidential election.

He's known as a political "Independent" but as others have already noted, he's more of a Socialist really. I see some value in him wanting to bring up the H1-B VISA issue, but primarily so it encourages the other candidates to debate it.

I also hear quite a few comments from those supposedly disillusioned with "free market capitalism", so some of these people will surely find Sanders an interesting alternative. I find that quite unfortunate though. Personally, I'm still pretty firmly convinced that free market concepts really never got a fair shake in the U.S. in the first place. So often, we're sold that label while reality is quite different. Heck, I was just debating the whole issue with a friend of mine last week about the deregulation of the power companies and the disaster that created for California. He used it as a prime example of why free markets aren't really viable or desirable. I countered that actually, that was FAR more an example of fraud than anything else -- a problem that transcends politics or the type of marketplace you're working with. In fact, much of the scamming going on with all of that was only made possible because GOVERNMENT was still expected to make payments towards keeping the infrastructure working! (They had legislation in place where government would start paying out money whenever the utilization of the power lines went above a certain percentage of their maximum capabilities. Therefore, crooked businesses like Enron would create false entries, reserving utilization that was never really happening to fake capacity limits being hit and profit from the govt. funding that was theoretically going to upgrading that infrastructure.)

Time and time again, this is what I really see happening.... People get frustrated or disgusted at something that supposedly happens because of a lack of governmental controls. But a closer look makes you realize it was only due to government interference or control in the FIRST place that the scenario was set up. The net neutrality debates would probably be another example of this. Sure, we need government to step in and tell Comcast, "No! You can't merge with Time Warner!" now. BUT that scenario was QUITE unlikely to have ever happened in the first place if broadband internet service was handled in the private sector in the first place, minus govt. regulated monopolies getting preferential treatment when the services were first getting built out.

Re:Bernie Sanders (any real shot at winning?)

[hey!]

He calls himself a socialist, but most self-avowed socialist wouldn't consider him one because he doesn't favor compulsory worker ownership, production for use, or any of the usual socialist agenda. He's basically what in Europe would be called a "social democrat" -- pro welfare and collective bargaining within a capitalist production system. He'd fit in with the old UK Labour Party or the contemporary Scottish National Party.

Re:Sanders amazes me

[ATMAvatar]

but then goes for batshit insane politics that would push us back to the worst part of the soviet experiment.

Examples?

I looked him up to see what was so crazy, and all I found was:

• support for campaign finance transparency (DISCLOSE Act)
• opposition to concentrating media into a few corporations
• support for universal health care
• support for LGBT equality
• opposition to the bank bail-outs when they were fast-tracked through in 2008
• a bill increasing veteran disability compensation
• and a co-sponsoring of a bill to fix the VA.

None of that seems all that crazy or dangerous to me

Re:Sanders amazes me

[ganjadude]

supporting the concepts, and understanding the economics on how to give everyone everything for free are 2 different things. I support them all as well in theory, in practice* not so much

by in practice, i simply mean the methods that he himself want to try

National debt

[MillionthMonkey]

Obama has cut the budget deficit in half since 2008. (Bush left it at $1.5 trillion per year, and now it's about $750 billion). Since $750 billion is still greater than zero, the national debt continues to rise, at about half the rate that it did during the Bush administration- when, if you recall, no one seemed to be complaining about it at all.

Re:National debt

[tranquilidad]

Actually, there were a lot of people complaining about the deficit in Bush's last two years in office.

Let's look at all the numbers and not just your cherry-picked selection (these numbers are total - both on- and off-budget, source is the GPO):

2002 - 157 billion
2003 - 377 billion
2004 - 412 billion
2005 - 318 billion
2006 - 248 billion
2007 - 160 billion
2008 - 458 bilion
2009 - 1,412 billion

What, you might ask, happened in 2008? Oh yeah, that's the first fiscal year where the budget was passed by a Democratic controlled Congress. There were plenty of us begging that Bush veto those Congressional bills and he failed to do so in order to keep up the support he needed for the war.

The last year of the Bush presidency is very interesting as it relates to the budget. At the time there were a number of companies failing. Obama had been elected and Bush asked Obama what he wanted to have done. The incoming Obama administration had a lot of say in what was passed and Bush gave him full support. Even more interesting is that the TARP fund was fully funded in that budget and, hence, the huge number. However, the repayments of TARP were accounted for in the fiscal years in which they occurred. In essence, much of the budget deficits until TARP was repaid were artificially lower because they, in essence, borrowed from fiscal year 2009.

Re:Sanders amazes me

[__aaltlg1547]

Paying for them is a simple matter of raising taxes on wealthy people.

You think we can't afford to pay for health care? We're paying for it now through a combination of taxes and premiums, just in a less efficient system than what Sanders wants.

What other thing is it you think we can't afford that Sanders wants?

Re:Ah Free Market Capitalism

[ChrisMaple]

Private power companies don't work because they don't add value.

Within 400 yards of my front door is a hydro power plant owned by a paper mill. That power plant is one of the main reasons the paper mill is one of the few remaining mills in New England. Big value added to my town. Private power companies are continuing to be created these days, offering cheaper or "greener" power than existing companies, fueled by the sun, natural gas, water, biomass, wood chips, etc..

When everyone wants something it makes sense for it to be run as a public utility.

Complete non sequitur and contrary to fact. Everyone needs food, you want to buy it at GUM? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUM_(department_store). Most people want cars, do you want to have to buy a Trabant? Everyone needs shelter, do you want to live in a "project"? Everyone needs clothes, do you want to be limited to what the government supplies? (Good luck if you need orthopedic shoes.)

Adding a private element just lets someone skim 10-20% off the top is all while they cut down on safety.

Government control allows the appointment of political hacks to jobs that they're not competent to perform. Fortunately, they often don't bother to show up. There's no pressure to control costs; there's no pressure to perform maintenance, there's no financial motive to hire competent or productive people. Why be safe? Are your customers going to sue a government power company in government court? Even if they do, even if they win, who in the government cares?

Re:Sanders amazes me

[PopeRatzo]

we have been throwing trillions of dollars at it since FDR and we are no better off now then we were then. in fact some would say we are worse off

Who would say we're worse off today than in the 1930s?

Re:"Tax the rich" canard

[__aaltlg1547]

If the IRS grabbed 100 percent of income over $1 million, the take would be just $616 billion. That’s only a third of this year’s deficit.

This year's deficit is about $750 billion. I think you're emboldened quote is a little out of date.

Well, I don't really think rich people should pay for it ALL. Just a lot of it.

But let's look at that math. According to http://www.forbes.com/sites/mo...
the top 1% average in 2012 was $717,000 per household and there are roughly 1.2 million such households. Their income was therefore about $880 billion. Figures aren't in for last year but it's safe to say they're considerably higher.

The deficit last year was $564 billion. So yes, they could pay the deficit and have money to spare.
If you recognize that nobody's proposing that they do it without help from the moderately well-off, it starts looking not at all out of reach.

But paying the deficit wasn't even my point. If you want to nationalize health care, you do it with taxes. INSTEAD of the health-insurance premiums and all the nickel and your-whole-bank-account charges we pay now. Not in addition, INSTEAD.

Re:Sanders amazes me

[Fire_Wraith]

It's very, VERY important to pay attention to the terms when someone starts flashing around statistics. For one, it's very easy to talk about something else entirely, but make it seem like you're offering a contrast rather than comparing apples and oranges.

For instance, "top 5% of earners pay 60% of income tax" is true, but entirely misleading, because we're only talking about INCOME tax. That's the people who get paychecks. We're not talking about the truly rich, who don't have to work for a living, they make their money in investments - that is, capital gains. Now, capital gains is taxed, but at a much lower rate. This is why Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. There are also other taxes that people pay, but income and capital gains are the biggest chunks when we're talking about an individual (depending on where you live at least, some states don't have an income tax and use sales/etc tax instead, so YMMV).

Re:Sanders amazes me

[rahvin112]

Nearly half the people in the country pay no income taxes at all

This is an outright lie. You probably don't even realize it's a lie because you've bought into the propaganda. Every person who hold a job pays taxes including those on income. Social security and medicare taxes are NOT exempt-able and they ARE income taxes. The only way to not pay social security and medicare/medicaid taxes is to not have income, something the wealthy are remarkably good at not paying for. On top of this they pay their state taxes, including income, cigarette, alcohol, gas, sales and property along with all the other miscellaneous taxes and fees. In fact as a percentage of their income the poorest among us pay the highest proportion of their income in taxes than anyone else.

The nugget of truth that makes your lie so insidious is that the poorest among us don't pay FEDERAL income tax but they still pay taxes and they still pay income taxes. This little lie and deception allows you to paint entire segments of our society as non-contributing freeloaders and it's NOT TRUE.

All your bullshit numbers are based solely on federal income tax. They disregard all the other taxes entirely as if they don't exist and it's complete and utter horseshit. The most important fact, the one you completely ignore is that the poorest among us pay something like 50% of their income in various federal, state and local taxes. As a percentage of income they are the highest taxed individuals in this country.

Personally I'm a big believer that those people who have benefited the most from the system and have the means to support it should be the ones that have the highest burden in paying for it. That is NOT asking a lot.

Re:Sanders amazes me

[dywolf]

we're not.
specifically because of the programs we created since the 1930s.

without those programs the 2008 shitstorm would have made the 1930s look like a damp fart.

but the programs did their job: they arrested the fall and kept money moving in the system and reduced the severity of the crash.