This week the Times editorial board argued that Democrats need to show the country they have a vision for how to solve its most intractable problems — even if Mr. Trump wields his veto. So Opinion asked eight of our sharpest writers and thinkers to propose legislation for Democrats to consider. Some are bold ideas to bring down prices, others to end the war in Iran or expand the Supreme Court. They all speak to a hunger to move past Trumpism and imagine a new future.
- Build Housing
- Lower Prices. Now.
- Stop Giving OpenAI and Anthropic a Free Pass
- Pass Medicare for All, but for Kids
- Expand the Supreme Court
- Stop Elon Musk From Making Political Contributions
- End the Iran War
- Legalize Undocumented Immgirants
My first thought was the NYT is conservative. Then I read the list: it looks like a conservatives idea of what liberals want. I’m surprised they didn’t fall for the Arabic numerals meme
i don’t exactly understand. isn’t all of this what the politicians should do?
Sure, but I’m more commenting on
the Times editorial board argued that Democrats need to show
A conservative news media arguing what liberals should do. I’d rather read what a liberal news media thinks liberals should do.
I don’t disagree with any of it, more that it’s not enough and a bit mismatched with where I think liberal/progressive priorities are
For example I believe one of them proposed more highway dollars to build more highways in places where there is more housing growth. Firstly that’s always been true based on need. Secondly it’s unfair because many places with slow housing growth is intractable: where’s the help in solving whatever is blocking? But most importantly, effing trains. A more typical liberal/progressive proposal is to increase funding for transit to higher density housing, encourage higher density and transit oriented development.
what would you think are the more important priorities?
i would disagree that NYT is conservative. not being progressive doesn’t mean it’s not very much liberal. especially now that Ross Douthat has left his position of influence
For example I believe one of them proposed more highway dollars to build more highways in places where there is more housing growth.
no, it proposes withholding the highway dollars in places that refuse to lift limits on housing construction, i.e. giving less highway dollars
And it does all depend on the details. But places with no limits on construction tend to be the high growth ones anyway. They usually build sprawl, and this is “easy”. A liberal position would want to encourage transit, walkability, and housing density. It would encourage improving quality of life. Building highways has been fantastic for the country but we also know where over reliance on one strategy does more harm than good, builds an unsustainable society
A lot of the places with insufficient housing construction are already more crowded, more built up, more expensive, and it’s not that simple. And different places have different challenges. If you want to actually encourage housing, you need to get a lot more ambitious
i mean, the liberals i know get into heated debates over SUVs, walkability, urbanism and density every two months. so i would fully and strongly agree that is the stronger position, but i would disagree that is the liberal position. and again, i don’t see how this proposal involves building highways
They usually build sprawl, and this is “easy”.
it is easy to forget that people naturally built neighborhoods and centralized into cities. it took meticulous planning and an atrocious trove of funds—e.g. the GI Bill, Robert Moses redlining, and the 40-year effort that culminated in the Interstate system that then took another 30 years to build—to artificially sprawl.
urbanists have for a very long time pointed to single-family zoning as the major cause of all this sprawl and all this housing crisis, a housing restriction that needs to go. i am an urbanist and i agree. just ask !fuckcars.
i also feel like all the other proposals are very much liberal priorities (with the exception that Medicare for Kids is somewhat unrelated while Medicare for All is, but that is the point of that section)
If this is what their “sharpest writers and thinkers” can come up with, I’d say I’ll stick with my own cutting criticism of NYT.
what would you do? /g
i for one would go for an anarchist revolution but the list has criteria that all the proposals must be things that congress can legislate (since it’s a plea to Democrats), so nothing that would require changes to the constitution
