What is the topic discussed by Trump and Hillary?

What are Trump and Hillary fighting for?

All economic problems are essentially political problems, and they are all about the redistribution of interests. It's all about the government's policy orientation, which side it should stand on, because obviously the government is on which side, the policy orientation is different, the policy orientation is different, and the development direction and benefit distribution are different. At present, the game behind the American election is nothing more than a question of which side the government should stand on. To the left, it advocates taxing the rich, protecting social security, federal medical insurance and other systems, and eliminating social inequality. Its representative figures are Sanders, the Democratic candidate in this American election, and his democratic socialist plan. To the right is to advocate tax cuts, reduce government supervision, and advocate laissez-faire. The purpose is to try to eradicate Roosevelt's New Deal and influence and bring America back to the gilded age. This scheme became mainstream in the 1970s. Milton friedman, an American economist, was full of optimism, and named the title of the last chapter of his book "Free Choice" "The Trend is Changing", because people generally believed at that time that the planned economy would be transformed into a market economy. However, more than 30 years later, people found that the trend in the United States has changed, and no one dared to blatantly advocate this plan, otherwise it would be tantamount to political suicide. Both the centre-left and the centre-right are trying to seek a compromise and balance between the left and right, not only to maximize the votes, but also because a stable society can not be separated from the cooperation and balance among capital, government and society, and its representative is the current Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. As for Trump's idea, it is a kind of alien, difficult to understand and unable to adapt, but he is like a child who tells the truth in the crowd. "The emperor is naked."

Historically, American politics and economy are like a pendulum, constantly changing between the gilded age and the progressive age. The gilded age is the age of inequality in wealth and power, and the progressive age is the age of relatively equal. The former is dominated by individualism and market, and advocates big market and small government, while the latter is dominated by society and collectivism, and advocates that the government plays an active role. The former advocates tax reduction, while the latter often advocates tax increase. It is precisely because of this periodic swing that two huge arcs have been formed in American history. According to paul krugman, an American economist, one is the economic arc, from serious inequality to relatively equal and then back to inequality; The other is the political arc, from extreme bipolar opposition to bipartisan cooperation to bipolar opposition. These two arcs are parallel. Specifically, before Roosevelt's New Deal, it can be called a long gilded era. Despite the reform of Roosevelt, the most prominent feature of this era is the high inequality between the rich and the poor, which has never wavered. Of course, the gilded age is also an era of rapid economic rise in the United States, an era of advocating freedom and personal self-struggle. People think that people can naturally promote the development of public welfare undertakings while pursuing their own interests, so this is a typical Adam Smith economic era, so it is also the ideal golden age and legendary capitalist era that neo-liberal economists intend to return to later. Before the New Deal, there was basically no welfare in American society, and there was no social insurance plan provided by the government. Governments at all levels are very small, and everyone's tax burden is very low except the very rich. But this era finally ended in the Great Depression of 1930s, and was replaced by a progressive era represented by Roosevelt's "New Deal".

The Great Depression in 1930s was both an economic crisis and a crisis of faith. People no longer believe in liberal economics, as Roosevelt said at that time, "We have always known that arbitrary egoism is a bad character. Now we know that this is still bad economics. " If people used to believe in individual responsibility system, laissez-faire, decentralization system and limited government, then now people begin to believe in government responsibility system and strong government, and believe that planned economy is feasible and even the most vital system in creating material wealth and promoting human freedom. The capitalist system based on private free market mechanism is a flawed system, which can neither create material prosperity widely shared by people nor provide extensive human freedom. Due to the change of the tide, from 1930s to 1970s, the United States carried out a series of ambitious policies aimed at reducing social inequality. During the two world wars, the United States created a very advanced income tax and real estate tax system, and established a graded progressive income tax system that was never used in Europe. In the half century from 1930s to 1980s, the average personal income tax rate of the highest income group in the United States (with an annual income of more than $6.5438+0 million) was 82%, and it reached 965.438+0% in the 1940s and 1960s (from Roosevelt to Kennedy), and it was still as high as 70% when Reagan was elected president in 654.38+0980. This policy did not affect the strong growth of American economy after the war, because if senior managers can get the salary of $6,543,800+,there is no reason to give them another $6,543,800+. In the same period, the property tax of the highest income group in the United States was also between 70% and 80%, which greatly reduced the phenomenon of capital concentration in the United States. It can be said that the United States in the 1950s was a middle-class society. At that time, the economy kept everyone busy. Not only are there a lot of job opportunities, but wages have reached an unprecedented level and are rising year by year. This era of great prosperity is still a paradise in American memory.

However, the good times did not last long. Since 1970s, this trend has changed again. People no longer believe in government and planned economy, but believe that only market economy can achieve prosperity and freedom. People began to believe Reagan's creed: "Our problems cannot be solved by the government, because the government itself is the problem." When Reagan was elected in 1980, he put forward a plan to restore the legendary capitalism that was said to have existed. The climax of this new scheme is the tax reform of 1986, which ended the progressive tax system for half a century and reduced the personal income tax of the highest income group to 28%. During the Clinton administration and the Obama administration, Democrats did not really challenge this choice, and the personal income tax of the highest income group was stable at around 40%. This has led to the outbreak of inequality, high-income earners get ridiculously high salaries, fiscal revenue stagnates in most parts of the United States, and economic growth is slow. Reagan also decided to freeze the federal minimum wage. Since 1980, the federal minimum wage has been gradually eroded by inflation (slightly higher than $7 per hour in 20 16, and close to $65,438 per hour in1969). During the Clinton and Obama administrations, this new political ideology system has not been weakened. Paul krugman, an American economist, once analyzed that the "great differentiation" of American income after 1970s was basically a reverse "great compression". Before, some systems and norms were established to limit inequality, but then these systems and norms were destroyed, so this period is a retrogressive period, which can be called the new "gilded age". By the time the financial crisis broke out in 2008, Americans had been fed up. Obviously, this trend will change again. The truth once became heresy, and heresy became truth.

Saunders' success today shows that many Americans are tired of increasing inequality and these so-called political reforms, and they hope to restore the advanced system and egalitarian tradition in the United States. When competing with Obama for the presidential nomination in 2008, Hillary tended to the left on health care and other issues, but today she seems inclined to maintain the status quo and become another successor to the Reagan-Clinton-Obama political system. Sanders made it clear that he hoped to restore the progressive tax system and raise the federal minimum wage to $65,438 +05 per hour. He also said that he would provide free medical care and higher education. At present, the educational inequality in the United States has reached an unprecedented level, which highlights the gap between the lives of most Americans and the elite speeches used by the winners to comfort people under this system. At the same time, * * * and the party are caught in the rising nationalism, anti-immigration, anti-Muslim remarks and the phenomenon of constantly beautifying wealthy whites to accumulate wealth. The justices appointed by President Reagan and President Bush removed the legal restrictions on the influence of private funds on politics, which made the task of candidates like Sanders even more arduous. But new ways of political mobilization and crowdfunding may prevail and push the United States into a new political cycle.