The vast majority of both Republicans and Democrats who said they plan to vote in the 2020 presidential primary support legislation rolled out by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders last week that would cap credit-card interest rates at 15%.
Nearly 70% of Republican primary voters and 73% of Democratic primary voters said they either support or strongly support the proposal to cap rates at 15%, according to a new INSIDER poll. Just over 60% of respondents who don't plan to vote in the 2020 presidential primaries also said they support the bill, known as the Loan Shark Prevention Act. — www.businessinsider.com/...
When Democrats propose issues that materially improve the lives of Americans, they garner the support of most Americans. This was true of Social Security, Medicare and the ACA. It is also true of Medicare For All, and is clearly true of the Loan Shark Prevention Act. AOC and Bernie’s proposal offers a simple solution that would improve the finances and lives of tens of millions of Americans who collectively have over $1 Trillion in credit card debt. This is a major pocketbook issue that impacts most Americans:
Credit card interest rates have never been higher. The average card interest rate is currently 17.41 percent, according to CreditCards.com’s latest report. That’s up from 16.15 percent one year earlier and 15.22 percent two years ago.
And still, credit card delinquency rates, or late payments over 90 days past due, remain relatively low even though rates have been slowly rising in the last few years.
Meanwhile, outstanding student loan debt has tripled in the last decade and is now $1.5 trillion. — www.cnbc.com/...
This is a good proposal, it does a good thing. This is why it garners broad support. It is also a big policy with a lot of impact and concentrated interests that want it to fail. If it is to succeed, the proponents will have to continue to garner support for it in all corners. If you want to get big, major things done, you have to bring most of the country along with you and that involves speaking to most of the country. It’s not enough to merely win the Democratic primary by leaning on your power over the narrow party apparatus and rely on the fact that in a two-party system you’ll win the general roughly 50% of the time. You need to do more to bring fundamental change. And when we do more, offer more, we find support in all corners:
Markey, who also spoke at the rally, said Republicans who denounce the plan as socialism ignore more than a century of tax breaks for the oil industry. Referring to wind and solar power and other renewable energy sources, Markey said, “Give us some of that socialism that the oil and industry has been enjoying for so long.” — time.com/…
More than 80 percent of registered voters support the Green New Deal proposal being pushed by progressional Democratic lawmakers, a new poll found.
The survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that 92 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans back the Green New Deal plan. — thehill.com/...
But Republican politicians and their outlets like Fox are hard at work making the case against these proposals and demonizing them. If we are to move them forward we will have to counter their disinformation, and meet them where they are.
A new Fox News poll finds that raising income taxes on ten-millionaires is a policy that enjoys broad bipartisan support among 85 percent of Democrats, 54 percent of Republicans, and 70 percent of registered voters overall. Hiking taxes on incomes over one million was almost as popular overall, with 65 percent support.
Asked, in broad terms, to choose between cutting taxes or raising spending, a majority of Americans opted for the latter, with only 40 percent preferring tax cuts.
— www.washingtonpost.com/...
However, there are also some who pretend to practice politics but aren’t really interested in delivering major programs that improve the lives of millions or fundamentally remedy the extreme inequality of power and material conditions that our people experience. Their approach is something like the fantasy league aspect of politics. My team, my player, is what they root for. They aren’t in it to make anyone’s life better, they want power. In the case of many gadflies or hangers-on, the goal is merely proximity to power. These gadflies are the kind of folks who will compare an appearance on a network to “attending a klan rally”. Recognize them and know their game. Then, keep your eye on the prize and work towards your objectives.
— @subirgrewal