I wrote the below but don’t feel great about it. I have a lot more thinking to do on the topic. But I’ll post it anyways because it’s what is on my mind.
Following up on yesterday’s post on potential future states of the US, it seems like one of the scenarios is fairly credible (election of multi-race working class party) to cause the stop in certain trends of today that seem a bit crazy but there’s no good explanation as to what would stop them. A few examples of runaway trends in core human needs that have been growing at high single digit growth rates for long periods of time:
- House / apartment values
- Tuition
- Healthcare costs
To envision a future coalition party whose main goal is to level the playing field between the middle / lower income class vs upper class – the following could be drastic but simple actions that ‘burn down’ the government’s role in driving disparity:
- Home values: Remove government subsidy via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for higher value homes, investor purchased homes and multifamily real estate.
- Tuition: Stop government funded student loans by dissolving Sallie Mae, cap tuition at $5k / yr, make admissions processes blind and require balanced income distribution (vs race distribution).
- Healthcare: Introduce price competition by making everyone shop for and pay for their own insurance vs their company paying for it / selecting providers. Or have the government run it a la Canada. It seems like most other developed nations have clearer / more trustworthy healthcare systems than the US.
While I’m no expert on any of these topics, and the above may well be *completely erroneous*, I think the broader point is distrust (on my part and I presume many others) of elected officials because core problems are so difficult for these folks to even attempt to make progress on. And it doesn’t seem implausible that at some point, the working class elects a group of officials wholly different than the incumbent swamp consisting of both Republicans and Democrats to make life more equal.