Based on a suggestion from my 1st diary on DKos, I wanted to highlight some of my favorite Yang policies besides his flagship Freedom Dividend/Universal Basic Income proposal.
I’ve linked to Andrew’s policy page in each header and included additional relevant info or media and hope to generate some lively discussion afterwards. It goes without saying that I’m not affiliated with the Yang 2020 campaign so these are my personal opinions and please point out any errors that I may have made. Thanks for reading!
1. Human Centered Capitalism
- Capitalism is working amazingly; GDP is at record highs and the shareholder class is doing as good as ever. But the average American is not sharing in this prosperity, in fact, the well-being of each individual American is roughly irrelevant in our current mode of capitalism and will become even more irrelevant as automation, AI, and other advanced technologies proliferate. Andrew believes that:
The focus of our economy should be to maximize human welfare. Sometimes this aligns with a purely capitalist approach, where different entities compete for the best ideas. But there are plenty of times when a capitalist system leads to suboptimal outcomes.
Unfortunately, every single reader of this post is more than able to point out countless examples of capitalism running amok in your life (500%+ increases in the out-of-pocket cost of a epi-pen, opiod manufacturers supplying both the product and the cure, widespread pollution and illegal dumping of toxic materials since proper disposal eats away at profit margins). I believe our economic system requires a massive change, and it may take an outsider to our political and capital institutions to create this change.
2. Medicare for All
- Andrew stated at a campaign event that he will be releasing his comprehensive healthcare plan shortly, which I am eagerly awaiting. On the stump, he has emphasized M4A with a public option that progressively moves to a single payer model, especially as the public option outcompetes private insurance in the marketplace.
3. Lower Emissions, Higher Ground
- Andrew’s beliefs on climate control are similar to many in the field, with a few exceptions. Yang says that things are even worse than we think, is in favor of including nuclear power in creating a zero emission energy grid by 2050 due to difficulties in scaling up other renewables to the necessary scale and wants the US to take the global lead in funding research on prospective technologies such as thorium, geoengineering, and anything else that could realistically help this existential crisis (yes, including space mirrors as a last resort option).
4. Democracy Dollars and Ranked Choice Voting
- Restructuring our democracy and how individuals participate is of fundamental importance to me, and I would argue that Andrew Yang may be as good a champion of this ideal as any candidate. Nobody in a democracy should feel like their vote doesn’t matter and in my humble opinion, any candidate that does not have a plan to address the influence of lobbying in our democracy is missing the boat. Professor Lawrence Lessig’s Equal Citizens organization has rated Andrew as an A+ for his policies on restoring power to American citizens.
While these 2 proposals (and other such as Congressional term limits, restoring voting rights to ex-felons, automatic voter registration, preventing Cabinet members from accepting speaking fees and industry jobs, and the local journalism fund) are far from original Andrew Yang ideas, I believe they represent a willingness by a candidate to study and identify the most far-reaching but also practical ideas available and then championing the highest impact proposals on behalf of the American people, regardless of whether these ideas test well with focus groups or impact on campaign fundraising.
5. Decriminzaling personal opioid use and adopting “the Portugal model"
6. Data as a property right
- Companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook have built their businesses on the backs of our data. Not only do we have no control over when it’s happening or how it’s happening, we also never know the extent of what is happening under the hood. And this disparity will only deepen as we head further into the 21st century and technology continues to advance.
7. Promote Vocational Education
- As somebody who has completed and then worked in higher education, I’ve seen the over-prescription of college first-hand. Some of those individuals would have been better off personally and financially from learning a trade. Other individuals should be encouraged to explore paths that do not require a college degree upon finishing high school (and having a Freedom Dividend of $1000/mo will provide young adults with greater opportunities to take risks and follow their true passions).
8. Implementing the American Scorecard
- This lines up with Human Centered Capitalism but I wanted to bring some special attention to this topic. I think GDP is a terrible measure for well-being but it still maintains a god-like role in our current economic thinking, despite the existence of many other measures of well-being. In his proposal, we will take these existing measurements that the government is already collecting and create the following benchmarks, which will be shared with the American people via PowerPoint during every State of the Union.
- Quality of life and health-adjusted life expectancy
- Happiness/Well-Being and Mental Health
- Environmental quality
- Affordability
- Childhood success rates
- Underemployment
- Income Inequality
- Consumer and Student Debt
- Work and civic engagement levels
- Volunteerism
- Infant mortality
- Quality of infrastructure
- Access to education
- Marriage and divorce rates
- Substance abuse and related deaths
- National optimism
- Personal dynamism/economic mobility
9. More Than a Handshake — Addressing veteran suicide, civilian readjustment, homelessness, and more
- Andrew is in support of both ending the Forever Wars as well as devoting significant resources to aid those who have served and would devote more resources to civilian readjustment for veterans departing the the military, provide greater emphasis on veteran-specific health care such as controlled substance waivers when scientific efficacy has outpaced our current laws, and reducing the current rate of veteran suicide from 22 a day to less than half that by the end of his first term.
10. Supporting the Arts
Thanks for reading. Yang has over 100+ policy stances on his website so I encourage people to take a peek and look forward to hopefully some healthy debate in the comments section.