Although their voting patterns often don’t reflect it, Americans claim to prefer substance over style in their presidential candidates. That claim is being tested to an unusual degree by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination takes shape.
By our count, Warren has issued 19 detailed and ambitious policy proposals since the beginning of the year, covering everything from taxes to housing to student debt to public lands to breaking up the giants of the tech industry. Her “I have a plan for that” slogan seems to be resonating with some voters, and her poll numbers are rising accordingly. She is also putting pressure on her 22 rivals for the nomination to follow her example, which should help all voters to make informed choices.
Warren not only has plans; she has big plans. Taken together, they would bring about major structural change to an economy that many Americans have concluded no longer works for them. She proposes such things as student debt cancellation; eliminating tuition at public colleges; a system of universal, affordable child care; and making big federal investments in housing. As to the inevitable question, “How are you going to pay for it?” — well, she also has a plan for that: Big tax increases on the wealthiest individuals and corporations, including a new tax on corporate profits and a new “wealth tax” on household assets in excess of $50 million. She calculates those measures would raise $3.8 trillion over 10 years.
Reasonable people can, and will, disagree about the merits of any of the individual proposals. But there is great value in focusing more broadly on how to make the economy function better. As Robert Reich, who served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, told The New York Times, “She is asking the biggest questions that exist: How do you make the free market work? How do you make capitalism actually work for the many rather than the few?”
And speaking of Bill Clinton, his famous declaration that “the era of big government is over” appears to have been premature. New York magazine reported recently on political scientist James Stimson’s most recent “Public Policy Mood estimate,” which measures shifts in ideological opinion over time. He concluded that the American public was more favorably disposed to liberal economic policy in 2018 than at any other time in the past 68 years. If that’s true, Warren’s proposals may find a receptive audience.
As to charisma on the campaign trail, Warren comes up short in the eyes of many observers. But, writes Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate.com, she shines during question-and-answer time, both because of her technical grasp of complex matters and because of her ability to explain them clearly.
This rings true from reading some of her position papers. Take, for instance, this passage from the wealth tax proposal: “While we must make income taxes more progressive, that alone won’t straighten out our slanted tax code or our lopsided economy. Consider two people: an heir with $500 million in yachts, jewelry and fine art, and a teacher with no savings in the bank. If both the heir and the teacher bring home $50,000 in labor income next year, they would pay the same amount in federal taxes, despite their vastly different circumstances. Increasing income taxes won’t address this problem. That’s why we need a tax on wealth.”
Do not take any of the above as an endorsement of Warren’s candidacy or any of her individual proposals, or even as a statement of preference among the contenders. There’s plenty of time to sort all that out. What we do endorse heartily is a presidential primary campaign that takes substance seriously and can serve to educate voters as to how the country ended up in its current mess and how it might get out of it. To her credit, Warren has set the stage for that.