(The Week)
You know how sometimes you come across something that you never thought would exist only to realize you've been dreaming of it for years without knowing it, like the amazing country album The Supremes cut in 1965? This is how I felt when I discovered the Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, a.k.a. Ross Perot for millennials. It had never occurred to me that what the Democratic presidential race needed in 2020 was a soft reboot of the Texan businessman's maverick populist wonkery, but now that I know it exists I'm absolutely delighted.
Most of the 2020 Democrats have websites full of donation buttons and windy nonsense about hope and unity. You would have to go a long way to discover what, if anything, most of them have to say about public policy. Not Yang. His is the most detailed platform I have ever seen from any candidate in a primary election. It is also far and away the most interesting.
You could spend hours perusing this website. Under the "Policy" tab there is a series of headings that direct you to Yang's position on everything from tort reform to the regulation of artificial intelligence. It is certainly an eclectic range. Yang supports universal health care, the reform of the student loan industry, the implementation of a postal banking system, and free financial counseling for Americans. He wants to eliminate robo-calling and to increase public funding for the arts and local newspapers. He would like to protect children from smartphones and to pay college athletes. He argues — rightly — that the best way to ensure that wealthy people pay their fair share of taxes is to impose a VAT, something that would also help to restructure the economy so that it is not organized around endless wasteful consumption of cheap goods Read more
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