How to keep the Senate (if we win in Georgia) and the House in 2022? Do what Andrew Yang suggested: [View all]

[LaMouffette]

Begin $1,000-per-month payments to Americans as a way to compensate American workers for the thousands of jobs that have been outsourced to other countries.

Yang suggested these payments as a way to offset job loss due to automation, but it's just as valuable as a way to offset job loss due to outsourcing. He proposes paying for it with a value added tax (VAT). From a 2019 PBS News Hour article:

As Andrew Yang takes his place among the top 10 Democratic presidential candidates during a debate in Houston this week, the entrepreneur’s central campaign proposal — and the new tax he wants to use to pay for it — could soon come under increased scrutiny.

Yang plans to give every American adult $1,000 a month in universal basic income, as a way to offset job loss from automation. The first-time presidential candidate proposes paying for the monthly distributions, in large part, by implementing a new 10 percent value-added tax (VAT) on goods and services.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-would-andrew-yang-give-americans-1000-per-month-with-this-tax


I think we should do some form of the value added tax, but more importantly, pay for it by taxing the profits of the American corporations who have moved their production, call centers, and IT departments overseas.

Many people voted for Trump in 2016 because they were angry and frustrated over the loss of manufacturing jobs to overseas outsourcing. Trump declared that he would bring manufacturing jobs back and make companies who outsourced face consequences. He didn't do that, so I have no clue why people voted for him again in 2020. But that anger over disappearing jobs is still very much there.

The Democratic Party could begin to convince lower-income Americans that they truly are the party of the people by actually enacting consequences against those companies. A tax on companies that outsource used solely to fund a monthly $1,000 payment to American workers would be something concrete and incredibly beneficial to lower-class and middle-class Americans.