Realism for One

One of the things that irritates me the most about the upcoming election is that the media's line of questioning only seems to treat one candidate's policy proposals as though they're actually serious. Bernie Sanders is routinely questioned as though his proposals are crazy and unrealistic despite the fact that he's basically advocating for what every other western democracy already has.  I have no problem with asking Sanders tough questions like how he plans to pay for universal education or how he would get massive overhaul of the health care system through congress.  What I do have a problem with, is why other candidates are not subject to the same level of scrutiny.

Hillary Clinton has proposed a number of "reasonable" policies that under the current congress, where Obama could nominate Robert Bork and still not get him through confirmation in the Senate, would stand absolutely no chance of passing.  Clinton routinely talks about how she "would get stuff done" despite not offering any actual evidence of it.  The only things I see Clinton actually able to do given the current political climate, is work together with the Republicans to get bad free-trade deals and deeper involvement in wars we can't possibly win.

I don't hear how Clinton would pay for her policies.  Sanders at least has the decency to tell us that his "free stuff" would result in higher taxes and not just for the super-rich.  I never hear Clinton questioned on whether her "reasonable" and "technocratic" health care or education policies would create a massive amount of paperwork and bureaucracy for ordinary citizens to navigate.  I haven't heard anything about how these means-tested policies would be extraordinarily easy for congress to remove precisely because they don't apply to everyone.

Clinton's "expertise" on foreign policy has been touted by both the campaign and by the media.  This is the same "expertise" that voted to sink us into a quagmire in Iraq, a vote for which she still hasn't taken full responsibility for.  This is the same "expertise" that supported regime change in Libya, a policy that has left us with a completely failed state.  This is the same "expertise" that supported regime change in Syria and then decided that the best course of action was to pour money and weapons into a situation where literally every side of the conflict is committing atrocities on a regular basis.  I'm sure Clinton is very knowledgeable, knows more than Sanders about alliances, and managing the bureaucracy of the State Department and the Pentagon, but that doesn't mean she exercises good judgement.

Don't even get me started on the Republicans.  I've watched a fair amount of the Republican debates (despite the Surgeon General warning against it) and there is barely any discussion of policy.  When policy is discussed, Republicans are completely unconstrained by cost, constitutionality, political feasibility, or what they said five minutes ago.

Donald Trump claims that he will "build a wall and have Mexico pay for it". This is beyond idiotic. Apart from the fact that walls aren't particularly effective at keeping anyone or anything out of your country; despite the fact that Mexican immigration is now at a net negative with the United States; I have yet to hear anyone press Trump on the obvious question of "Why the fuck would Mexico pay for us to build a wall?"

There have been shockingly few questions on the massive increase to the national debt that the tax plans of any of the three Republican front-runners would cause.  For a party that is constantly throwing its hands up in the air and complaining about the debt when Democrats want to spend money, this is more than a tad hypocritical.

I heard Trump questioned about his tax policy briefly in the last debate and his answer was three-fold:

• He'd cut the Department of Education and something else.  I don't remember, but it doesn't matter because it didn't add up to that much. 
• His tax policy would create growth.
• He'd cut waste and fraud.

Now in all fairness to Trump, this is the same bullshit line I've heard from Republicans for years and it never works.  Tax cuts don't create that much growth compared to the amount of debt they create and "waste and fraud" is a tiny percentage of federal expenditures.  Granted "waste" is to a certain degree, in the eye of the beholder.  For example, I consider the $596 billion spent in FY14 on the defense department to be largely (but not entirely) wasteful.

Trump is occasionally questioned by his opponents (you know, the idiot and the sociopath) on his sudden "pro-life" stance.  Has anyone even looked into the possibility that Trump himself might be responsible for like a half-dozen abortions?  I mean the guy has had three wives and has bragged about how many women he's slept with.  You're telling me, at the age of 69, after all those women that Trump has only slipped five past the goalie?  Now who is being naive?

In this election, the only person being held to account for their policy proposals is Bernie Sanders. This isn't a reality TV show; it's the future of our country.  All of the candidates for president need to be subject to tough questioning on policy.  America deserves better.