Political negotiation - What would you be willing to give?

Great Debates
61

I’d be willing to see the 2nd Amendment repealed, the passage of pretty much any regulations that environmentalists could want, a $10/hr minimum wage, amnesty for most illegal immigrants, a big expansion in welfare, a big expansion in foreign humanitarian aid, and a universal single payer health care system.
In return, I’d want a ban on abortion, a 10% flat income tax regardless of amount earned, a doubling of NASA’s budget, the revived production of F-22 Raptors, a ban on affirmative action, increased arms sales to US allies in East Asia, the inclusion of Poland in the visa waiver program, and the diplomatic recognition of Taiwan as an independent nation.

62

Besides the abortion ban and the flat tax these are all fairly minor demands.

63

I found this thread concept so interesting that I gave it more thought and decided to post a revised list of concessions.
As a conservative, if negotiations were up to me, I’d be willing to offer liberals 29 concessions in return for just 7 concessions:

**
Concessions offered:**

  1. A universal single-payer health care system would be installed, with price ceilings for medical procedures.
  2. The Second Amendment would be repealed and private gun ownership banned entirely.
  3. Welfare and unemployment assistance would be doubled.
  4. Amnesty and citizenship would be offered to most of or nearly all 11 million illegal immigrants.
  5. Liberals would be allowed to pass virtually any environmental regulations they wanted, within reason.
  6. Outsourcing of jobs could be prohibited.
  7. The US military’s size would be cut in half (in terms of number of personnel.)
  8. International humanitarian aid would be tripled.
  9. The Electoral College would be abolished.
  10. The minimum wage would be raised to $20/hour.
  11. Liberals would be allowed to pass virtually any regulations they wanted on the banking, insurance and finance industries, within reason.
  12. Capital punishment would be abolished entirely.
  13. CEO and corporate salaries could be capped at a maximum ceiling of $1 million/year.
  14. Education spending could be doubled.
  15. Civilian nuclear energy would be phased out entirely.
  16. Research and development spending could be doubled.
  17. Voter ID requirements would be dropped for all elections.
  18. Capital gains and sales taxes would be drastically increased; same for tariffs.
  19. Legal immigration would be allowed to increase greatly.
  20. The U.S. nuclear arsenal would be drastically reduced to just 1,000 warheads.
  21. Tuition and room+board for any accredited U.S. colleges/universities would not be permitted to exceed $30,000 a year.
  22. All employers would be required to allow a minimum of 20 vacation/sick days each year.
  23. The Taft-Hartley Act would be repealed.
  24. Cut all U.S. carbon emissions in half in a decade’s time.
  25. End all corporate welfare.
  26. Schools would be allowed to have racial quota ceilings to limit admission of races that score higher on standardized testing (as long as such limits are no lower than 50% of an incoming class.)
  27. The U.S. military would be withdrawn from most overseas bases. Dozens of domestic U.S. military bases would also be closed.
  28. There would be a public health insurance option to compete with private health insurance companies.
  29. Maximum permissible income for *any *U.S. citizen in a calendar year would be capped at $1 billion/year. Any income earned beyond that would be forfeited to the government.

**

Concessions wanted in return:**

  1. A balanced-budget amendment.
  2. A 10% flat income tax for everyone.
  3. A ban on same-sex marriage.
  4. A ban on abortion.
  5. Much stricter media laws and regulations. Any false information published by the media, intentionally or unintentionally, would incur very steep penalties.
  6. Creationism would be recognized as scientifically valid and could not be used as a basis for denying a school accreditation, or for taking any negative action against a school, employee or student.
  7. A requirements that at least 20% of the federal budget be spent on national defense annually.
64

Aren’t these two in direct contradiction with each other? It’s just a very weirdly set up set of tax brackets, with only two rates… 10% and 100%.

Also, your concessions 1 and 28 seem to be saying the same things in slightly different terms. In any case, as a liberal, a fair number of your “concessions” are things that I have never actually wanted or asked for, and some others are treating the symptom instead of the disease (such as #13), but an interesting read, thanks.

65

I’m pulling out a bunch of items that don’t add up. Lots of new spending, and lots less revenue, especially if you consider that deficit spending is revenue. (I include the $20 minimum wage as new spending because many government workers, including contractor employees, now make less. And I include cutting carbon in half because the government would have do it’s part, at great cost, because of the aggressive timeframe you mandate as a supposed concession.)

You call for, as a concession, halving the number of military members, while keeping defense spending the same as a proportion of federal spending. Lots more money for defense contractors, I guess.

In a democracy, you don’t trade abortion for aid to education. You legislate (or litigate) each issue by itself rather than making deals involving distant matters

66

That’s because, since Reagan, there’s been no difference between Republicans and Democrats on fiscal issues.

67

Well there is the matter of technique as well as legislative preferences here. Basically, I have seen most negotiations on economic issues between Republicans and Democrats as a polite little pretendy game where the Democrats offer the Republicans 90 percent of what they want from the outset (remember Obama BRAGGED that he did this at one time) and the Republicans wail like crazed two-year-olds because they didn’t get 99 percent of what they want.

I would stake out the following progressive positions and fight like hell for all of them:

  1. Reign in the One Percent. Raise taxes on the rich. End tax loopholes for individuals and corporations. No more corporate welfare, especially for Big Oil. End farm subsidies as well – farming has become a millionaire’s game.
  2. Draconian tax penalties for companies that ship jobs overseas. Want to be an American corporation? Hire American workers!
  3. Break up the big banks. Too Big To Fail is Too Big To Exist
  4. Reinstate Glass-Steagall – Wall Steet robber baron’s can’t play roulette with depositor’s money any more
  5. Make it illegal for a firm that invests for pension funds, etc., to hedge against the financial instruments they sell to pension fund managers. If you don’t believe in the instrument, don’t sell it. Might even require the investment firm to own a fixed percentage of the properties they sell.
  6. Make the penalty for financial crimes lengthy jail terms to be served by top officers and members of the board of directors of corporations, rather than the petty, meaningless fines we have now.
  7. Heavily tax robotic appliances that displace workers, those taxes to be used to retrain or subsidize workers who lose their jobs to said robots
  8. Ban all guns.
  9. Abortion to be strictly a matter between a woman and her physician. Hands off.
  10. Gay marriage to be recognized as perfectly legal everywhere.
  11. Decriminalize prostitution and drugs. Free all prisoners in jail for such crimes.
  12. Hiding money in offshore tax havens punishable by lengthy jail terms.
  13. Get money out of politics. End all PACS. All campaign spending to come from a limited federal budget amounting to a $1 tax on all taxpayers. Any other campaign spending, by the candidate or third party groups including unions, to be illegal, the lawbreakers looking at long jail terms, not fines.
  14. Corporations are not people, they do not have free speech rights or religious rights. They’re just a legal dodge to help rich people avoid liability for the things corporations do to make them money.
  15. End the embargo on Cuba, normalize relations
  16. Require that all prisoners who work be paid a minimum wage. You don’t get to reinstate slavery by charging people with crimes.
  17. End all for-profit prisons. No person or corporation should have a financial interest in imprisoning human beings.
  18. For the same reason, outlaw labor unions for prison guards.
  19. $30 an hour minimum wage, no exceptions. Free internships to be outlawed
  20. Churches that are politically active, i.e., that endorse specific candidates or bills before a federal or state legislature, will lose their tax-exampt status.

I would press hard to enact all these measures into law, very hard, hard enough to make der lamentations of der right wing talking head audible on the moon. I might make concessions on some of them, not on others, it would be conservatives’ job to guess which one.

In doing so, I would merely be mirroring the approach taken by the current Republican Party in all its negotiations.