Tuesday, April 16, 2019

JAMES MURDOCH GIVES MAX DONATION TO PETE BUTTIGIEG'S CAMPAIGN


2020: James Murdoch Gives Maximum Donation to Pete Buttigieg’s Campaign



james-murdoch-pete-buttigieg-getty
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for National Geographic, Scott Olson/Getty
JOSHUA CAPLAN
2,462
1:57

James Murdoch, the scion of billionaire and Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch, gave the maximum possible donation to 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s campaign.

Murdoch donated $2,800 to Buttigieg, the largest amount possible to a primary candidate, according to recently filed Federal Election Commission reports. Murdoch joins other high-profile figures — including Susan Rice, formerly the National Security Adviser under President Barack Obama, and actor Ryan Reynolds — in supporting the 37-year-old Harvard graduate’s White House bid. Buttigieg has enjoyed a recent bounce in the polls thanks to a torrent of wall-to-wall media coverage.
According to an Emerson Polling survey released Monday, Buttigieg now ranks third in popularity among Democrat presidential contenders with only former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) ahead of him.
Murdoch, who served as CEO of 21st Century Fox, is described as a political centrist, reports the New York Times. Since leaving the Fox empire this March, Murdoch founded launched an investment group named Lupa Systems. James’ old brother Lachlan, who is seen as the more right-leaning of the two, recently took control over Fox Corp., the parent company of the Fox News Channel.
The Walt Disney Company acquired 21st Century Fox for $71.3 billion on March 20th.
Buttigieg officially launched his 2020 campaign in South Bend over the weekend, vowing to usher in  “a new generation of leadership.” This month, Buttigieg’s campaign announced it raised more than $7 million in the first three months of 2019.

"He added, “Most Americans don’t want this. Most Americans don’t want the conservative agenda that we are now seeing, the extreme agenda, we are seeing in Washington."

PETE BUTTIGIEG


Buttigieg: ‘Most Americans Don’t Want the Conservative Agenda’



PAM KEY
 949
1:34
Monday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-IN) a likely 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said most Americans did not want the conservative agenda.
Buttigieg said, “You know the Republicans in the Senate changed the numbers of justices on the Supreme Court to eight. Until they took power. Then they changed it back to nine. A lot of what we’re talking about is no less a shattering of norms than what the other side has done. We’re proposing to do it in a way that’s more inclusive. I would say more constitutionally sound, more appropriate. And will by the nature of the checks and balances in our system, have to go through a thoughtful and rigorous process. I think that if they try tinkering with the system, again they are doing it under the table in so many ways. If they tried doing it more nakedly, they will encounter resistance.”
He added, “Most Americans don’t want this. Most Americans don’t want the conservative agenda that we are now seeing, the extreme agenda, we are seeing in Washington. In fact, it is precisely for that reason that they have to interfere with democracy with voter suppression or clinging on an electoral college that overrules the will of the American people. It’s because the American people by and large don’t want what they are selling that they are relying on manipulations of our political structure in order to keep their agenda in play. ”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN



Pete Buttigieg Knocks Own Supporters for Being Too White



Pete Buttigieg voters (Joshua Lott / AFP / Getty)
Joshua Lott / AFP / Getty
JOEL B. POLLAK
 939
2:37

Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, an unexpected early frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, is criticizing his own supporters for being too white after questions about the “lack of diversity” at his events and among his campaign staff.

Buttigieg, who is the first openly gay presidential candidate, was asked about the lack of racial diversity at a fundraiser in New York. He responded “that he is aware of the lack of diversity at some of his presidential campaign events, including the fundraiser he was headlining,” according to a CNN report.
He asked his audience for their help: “The honest answer to that question is I need your help. I need your help reaching out to anybody that could benefit from a more inclusive and more hopeful politics. And that is something that has no color.”
Critics have cited Buttigieg’s race and gender as negative factors. On Sunday, during Buttigieg’s official campaign launch in South Bend, former Barack Obama strategist David Axelrod — who otherwise praised Buttigieg — tweeted:

Watching the @PeteButtigieg announcement from South Bend. Crowd seems very large, very impressive but also very white-an obstacle he will have to overcome.

518 people are talking about this

As of the latest polls, Democratic Party primary voters favor four white men: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), former Vice President Joe Biden (who has not yet declared his candidacy), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), and Buttigieg. That result has surprised and upset some on the left — and candidates are eager to assuage their criticisms.
During a recent fundraising call, Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, drew attention to the claim that the campaign is 40% “people of color” before he announced the campaign’s first quarter fundraising total of $18.2 million.
The Democratic candidates’ attention to racial diversity and gender issues leaves unanswered the question of whether, and how, they will appeal to white, moderate, working-class voters that the party lost to Donald Trump in 2016.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.



Why Do Young People Find Socialism So Attractive?




To anyone over the age of 40, the growing appeal of socialist policies within the younger generations can be confusing.  To us, this nation's capitalist system has provided the highest standard of living the world has ever seen, while "socialism" repeatedly leads to totalitarian governments like China and the USSR and destroys once prosperous nations like Venezuela.  One must wonder if our younger generations live in the same world as we do.  Do they not see the same things we see?
The answer to these questions is a resounding no.  The younger generations are growing up in a nation and a world vastly different from the ones in which Americans over the age of 40 were raised.  What they see is therefore filtered through an equally offset lens.
People over the age of 40 saw their parents and grandparents work stable jobs for the entirety of their careers — often with a single parent earning enough to support an entire family.  They saw their parents pay into Social Security, and then those same parents drew on those funds upon retirement.  Their parents had college degrees without debt.  They could access health care without concern that it would bankrupt them.  They trusted the safety and competence of the public education system.  They trusted elected officials to be honest and to obey the laws of the offices given to them.  If their parents failed economically, there was a familial and religious culture that could combine with government programs to help them.
American children today have largely seen the opposite.  American workers are routinely replaced by imported foreign workers and by outsourcing to foreign lands.  Immigrants and illegal aliens massively drive down labor costs, requiring both parents to work to sustain an ever shrinking family.  Everyone pays into Social Security, but no one under the age of thirty believes that it will remain in place for him to draw from when needed.  The cost of college is unsustainable.  No one trusts elected officials.  Everyone feels that a single injury or illness will destroy his finances for decades.  For many of us, it feels as if the prevailing sentiment of the now multicultural society is to cheer for our economic failure.
The America of today is starkly divided into two groups: a group that already accesses America as a socialist entity and a group that pays for that system but has no access to it.
For the first group, America is already a largely socialist government.  Members draw their subsistence from government welfare programs and can receive as much as $1,000 a month for simply not committing crimes.  Health care is largely subsidized or simply free, as the recipients either have no money or cannot be traced due to their lack of registration with the government.  Food and housing are often subsidized as well, through federal or state programs.  They are also given preference in access to education and access to programs to offset the cost of that education.  Many of them who receive those benefits are citizens of other nations residing here illegally, but they still receive both the preferential access and offset costs denied to citizens and even veterans.
For the second group, they and their parents have paid into this system through taxes for their entire lives, yet they have seen few, if any, of the benefits to that payment.  They are on no government programs.  While violent illegal aliens are protected from prosecution, members of this second group receive harsh punishment for even minor nonviolent offenses.  Any injury results in massive costs, and they are always fighting to keep jobs with shrinking wages and no security.
To members of this second group, the implementation of government policies that promise them at least a minimal return on the payments they are making into that system is a relief.  This is how the younger generation of Americans view a "socialist" model, and this is why they see potential in it.
To young Americans, a system that promises minimal access to equality with other classes living in the U.S. is preferable to a capitalist model that robs them of all funds, all options, and all dignity while providing benefits only to other groups.  Access to a terrible health care system is still better than one that will bankrupt you if you touch it.  Access to a low-quality but free university system may still be preferable to one that is inaccessible due to race and will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars if you are given the ability to attend.  The guarantee of a poorly funded safety net is still better than one that isn't there at all.
The younger generation of Americans do not fear a totalitarian state, where they pay into a system in which the benefits can be accessed only by those with government influence, because younger Americans are already living in that state. The only difference is that those who are receiving the benefit of their labor are not some elite class of rulers from among their own people, but rather those who have the political and cultural power to redirect that wealth.  This is namely a migrant class that has become the dominant force in American politics as well as other groups that have been able to establish power to give themselves legal preferences in education, contracting, and protections.
To pull the younger generation back from the lure of "socialism," we must demonstrate both that the rule of law still applies within the U.S. and reassert equality under the law — without delay and without exception.  The government must also provide a minimal level of care and benefits for those who pay into the system without allowing threats of violence to pull those resources to citizens of other nations or to be used disproportionately on those who rely solely on those benefits for generations without efforts to rise above those benefits.

In short, the government must cease working for others and once again work for its citizens and stop calling that "socialism."



"At the same time, the tax cuts for big business are fueling the federal deficit, which will be used by both Democratic and Republican politicians to call for further cuts in social spending. The February monthly federal deficit hit an all-time high of $234 billion this year, as a result of a 20 percent drop in corporate tax revenue. The deficit for the first half of 2019 is projected at $961 billion, and the deficit for the fiscal year ending September 30 is expected to reach $1.1 trillion, as bad as the deficits posted in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crash."



Buttigieg Pushes Wealth Tax: ‘People in This Country Are Not Paying Their Fair Share’


 


https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/04/01/buttigieg-pushes-wealth-tax-people-in-this-country-are-not-paying-their-fair-share/


 


Buttigieg Pushes Wealth Tax: ‘People in This Country Are Not Paying Their Fair Share’
PAM KEY
1 Apr 201977
2:27
Monday on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Mayor Pete Buttigieg supported the idea of a wealth tax, arguing that “some people” were not paying their”fair share.”
When asked if he would repeal the Trump tax cuts, Buttigieg said, “Yes, at least the tax cuts on the wealthiest because that has blown a huge hole in the treasury that my generation is going to be forced to pay. We’re going to have to pay for it probably in the form of reduced services if we don’t come up with revenue. There’s no need for some of these giveaways to the wealthiest people in the country. But we also need to rethink the way that our revenue is structured right now. That’s why I think at least three ideas that have been floating out there among many people in the 2020 conversation deserve to be part of a portfolio of revenue for the future. That would include a wealth tax, some reasonable percentage on those who are sitting on the largest amounts of wealth in this country. It would mean a financial transactions tax to deal with the fact that people are, in some cases, making preposterous sums of money off of millisecond transactions that don’t seem to contribute very much to the real economy. If they do, fine, but that needs to be shared with the country so that we can have a more robust infrastructure and education and national security and all of the things that make the accumulation of that kind of wealth possible. And we also need to reconsider the taxes for the income brackets that are making the most.”
He continued, “You know, over the last probably 40 years, Democratic and Republican politicians have accepted what you might call the Reagan consensus, this idea that the only thing you would ever consider doing to taxes is to cut them. And the only argument’s over whose taxes to cut. Obviously, we want to keep taxes low and reasonable, especially for working people struggling to get by and members of the middle class, but we also know that some people in this country are not paying their fair share. And whether it’s individual taxes like some of what I’ve been talking about or making sure we use some kind of instrument, like perhaps sales apportionment, to get a better share of U.S. corporate taxes now being hidden offshore or not appropriately taxed when it comes to global business, we could be doing a lot better to fill the treasury before it has to hit the working and middle class.”

US Tax Day 2019: Sixty giant corporations pay zero income tax

Dozens of giant US corporations, including 60 of the Fortune 500, used deductions, credits and other tax loopholes to avoid paying any federal income tax for 2018, according to an analysis issued by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). The report was published April 11, just in time for the April 15 deadline for most American working people to file their tax returns.
The 60 companies in the Fortune 500 who paid no federal income tax had net incomes just from US operations of nearly $80 billion ($79,025,000,000, to be exact). They include such household names as Amazon, Chevron, Deere, Delta Air Lines, General Motors, Goodyear, Halliburton, Honeywell, IBM, Eli Lilly, Netflix, Occidental Petroleum, Prudential Financial and US Steel.
Meanwhile, millions of moderate-income families are finding that their income taxes have either increased or their expected tax refunds have evaporated because of restrictions on the itemization of tax deductions, the imposition of a $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions and a cut in the mortgage interest deduction.
Nearly all of the 60 companies that paid no taxes qualified to receive a refund from the US Treasury, although most will not collect a check, instead using the credit to offset future taxes. But whatever the bookkeeping process, American taxpayers are effectively paying money to them, despite their vast profits. The biggest refunds include those going to Prudential, $346 million (added to its $1.44 billion in profits); Duke Energy, a whopping $647 million (added to $3.02 billion in profits); and Deere, $268 million (added to $2.15 billion in profits).
Among the report’s most outrageous findings:
Amazon more than zeroed-out its tax bill on $10.8 billion in profits, making use of accelerated depreciation deductions on equipment as well as favorable tax treatment of stock-based compensation for executives like CEO Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world. The stock compensation deduction alone was worth $1 billion. Amazon will actually show a credit of $129 million from the US Treasury, not paying one cent in federal income taxes.
IBM is another corporate giant that has gamed the tax system by shifting earnings to its foreign operations to escape US taxation. The company reported worldwide profits of $8.7 billion, but only $500 million in the United States. It will reap a $342 million credit from the Treasury.
Delta Airlines accumulated $17.1 billion in federal pre-tax net losses as of 2010, partly as a consequence of a protracted crisis of the airline industry, partly as a result of the 2008 Wall Street crash. It has used these losses as well as the accelerated depreciation credit for purchase of new planes to “dramatically reduce their tax rates,” according to the ITEP report, receiving a credit of $187 million in 2018 despite net profits of more than $5 billion. According to Delta’s chief financial officer, the actual tax rate the company expects to pay going forward is between 10 and 13 percent, far below what a typical Delta worker pays on his or her income.
EOG Resources, a renamed remnant of Enron, perpetrator of the biggest corporate fraud in American history, can collect $304 million from US taxpayers on top of $4.07 billion in profits.
For one company, the federal tax refund would actually exceed net profits. Gannett made a $7 million profit, while showing an additional $11 million credit from the Treasury, giving the newspaper publishing giant an effective tax rate of negative 164 percent.
IBM’s tax rate was a negative 68 percent, while software maker Activision Blizzard and construction company AECOM Technology both posted effective tax rates of negative 51 percent.
Sixteen of the 60 companies made more than a billion dollars in net income on their US operations, to say nothing of foreign subsidiaries. Oil and gas producers and utilities comprised more than one-third of the total, led by Chevron and Occidental among the oil companies, and DTE Energy, American Electric Power, Duke Energy and Dominion Resources among the utilities.
The 60 companies profited enormously because the Trump tax cut bill cut the basic rate for corporations from 35 percent to 21 percent, while not eliminating the loopholes they had previously used to keep their taxes low. They had the best of both worlds, paying lower rates while still enjoying loopholes.
Overall, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, an arm of Congress, the cut in the corporate tax rate alone will pump $1.35 trillion into the pockets of the corporations over the next 10 years. For this year alone, corporate taxes have been cut by 31 percent.
For the 60 companies in the ITEP report, “Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21 percent corporate tax rate requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion, blowing a $20.7 billion hole in the federal budget last year.”
This figure by itself is an irrefutable answer to all the bogus claims—made to workers in every part of the United States—that there is “no money” to pay for needed social programs, for wage and benefit increases, or to hire additional workers to reduce overwork and understaffing. The $20.7 billion would pay for a $7,000 bonus to every public school teacher in America.
The bonanza that these 60 corporations are enjoying is three times the amount that Trump proposes to cut from the budget of the Department of Education. It is 10 times the total amount budgeted for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which provides services for more than 2 million Native Americans. It is nearly 20 times the budget of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which conducts workplace safety inspections.
The ITEP report, issued by a group with close ties to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal Washington think tank, warns of the explosive political consequences of the corporate plundering of the Treasury. “The specter of big corporations avoiding all income taxes on billions in profits sends a strong and corrosive signal to Americans: that the tax system is stacked against them, in favor of corporations and the wealthiest Americans,” the report says.
At the same time, the tax cuts for big business are fueling the federal deficit, which will be used by both Democratic and Republican politicians to call for further cuts in social spending. The February monthly federal deficit hit an all-time high of $234 billion this year, as a result of a 20 percent drop in corporate tax revenue. The deficit for the first half of 2019 is projected at $961 billion, and the deficit for the fiscal year ending September 30 is expected to reach $1.1 trillion, as bad as the deficits posted in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crash.

The number of U.S. companies paying zero federal taxes DOUBLED when Trump's tax plan took effect in 2018

·         60 large companies managed to escape 2018 taxes under Trump's new plan 
·         Many of those corporations actually received tax rebates totaling $4.3 billion
·         The businesses include: Amazon, Netflix, Chevron, Delta Airlines, JetBlue Airways, IBM, General Motors, Goodyear, Eli Lilly and United States Steel
·         The result is a $20.7 billion budget hole that is adding to America's federal debt
President Donald Trump's tax policy doubled the number of highly profitable companies that were able to avoid paying any federal taxes in 2018, according to a new report.
Amazon, Netflix, Chevron, Delta Airlines, IBM, General Motors and Eli Lilly were among those who managed to escape taxes for last year, according to the study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
'Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21 percent corporate tax rate requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion, blowing a $20.7 billion hole in the federal budget last year,' the report says. 
The Washington, D.C. think tank analyzed America's 560 largest publicly held companies, finding that 60 of them paid nothing in taxes for last year – double the average of roughly 30 companies that got away scot-free each year from 2008-2015.
Republicans in Congress pushed through the tax law signed by Trump in 2017, and its policies favoring the richest Americans and most valuable U.S. companies took effect in 2018.
Scroll down for the full list of companies and rebates
+2
·          
This graph illustrates the amount of money that 60 of America's largest companies were billed for taxes last year - along with the actual money they ended up getting back instead of having to pay. Source: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
The change cut the tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent and allowed companies to take advantage of deductions, tax credits and rebates. That change alone is projected to save corporations $1.35 trillion over the next decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
'We know that there's this pretty glaring contrast between what the proponents of this tax law promised back in 2017 and what it's delivering now,' lead author Matthew Gardner told DailyMail.com.
'The whole argument was that the reason companies were avoiding taxes is because tax rates are so high,' he added. 'What we're seeing is that isn't coming to pass.' 
Collectively, the 60 companies that avoided all taxes last year managed 'to zero out their federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income,' according to the study, which was first reported on by the Center for Public Integrity and NBC News.
For example, the John Deer farm equipment company earned $2.15 billion before taxes, yet owed no U.S. taxes and used deductions and credits to extract $268 million from the federal government.
Nationally, corporate tax revenues decreased 31 percent in 2018 to $204 billion.
'This was a more precipitous decline than in any year of normal economic growth in U.S. history,' wrote Gardner, a senior fellow for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, in the report.
 We know that there's this pretty glaring contrast between what the proponents of this tax law promised back in 2017 and what it's delivering now.        -Matthew Gardner, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Trump had said that the corporate tax cut would pay for itself by sparking a business boom that would create more jobs, thus generating growing income tax revenues for the nation.
That reality hasn't emerged. Instead the nation's budget deficit is higher than it's ever been in this nation's history.
That's despite Trump's campaign promise to eliminate the $19.9 trillion national debt in eight years. So far it has ballooned 41.8 percent in the first four months of the 2019 fiscal year (which runs October 1 – September 30.
The Government Accountability Office announced in April that the 'federal government's current fiscal path … (is) unsustainable.'
Presidential economic adviser Larry Kudlow has said that 'economic growth' has 'paid for a good chunk' of the tax cuts, and that the budget's outlook is 'not as bad' as it's perceived.
+2
·          
This table lists the amount of money that 60 of America's largest companies were billed for taxes last year - along with the actual money they ended up getting back instead of having to pay. Source: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

Joe Scarborough: Mayor 


Pete Buttigieg as Exciting 


as Ronald Reagan



CHARLIE SPIERING
 15 Apr 2019702
1:04

MSNBC cable news host and former Republican Joe Scarborough expressed amazement at the 2020 campaign launch of South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg on Sunday.

“In a lifetime of following politics, the only time I have heard as excited a reaction to a campaign as I heard today about Pete Buttigieg’s launch was Barack Obama in 2008 and Ronald Reagan in 1980,” he wrote on Twitter.
Buttigieg officially announced his run for president on Sunday.
“Yes, it’s very early. But the reaction has been remarkable,” Scarborough added.
Scarborough played a role in boosting Buttigieg’s national attention during a March interview on Morning Joe.
Mika and I have been overwhelmed by the reaction Pete Buttigieg got after being on the show,” he wrote afterward. “The only other time in twelve years that we heard from as many people about a guest was after Barack Obama appeared on Morning Joe.”


In a lifetime of following politics, the only time I have heard as excited a reaction to a campaign as I heard today about @PeteButtigieg’s launch was @BarackObama in 2008 and Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Yes, it’s very early. But the reaction has been remarkable.



Mika and I have been overwhelmed by the reaction @PeteButtigieg got after being on the show. The only other time in twelve years that we heard from as many people about a guest was after @BarackObama appeared on Morning Joe.


How Pete Buttigieg Could 

Hurt Trump in the Rust Belt

https://townhall.com/columnists/salenazito/2019/04/09/how-pete-buttigieg-could-hurt-trump-in-the-rust-belt-n2544459



Source: Greg Swiercz/South Bend Tribune via AP
  
Pete Buttigieg is many things.
At just 37, he is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He is a military veteran and a deeply religious gay man who is married but also enjoys sandwiches from (anti-same-sex marriage) Chick-fil-A. He is a Harvard-educated Rhodes scholar who speaks eight languages. He is the first ever millennial candidate for president and, so far, the only Democratic hopeful to appear on the "Fox News Sunday" show.
"I'm all of those things," said Buttigieg -- pronounced "Boot-edge-edge" -- in an interview with the New York Post. "I try not to have any kind of attribute ... be totally defining," he added.
Critics say these attributes are the very reasons why he can't beat Donald Trump. His supporters say they are the very reasons he can.
Mayor Pete, as he likes to be called, strikes a tone that is kinder and less combative than the insult-driven politics of Trump and the Democratic Party's far-left members. His boyish good looks, intelligence and military background are undoubtedly appealing, as is his faith.
"Scripture tells us to look after the least among us, that it also counsels humility and teaches us about what's bigger than ourselves," said Buttigieg, a devout Episcopalian. "It points the way toward an inclusive and unselfish politics that I strive to practice, whether I'm talking about my faith on the stump or not."
Mayor Pete's politics are already gaining traction. Since launching his exploratory committee to run for president on Jan. 23, he has already raised $7 million for his campaign. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 4 percent of Democrats would vote for him -- the same number that supports Elizabeth Warren, who has been a U.S. senator for six years.
The fact that he was born and bred in the American Rust Belt is possibly his biggest asset.
"Our party can and should do better in the industrial Midwest," Buttigieg said. "I'm convinced that so many people in this part of the country are already with us, much more than with the other party on issues, on substance, on policy."
He said his experience in his hometown of South Bend proves there are solutions that work besides a "promise to turn back the clock."
When Buttigieg was first elected to office in South Bend in 2011, the city was on its knees. Job growth was nonexistent, and like many Rust Belt cities with declining industry, it had been hemorrhaging jobs since the '70s.
First, he improved the cosmetics of the town by demolishing more than 1,000 abandoned homes, and then he focused on revitalizing it by attracting hundreds of millions in private investment for commercial development.
You won't find Buttigieg ridiculing fellow Midwestern voters or taking them for granted, the way Hillary Clinton's campaign did in 2015. After the University of Notre Dame, based in South Bend, invited her to attend their prestigious St. Patrick's Day event, her campaign declined, telling organizers that "white Catholics were not the audience she needed to spend time reaching out to," as The New York Times wrote.
Trump would go on to win those white Catholic votes in 2016 -- 52 percent of them, according to Pew's exit polls, reversing the gains Democrats made when Barack Obama earned their votes in 2008 and 2012.
Even so, Buttigieg's religious beliefs haven't prevented him from taking progressive positions on major issues.
He supports abortions into the third trimester out of a belief in "freedom from government," he said. And he won't rule out tax hikes. "If the only way I can get all of us paid parental leave, universal health care, dramatically improved child care, better education, good infrastructure and, therefore, longer life expectancy and a healthier economy is to raise revenue, then we should be honest about that," he said.
And although natural gas leads to good, solid jobs in the Rust Belt, he is a big booster of wind and solar power. "I think the goal still has to be focused on renewables," he said.
But just because Buttigieg has a progressive platform doesn't mean he'll get an easy ride from far-left Democrats. Last month, the woke crowd at Slate questioned the young mayor's credentials with a since-changed headline that read "Is Pete Buttigieg just another white male candidate, or does his gayness count as diversity?"
And just because Buttigieg is from the Rust Belt doesn't mean he can win a general election in places like Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, especially when you compare his platform to Trump's.
"He has to share their values on bread-and-butter issues like lower taxes, regulations and religious liberty," warned Dr. G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College. If he doesn't, "it would be very difficult for him to win."
But Jeff Rea, a former Republican mayor from another Indiana town and current president of the South Bend chamber of commerce, said nobody should count out Mayor Pete. He and Buttigieg have been on opposite sides on a number of projects but have "always found a way to come together for a solution."
Buttigieg "is a very data-driven guy and also a very good man," Rea added. "That has helped him win over voters who might not like progressive politics."
No mayor in history has ever run and won his or her party's nomination for president, nor has anyone under the age of 43. Then again, no businessman had ever done it until Trump came along.
Michael Wear, the faith adviser to Obama, told me he thinks Mayor Pete has a chance.

"Things change," Wear said. "And, in America, anything can happen."

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