Tuesday, April 16, 2019

TIME TO END THE RICH vs THE REST OF AMERICA? - PETE BUTTIGIEG TALKS ABOUT NATIONAL SERVICE TO BOOST 'SOCIAL COHESION'

"We live in a moment that compels us each to act,” he said. “The forces changing our country are tectonic — forces that help to explain what made this current presidency even possible. That's why this time it's not just about winning an election — it's about winning an era." PETE  BUTTIGIEG
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.
The fact that he was born and bred in the American Rust Belt is possibly his biggest asset.
"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."

Buttigieg Advocates National Service to Boost 'Social Cohesion'






By Susan Jones | April 16, 2019 | 8:05 AM EDT


South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is running for the Democrat presidential nomination. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) - South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, now running for the Democrat presidential nomination, says he wants more young Americans to mix with people of different backgrounds, but he doesn't want them to have to go to war to do that.
He told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Monday night that a national service program could repair the "fraying...social cohesion" that made the Trump presidency possible, in his opinion.

That's one of the reasons I think national service will hopefully become one of the themes of the 2020 campaign. Because if we really want to talk about the threat to social cohesion that helps characterize this presidency, but also just this era, the one thing we could do to help change that would be to make it -- if not legally obligatory but certainly a social norm -- that anybody after they're 18 spends a year in national service.
So that afterwards, whether it's civilian or military, it's the first question on your college application if you're applying for college; or it's the first question when you're being interviewed for a job if you're going right into the work force.
Now to do that, we're going to have to create more service opportunities and we're going to have to find a way to fund it. But I think it's worth approaching.
Buttigieg used his own military service as an example. He enlisted in the Navy Reserve several years after graduating from Harvard University and Oxford University.
"The thing that put me over the edge was actually a campaign visit," Buttigieg said:
I was knocking on doors as a volunteer for Barack Obama in some very low-income, very rural counties in Iowa, and was blown away by how many times I would knock on a door, talk to a young person who was on their way to basic training or on their way into recruitment. And I began to realize just how stark the class and regional divides had become. I could count on one hand the number of people I knew at a place like Harvard who had gone on to serve. And I began to feel like I was part of the problem.
You know, I grew up on the tradition of people like John F. Kennedy -- a young John F. Kennedy, experienced in military service, the most probably racially integrated environment that he could have been in at the time, found himself on equal terms with the sons of farmers, laborers from the Midwest. George H.W. Bush, same thing.
As the scions of wealthy and powerful families, it was expected of them that they would serve. And it helped them get to know people of different backgrounds. I was by no means the scion of a wealthy or powerful family, but I did have the privilege of this amazing education.
And again, I began to think, like maybe that's a reason I should be contributing and should be as liable to getting called up as anybody else in this country, rather than kind of one more thing that separates me from other people I knew from my region or my hometown who had served. So I went in for the commission in intelligence in 2009. I'd studied Arabic. I thought that might be useful. But it later came back that the recruiter wrote down that I had studied aerobics.
Buttigieg said national service is an idea that "everybody likes" but it's never "urgent."
He said the idea "requires policy intervention" to gain traction.
"I get the obstacles, he said. "I get that it would be challenging. If we made it more of a priority, I think we could establish that as a norm by the time my kids are going to college."
Buttigieg and his husband do not have children right now, but he said they hopes to have them some day.


Joe Scarborough: Mayor Pete Buttigieg as Exciting as Ronald Reagan



Scott Olson/Getty Images
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.”
✔@JoeNBC


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.
26K

✔@JoeNBC


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.
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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/

 

PAM KEY
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.”

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"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
 15 Apr 2019949
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

 

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Pete Buttigieg Knocks Own Supporters for Being Too White


https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/15/pete-buttigieg-knocks-own-supporters-for-being-too-white/

Joshua Lott / AFP / Getty
JOEL B. POLLAK
15 Apr 2019939
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:
David Axelrod
✔@davidaxelrod


Watching the @PeteButtigieg announcement from South Bend. Crowd seems very large, very impressive but also very white-an obstacle he will have to overcome.
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11:17 AM - Apr 14, 2019
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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.

 

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