No. of Recommendations: 5
As I said, it seems to be interrelated. I would think it would be more effective to attack the problem on both fronts.
Sure. For simplicity, I've been talking about it as "either-or," but the reality is that all of the factions in the Democratic party will support some action on all of these fronts. The question is one of degree and priorities.
The most vivid example of that was the Build Back Bet...I mean, Inflation Reduction Act. It started off with the Democrats floating funding every measure in the playbook. But once the topline number got smaller, choices had to be made. And the Democrats chose Climate Change over Economic Populism. Not 100%, of course - there were still some economic populist measures that got funded, mostly relating to health care. But the lion's share of the funding went to climate measures - things like funding pre-K and child care for working families got axed. When push came to shove, the leadership picked climate over other priorities.
IMHO, that's a huge part of why the Democrats didn't get any political benefit from the bill. Overall, voters support action to fight climate change, but it's near the very bottom of what they think is important. But it's very important to the Clintonite, college-educated mostly-white liberal wing of the party. So that's what got in.
