30 United States The EconomistNovember 9th 2019
21wage workers, hurting the people Ms War-
ren most wants to help.
She finds some money from the kind of
conjuring promised by less rigorous cam-
paigns, like better tax enforcement (which
provides $2.3trn), comprehensive immi-
gration reform (providing $400bn) and the
elimination of the fund that pays for the
defence department’s Middle East opera-
tions (another $800bn). After all that, she is
still short by $6.8trn.
To make up the shortfall, Ms Warren
plans to add levies on large firms and rich
Americans—beyond those she has already
proposed. On top of the repeal of Mr
Trump’s tax cuts and a new 7% charge on
corporate profits, she would eliminate the
ability of businesses to immediately write
down depreciating capital; she would also
impose a minimum tax of 35% on their for-
eign earnings. A new financial transac-
tions tax of 0.1% would be placed on sales
of shares and bonds, wrecking the business
of high-frequency traders (perhaps a plus
from Ms Warren’s point of view). The coun-
try’s 40 biggest banks would pay an annual
fee of 0.15% on “covered liabilities” (liabil-
ities minus federally insured deposits).
The wealth tax has been revised upwards
too. Fortunes above $1bn would be charged
a 6% annual levy. A Warren presidency
could cost Jeff Bezos, the boss of Amazon,
$26bn over a single term. Nor could he es-
cape by shedding his American citizen-
ship. Ms Warren has proposed an “exit tax”
of 40% on the net worth of billionaires to
head off that threat.
These contortions are all the result of
past decisions. Despite her earlier, more
pragmatic instincts on health care, Ms
Warren adopted two nearly incompatible
pledges: to deliver Mr Sanders’ version of
single-payer health care—more generous
than that of Britain or Canada—but with-
out any premiums or deductibles and with-
out raising taxes on the vast majority of
Americans. Because her evasiveness on
funding was attracting criticism from her
more moderate competitors, like Pete But-
tigieg and Joe Biden, Ms Warren released
this plan, which seems to assume that any-
one outside the top 1% of earners counts as
middle class. During the primary election,
the strategy could work. She can credibly
answer her opponents’ claims by repeating
her quasi-official catchphrase, “I have a
plan for that”. Primary voters may shrug off
the entire episode.
A general-election contest with Mr
Trump would be a different matter. There
was reasonable speculation that Ms War-
ren’s woolliness on health care was a tacti-
cal move, enabling her to strike a more cen-
trist pose on securing the Democratic
nomination. That option now looks closed
off. The new plan opens her up to all man-
ner of attack from Mr Trump, even though
his own health plan is ill-defined, beyond aso-farunsuccessfuldrivetorepealObama-
care,andhisrecordonhealth—2mmore
Americansare uninsuredthanwhenhe
cametooffice—isdreadful.
Goingintoanelectionpromisingtodis-
continuethehealthinsuranceofthe178m
Americanswhohaveprivateplansthrough
theiremployersseemsmad.“Democrats
nowhavea30-pointadvantageoverDo-
naldTrumponhealthcare,”saysJimKess-
lerofThirdWay,a centre-leftthink-tank.
“Ifthatgapnarrows—anditwillnarrowif
DemocratsareforMedicareforAll:it could
narrow to zero—he getsre-elected.” Ac-
cordingtotheKaiserFamilyFoundation,a
health-policy think-tank, 51% of Ameri-
canssupportMedicareforAllwhile47%
opposeit.Butwhenvariousobjectionsto
the programme are made—such as the
elimination of private healthinsurance,
andthepossibilityofincreasedtaxesand
queuesfor treatment—support drops to
below40%.Asa policy,Warrencaremight
be described as negligent. Politically it
looksmorelikemalpractice. 7O
n the eve of the election, President
Donald Trump stood in a basketball
stadium in Lexington, Kentucky, trying to
salvage the candidacy of Matt Bevin, the in-
cumbent Republican governor who has
one of the lowest approval ratings in the
country. “He’s such a pain in the ass, but
that’s what you want,” said Mr Trump, who
in 2016 carried the state by 30 points. “If you
lose,” he added, “they’re going to say,Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the
history of the world.” In the end, the Blue-
grass state let the president down. Though
Mr Bevin refused to concede, it looks as
though he narrowly lost (by 5,189 votes, or
0.36% of those cast) to Andy Beshear, the
Democratic candidate.
Whether that was in fact a world-histor-
ic defeat is another matter. All the other
statewide contests in Kentucky saw hefty
Republican victories. The defeat at the top
of the ticket was more a reflection on Mr
Bevin (who insisted, for example, that a
teachers’ strike had led to the sexual as-
sault of children) than a sign that Mr
Trump’s influence among Republicans is
waning. Kentucky is unlikely to be a battle-
ground state in 2020.
In another closely watched gubernato-
rial race in Mississippi, the Republican
Tate Reeves won by a six-point margin over
Jim Hood, the moderate Democrat who had
been serving as attorney-general. Though
this might look encouraging for Demo-
crats, given the state’s Trumpiness, it is
not. Mr Hood, who is anti-abortion and op-
posed to gun control, is probably the stron-
gest candidate Democrats could find in the
state and he still lost by a decent distance.
The other big victory for Democrats
came from state-legislative elections in
Virginia, where the party seized control of
both chambers. That gives Ralph Northam,
the sitting Democratic governor, unified
control over legislation and a new lease on
political life—having now weathered a
blackface scandal earlier this year that
nearly ended his tenure (rejoice, Justin
Trudeau). Though Mr Trump campaigned
in Kentucky, he studiously avoided the
contests in Virginia, where he is unpopu-
lar. Even there, the results look less like a
rebuke to Mr Trump than the inevitable
consequence of a steadily changing state,
which Hillary Clinton won by five points.
Off-year elections provide more than
mere tasseography for subsequent big con-LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY
The results were less bad for
Republicans than they first seemOff-year electionsKnocking on
Bevin’s door
Return of the Bourbon Democrats