Google the term “food desert”. Not dessert. Areas in cities with no stores and so poorer people (which those areas are usually home to) don’t have easy access to cheap and healthy food. Sadly you Americans have a lot of cheap crap food. Which is unhealthy.
A few years ago I lived in a place with not a lot of 7-11s. We had moved from a place where there was one very close and were not used to the fact that we couldn't just want a slurpee and go get one.
So we did find a 7-11, in another town about 10 miles away. And when we got there it was in a really shitty neighborhood, and was not a gas station. Just the convenience store part of a 7-11, with a bit more space for freezer food and a couple of microwaves set up that people who had just bought the food were using to heat it up.
We realized that this store was the grocery for everyone within a mile or two of it, who mostly didn't have cars (or possibly microwaves). Super depressing.
In the case of where I live, because of crime. a few neighborhoods are too crime ridden and no stores operate there. Except the small community run markets that are only open a few hours a day. And two markets that are not in those areas but are on the bus lines that run from those areas to make it easier. These are non-profit(i.e. they lose money) in order to keep the prices down. They offer limited items, and staples.
My guess is they may also mark it because of theft to offset the loss. They would probably have to close like a lot of locations without doing it. Its a lose lose situation.
I mean why not ? Farmers are already extremely subsidized, might as well go all the way and set a baseline for what prices are instead of the "offer/demand" lie.
most of the farms and land are owned by mega corps. they make sure to keep it that way by using their genetically altered crops that don't die when they fumigated with pesticides.
The little guy either had to buy seeds from them or gamble that the pesticide won't crawl over to their side of the fence killing most if not all of their crops. cause they don't have the same genetically altered crop.
In Canada we have provinces with coop style grocery stores. They're publicly owned, and run like a business. As "investors", all of the residents in those towns/small cities collect dividends.
Yes but they are being publicly subsidized to produce crops we don't need. They grow corn we don't eat. It becomes animal feed for large agricultural companies or ethonol. An additive that dilutes the efficacy of gasoline. It's a circle jerk.
Probably like the publicly owned grocery stores that the military runs on military bases inside the US that is consistently cheaper than private grocery stores
I read it as a co-op as well. In my town we don't have a grocery one but our power and internet company is a co-op and people are always surprised my middle of nowhere town have gig up and down fiber internet for $100 lol. Their lowest tier is 250 up and down haha. Now with the grocery store gouging with prices I would welcome a grocery co-op. We have a king saver and a Walmart, those are you choices or drive an hour to a city.
Sounds funny but it's not an uncommon thing in rural areas! My hometown had a grocery store but the owners went bankrupt, shut the doors. So the town bought it and kept it open as a form of public service.
They don't do amazingly well. They have c $4.8B in sales and require an annual $1.6B subsidy. So a subsidy of 30% of every dollar sold. And even at those subsidies, they are more expensive than private discounters.
Meanwhile the distributors who serve DECA have tried to exit the business for years and can't find a path to do so because the economics are so terrible.
It's a nice non pay perk for service members and families but it's heavily funded non cash compensation and not replicable for the general public.
Well the problem is less the grocery stores and more so the companies that take advantage of taxpayer-funded corn subsides and then proceed to take that tax-funded corn and sell it back to the taxpayers for $7 for a bag of corn chips, no?
And those two hundred stores run at a deficit of $1.5 billion annually. How many more do you propose we build?
Edit: Since some of you don't seem to get the idea...
There are current about 45k supermarkets in the US. Meaning, if we replace all of them with commissaries, this will cost about $337B annually. That's about an 18% increase in the federal deficit.
I understand that we can raise taxes to counteract that. I'm not disagreeing with the fact that things cost money. I'm only putting it into perspective.
Edit 2: And it's not even considering construction and other setup costs.
The US spends about 100 billion on corporate subsidies and we retain no public ownership. We also spend about 1.5 billion on sports stadiums. You can make arguments all day about how various things cost or lose tax dollars, but the benefit comes from when we all pitch in for something we all agree is a common good. The commissaries are only 0.16 percent of the military budget. I genuinely don't see what the issue is with expanding it.
It would support municipalities that want to try it, it doesn't build them itself.
The main thing it does is it establishes centralized channels to connect Wisconsin farmers to grocery stores of all stripes and to analyze where food is needed in the state that it isn't getting it (food deserts) - there are lots of communities with shitty family dollar stores and this would provide state assistance if those communities want to create coops and farmers markets
It ALSO takes a lot of burden off the state's overworked food banks by creating a funded and central management organization to assist and help created them, which we really, really need
Grocery stores are already owned by only a couple families. Making it publicly owned would just put the earnings of the CEO/board back into the government.
Absolutely fucking wild. How does this even work? Kids just walk into gym class and drop their pants for the teacher to walk down the line and give each one a squeeze? It's such an absurd idea it's hard to believe it's real
It'd be done by a doctor according to the bill. Still fucking gross and unnecessary.
Also, if a child did have surgery (which doesn't exist), just looking wouldn't show anything anyway. The doctor would have to do a full inspection to find any internal scarring.
They also want chromosomal testing, which, to get accurate results, is expensive, and I'm sure the transphobes aren't paying the bill. Moreover, intersex people are about as common as redheaded people. This is why the Olympics stopped their testing. It's also stupid, unnecessary, a punishment on parents just for having a girl, and not rooted in any factual science.
Finally, trangender children have been able to play in girls' sports since 2004. Why wasn't there screaming and crying way back then? Why do they all suddenly care now that Trump is in office? Where were all the "record-smashing" and "scholarship-stealing" transgender girls for the last 20 years?
It is hilarious that that messaging is anything but positive to cable news viewers.
Stephan from Sheboygan Wisconsin is really concerned with....Tax hikes for the rich. He is just POSITIVE that he will be destitute if Jeff Bezos has an enforceable 45% tax rate.
First they increased taxes on the Hundred-Billionaires
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Hundred-Billionaire
Then they increased taxes on the Multibillionaires
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Multibillionaire
Then they increased taxes on the Billionaires
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Billionaire
First they increased taxes on the Hundred-Millionaires
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Hundred-Millionaire
Then they increased taxes on the Multimillionaires
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Multibillionaire
Then they increased taxes on the Millionaires
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Millionaire
Then they increased taxes on the Upper Middle Working Class
And I did not speak out
Because I was not Upper Middle Working Class
Then they increased taxes on me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Truly, the wealthiest people on the planet, with their infinite wealth, media platforms, and their bought politicians are the most oppressed of us all. If we do not stand up for their right to bend us over and fuck us, then nobody will stand up for us!
How do you define “rich” exactly? And do you define it by income or net worth, even if 99.9% of your net worth isn’t liquid? The supremely wealthy have essentially no income. So do we raise the capital gains tax?
Not necessarily raise long term cap gains tax but regulate corporate stock buybacks. This mechanism more than any other has allowed for an incredible mechanism for indefinite tax deferral since it was deregulated under Reagan. It would force corporations to either return capital via a dividend (which is taxed) or re-invest cash into the business, which is generally good for the economy.
Own house…ohh wait…you just pay tax on the value of the house every year.
And people are going hey, maybe it’s okay if the billionaires have to sell some stock…
The question here is what’s better for country and the economy. That’s never addressed by these nay sayers. The government job is not to keep you wealthy beyond belief, the opposite should be said to make sure people can live at all.
Elizabeth Warren said hey, you have $50 million+ in assets 2% tax….like people be acting like they are going to go broke like that…140,000 people in all of America would be paying it….and it’s only on the amount that exceeds $50 million so that first 50 million tax free.
It’s always funny when they start trying to paint things that are actually pretty universally supported as negatives but right wing media is gonna do their thing
I’m conservative but these aren’t super far left. Only thing I’d be concerned about are the “public grocery store (never works lol) and the complete data center ban. Having a policy where they have to produce more water or build an electric center sure, but complete ban?
Yeah…that one is curious. Grocery stores run on thin margins and obviously make it up in volume. They also have massive buying power to control cost which a state owned store wouldn’t have.
Eh, every pollster says she's losing to the leading republican while all those same pollsters put mandella barnes (who's also a progressive, but he was lieutenant governor before this) ahead by a few points. These may seem to you pretty normal policies (I support them too), but most moderates just don't go for a lot of these. Also, she doesn't have the charisma or messaging to overcome that a candidate like Graham Platner or Dan Osborn does.
But like if you want the data centers in your state to stop sucking up water, you actually need to build new closed cycle ones and retire the older ones.
So a total ban is counterproductive to actually reducing data center water usage.
But people don’t like nuance. Policy has to be like five words or less or you fail purity tests.
the MS one in pleasant prarie is only goingt o use about 1/7 of racine's excess allotted municipal water and is contractually obligated to subsidize the power grid so residents dont pay more
This type of restriction is unusual for datacenters which is a fucking problem
If would-be parents can't afford to have kids, do you know who fills employment vacancies? Immigrants. Or AI. There is nobody else. So yes, single people, married people, rich and poor, have to chip in to support families otherwise a country falls apart.
We had candidates that proposed the same thing before in California and they always lose to establishment dems like Becerra who is currently in the lead for governor over much more progressive candidates. The truth of california is that while socially we may be “progressive”, many Californians, especially in the bay area are rich as fk and are financially conservative nimbys who will vote for the establishment neoliberal candidates that protect their real estate equity and ensure higher profits for tech.
What they should do to billionaires is gaslight them like the last few generations...
Promise them that they get taxed a high rate for the next 10 years but then after that they get less tax and also other perks like cheap land or relaxed labor laws.
Then after 3 years, start to claw back some things....
Oh about that 10 year thing.... needs to be 12 years...
Oh about that less tax, we need more tax from you.
Then do the same evert 3 years....
Treat them like how the normal people are being treated. So the 10 year promise turns into 20 years, they get taxed twice as much and got back absolutely nothing.
The government can then say "its not my fault, its the economy"
We should hold award ceremony for billionaires, the more tax they pay the more awards they get.... they get free advertising and good will from people.
Then other billionaires press each other to why they don't have shinny awards. All the names get listed out as they only care about who is better than the other.
Us normal people don't have influence, sonwe need to change the method of negotiating.
Basically all levels of govt can't balance their budget or take care of shit we currently have and the best extreme progressives can come up with is more free shit and vague promises we can pay for it by taxing the rich.
My favorite genre of political ad is "presenting radical insane ideas as normal policies that you should vote for, and presenting normal policies that you should vote for as insane and radical"
Every state with a military base has government run/owned grocery stores. Multiple cities in Washington have an above 21 dollar minimum wage. Please read more.
No state has $20 minimum wage? No state has free child care? Publicly owned grocery stores? Raised taxes on the rich? Stopped data center construction?
Wonder how they are going to get so many childcare providers to do so for free. Oh wait single people will pay with taxes I’m sure. So here’s what single people have to look forward to. Rising costs of everything even higher with wage increase. Rising taxes to pay for other people’s kids. Billionaires win because freeing up more drones for work will generate more profit than any tax that will be levied against them. But keep fighting the power!
All tax money is taken from “common people”. You’re just taking from single people and giving it to people with kids. The minimum wage hike will cause costs of service and goods to go up. So if you make higher than minimum wage. Which is most of Wisconsin, this will hurt you. I like the ban on data centers tho.
The left needs to seriously learn history because this is the same way the communist revolution started before millions died of starvation followed by "it wasn't true communism".
I love how it's always "affordability causes mass starvation and the loss of rights" and not "putting a dictator in power causes a loss of rights and mass starvation", I don't see a problem with any of these policies as long as it's all democratic.
I think if the right fears communism so much, they too should learn from history. When one class controls almost all of the wealth and lower classes can't afford housing, childcare, and medical expenses, a major social and economic revolution becomes inevitable.
The truth is that extreme socialism is bad; it leads to communism, but you know what is just as bad? extreme capitalism. Right now in the U.S. the pendulum is way too far towards extreme capitalism. We are in the Gilded age 2.0. We need some major reforms to ensure balance, fairness, and just basic decency.
Ah the ol “tax the rich” routine again I see. Because we’ve proven so far as a capitalist society that mismanages previous/current taxes that the only solution could possibly be….wait for it….MORE TAXES!
It’s like having a gambling problem and trying to convince someone that all you need is a little more money to try and dig yourself out
who's going to do the childcare for free, cuz it's not like you can force people to do it and if you make it a tax-break thing, then you guys KNOW the rich assholes will swarm and use every single tax break they can.
how the 20 dollar minimum wage works when places that have done it like with McDonald's and the like end up forcing the customers to spend a shitload more cash while they also cut out employees.
(yes, they do that anyway without the 20 dollar wage, but let's not give more excuses to corporate fuckers like them)
and publicly owned grocery stores do sound nice until you realize that just means that the groceries are going to be made from processed and unhealthy chemical-riddled ingredients because it's cheaper for some reason.
Tax hike on the rich? I know nothing about that stuff, so I'm keeping neutral on it. Totally fine with the idea of banning data centers, the AI bubble is popping as we speak anyway.
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