If Kerry won in 2004 and the financial crash still happened what would be the Republican's affordaA

nickboy000

Banned
In 2008, the country revolted against the Republicans and the Democrats used their political capital to pass the Affordable Car Act. How would the Republicans have used their political capital if the country turned against the Democrats in 2008
 
Why would they do one at all? "Millions of Americans not having health insurance/access to healthcare" never seemed to matter to the GOP...
 

nbcman

Donor
Republicans based on the previous 30 years experience would have offered a tax cut and cutting discretionary spending / benefits as opposed to an increase in discretionary spending. Maybe a buffing up of President GW Bush's Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit would be a possible 'health insurance' improvement.
 

MrP

Banned
mistake in title, what would be the Republicans' affordable care act
There wouldn't have been one. Republicans have been very clear about the fact that they don't consider health care to be a right. You can pay? Fine. You can't? Sucks to be you.
 

nickboy000

Banned
Republicans based on the previous 30 years experience would have offered a tax cut and cutting discretionary spending / benefits as opposed to an increase in discretionary spending. Maybe a buffing up of President GW Bush's Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit would be a possible 'health insurance' improvement.
There wouldn't have been one. Republicans have been very clear about the fact that they don't consider health care to be a right. You can pay? Fine. You can't? Sucks to be you.
I didn't mean in terms of what they would do for Healthcare. I meant how would they use the large amount of political capital that was bestowed on them. What large program or gutting a particular program would the Rs consider?
 
The Health Americans Act was a bipartisan bill put forward in 2007 and reintroduced in 2009. I'm not sure if a Republican administration would tackle healthcare, but if it did this would be the likely way it happens I think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_Americans_Act

  1. Administration of the program is by new state-sponsored "Health Help Agencies" (HHA). States must establish these organizations, which will approve health plans from private insurers, provide for enrollment in plans, and act as a conduit for premium payments from the federal government to individual insurance carriers.
  2. All citizens and permanent residents would be required to pay for coverage as part of their federal tax liability. Payment would be made via tax withholding by employers. Individuals would effectively pay the federal government, which would channel the funds to the appropriate HHA and from there to the insurers. Employers would no longer provide basic coverage in most cases.
  3. Taxpayers would have a large healthcare standard deduction, which would increase with inflation. This would help taxpayers pay the tax liability that has now replaced insurance premiums. This essentially replaces the tax exclusion for health care benefits presently paid by employers. Certain low-income taxpayers would be eligible for premium assistance.
  4. The size of the standard deduction for 2009 would range from $6,000 for individuals to $15,210 for couples with children, with incremental amounts for additional children. As a standard deduction, this reduces the income reported as subject to tax. However, this deduction would phase out for higher-income taxpayers, reducing to zero for couples earning over $250,000.
  5. Mandates that employers provide salary and wages increases over a two-year period essentially equal to the amount paid previously for basic healthcare insurance premiums, as employers no longer have to provide basic healthcare coverage.
  6. Employers pay a new tax equal to between 3 percent and 26 percent of the national average premium for the minimum benefits package for each employee, depending on their firm size and amount of gross revenues per employee.
  7. The basic plan would be equal to the Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) Program, with some exceptions. For example, Medicare and military healthcare recipients would be outside the scope of this bill.
  8. Premiums can vary only to reflect geography and smoking status.
  9. Individuals can have more expensive (i.e., non-basic) coverage plans paid directly to insurers.
  10. Certain individuals would be phased out of the Medicaid program, via participation in their state's HHA.


I could see President Romney or President McCain pushing this. Maybe President Huckabee would. President George Allen wouldn't, I think.
 

MrP

Banned
I didn't mean in terms of what they would do for Healthcare. I meant how would they use the large amount of political capital that was bestowed on them. What large program or gutting a particular program would the Rs consider?
More tax cuts for the rich.
 
I didn't mean in terms of what they would do for Healthcare. I meant how would they use the large amount of political capital that was bestowed on them. What large program or gutting a particular program would the Rs consider?
probably what Trump is doing now.... more tax cuts for the rich, gutting the EPA and anything environmentally related, denying climate change as it becomes an issue, etc...
 
Without clarifying who the President is (McCain and Romney will have very different ideas on the economy, for example), what the GOP primaries were like, and what other parts of the Kerry Presidency went like, it's hard to speculate without making broad generalities that will get this thread moved to chat. Also, it's impossible to ignore that Kerry would have a much harder time getting TARP through Congress than Bush did, since it involved so much Federal intervention, and even in OTL, it was like pulling teeth to get Republicans to support the bill-- a precondition by OTL Democrats to support the legislation so they wouldn't get blamed. ITTL, since Kerry is running for reelection, the Republican congress many be content to let things slide off the cliff to get a wave election, so [X Republican President] may be inheriting a full blown depression and not just a recession.

Also, Obama spent a fair amount of capital on the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, so I don't know if it's fair to limit a Republican President to one signature item. You could see something like a very large corporate and capital gains rate tax cut (in contast with Obama's payroll tax cut to fight the recession) justified along Keynesian principles, as well as item that is attached to that President specifically, such as a hypothetical President Ryan attempting to change Medicaid to a block grant or encourage state experimentation on some other parts of the Federal safety net.
 
Judging by the various actions that the Republicans support, the finical crash of 2008 would not be the Great Recession but more like a second Great Depression.
 

nbcman

Donor
Judging by the various actions that the Republicans support, the finical crash of 2008 would not be the Great Recession but more like a second Great Depression.
Recall that there was an Emergency Stabilization Act of 2008 that was signed by then President Bush with bipartisan support, including Presidential candidates Obama and McCain. Either a Democrat or Republican who won the presidential election would be forced to pass passing more financial policies to deal with the fallout. After the immediate fallout is addressed, I agree that all bets would have been off for subsequent tax cuts (EDIT: ) by Republicans.
 
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mistake in title, what would be the Republicans' affordable care act

Here's GW Bush's 2007 plan as summarized by a friendly source:

***
Equalizing the tax treatment of individually-purchased health insurance

Bush’s proposal sought to eliminate the unlimited tax break for employer-sponsored insurance, replacing it with a standard deduction for everyone. Under the plan, anyone—employed or not—who bought at least catastrophic insurance would not pay income or payroll taxes on the first $7,500 of their income, or the first $15,000 for a family plan.

It’s an idea with a long history in Republican policy circles. In the early 1980s, President Reagan proposed capping the employer-sponsored insurance deduction, in order to reduce the deficit, but it went nowhere in Congress, because Republicans saw it as a tax increase, and labor unions saw it as a threat to their generous benefit packages. In 1992, George H.W. Bush also sought to cap the exclusion and use the savings to fund tax-credit subsidies for the uninsured, but the elder Bush had recently violated his “no new taxes” pledge, and House Republicans were in no mood to raise taxes again.


The 2007 Bush plan’s numbers were designed with 2009 insurance prices in mind, and the tax-deduction thresholds would grow with CPI inflation. The Treasury Department estimated that the plan would lower taxes for 80 percent of those with employer-sponsored insurance, and increase taxes for the remaining 20 percent. It would have especially benefited the 18 million people who then bought insurance on their own, along with many of the uninsured, who would suddenly find health insurance to be significantly less expensive.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapo...h-would-have-replaced-obamacare/#451bae423355
 
It depends on who is President. If its Romney, I would assume some form of tax reform that centered around making asset capitalization easier for businesses. If its McCain, I think social security reform (this would be a political nightmare for the GOP but McCain was I think quite insistent on it). If its Huckabee, I think you get some populist action against Wall Street after the AIG bailouts are revealed (I remember watching his TV show at the time and he proposed something like 100% tax rates on those who received bonuses and jail time for the Countrywide/Lehmann crowd) and probably a constitutional amendment on marriage or the unborn.
 
Tax, and regulatory reform, maybe something on immigration, and possibly the health plan @David T references above. Possibly government reform along the lines of Obama's apparent interest in abolishing the Commerce Department and/or something like the Trump Administration's plan to consolidate the federal departments of Education and Labor.
 
GOP would be in the process of dying to be replaced with a second party given the results of implementing Tea Party stuff in the middle of the great recession.
 
GOP would be in the process of dying to be replaced with a second party given the results of implementing Tea Party stuff in the middle of the great recession.
What makes you think the Tea Party rises and has any kind of input?

The Tea Party probably does exist in some form because of the bailouts going OTL, but they never catch fire because of a lack of Obamacare, and the institutional Republican Party in 2008-09 is in much stronger shape. The Tea Party only had a gander at power because the GOP was wiped out in 2006 and 2008. So no, I don't think earmarks are going to be abolished or wait times for lobbying activities increased or the debt ceiling played with, all of which happened in OTL because of the Tea Party.
 
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