In America, the value of your life apparently depends on how you die. Some deaths matter more than others. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational. 

In a rare moment of compromise, both parties agreed to a budget resolution and an increase in the debt ceiling that will sustain the federal government through the coming presidential election. The leadership took a victory lap, and we are supposed to rejoice in a long-awaited compromise. While our mission is to encourage compromise, is this the outcome we want—a compromise that compromises the future? Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

What in fact does this question even mean? Is the “winner” the candidate who scores the most memorable “debate” points, who is quickest on their feet, or who creates the most repeatable sound bites? All of this would make for good television if the debates were a sporting event. But they aren’t. We should ask for more. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

The ongoing healthcare debate never fails to include reference to this so-called truism—that when polled, Americans who receive employer-based health insurance “like it.” This unchallenged belief determines, and possibly distorts, the contours of the debate on Medicare for All. Given our experience with employer-based healthcare, which is central to the way America obtains healthcare, we struggle to understand how this can be. So, this week we explored the issue and found that our concerns were well founded. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

On April 28, we posted a Commentary entitled “Show some courage,” in which we observed that most of the Democratic candidates for president were disappointingly vague about their policy proposals. Mayor Pete Buttigieg provided our headline, as he had been confronted on the topic during his CNN town hall with Anderson Cooper. Since that time, Buttigieg has addressed the issue by articulating 27 reasonably specific proposals on his website, PeteforAmerica.com. We are also pleased to report that as of this writing all of the first-tier candidates have follow suit. While some are more detailed than others, the improvement in clarity and transparency is dramatic and we will all benefit from the improvement.

Observations about the growing level of political polarization are frequent. Democratic candidates blame Trump for fueling the fire and pledge to unite the country. Others observe the growing divide between “red and blue states,” and the divisions over Supreme Court nominees, budget proposals, and the interpretation of the Mueller Report. Our own frustration with the absence of compromise in Washington is a significant motivation of OurFutureAmerica. But is it all true? Were there really ever any ”good old days” when Congress and the executive branch got along? Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

As we would expect during an election year, several candidates are proposing new government programs. So far, we have proposals for higher teacher salaries, an infrastructure bill, universal daycare, student debt forgiveness, free college education, and a tax credit for low income earners, to name a few. Some of them surely deserve consideration. When candidates are asked how they plan to pay for them, however, the universal response is to raise taxes. Warren would impose a wealth tax, while the rest of the candidates seem to coalesce around rolling back the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. By leaping immediately to tax increases, they leave us to conclude that they can find nothing in the current budget to cut. Is this sensible? Shouldn’t the current level of spending at least be discussed? Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

Put on the defensive by Bernie Sanders, who is a self-described socialist (albeit not in the true definition of the word), Democratic candidates for president have been asked to take a side. Are you a socialist or a capitalist? So far, they all profess to be capitalists. Their rhetoric, however, would suggest they don’t always understand what this means. Just recently, Joe Biden criticized companies for not paying their employees a living wage while buying back stock. In her autobiography, Kamala Harris attributes the decline in middle-class wages to corporate greed. Elizabeth Warren’s invective against Wall Street is legendary. How can they be both against it and for it? Perhaps we can help them to reconcile their inconsistency. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

During a recent CNN Town Hall, Anderson Cooper asked Pete Buttigieg why he had no policies on his website. It was a fair question. Sadly, it is a fair question for most of the current candidates for president as well. Is it too much to ask those who want be be our leader to be clear about where they stand on the issues and have the courage to lead? We don’t think so. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational and see what we find.

Echoing James Carville’s now famous reminder to the Clinton campaign in 1992 that it is “The Economy, Stupid,” presidential candidates would be well advised that in 2020, it is healthcare, stupid. But not for the reasons you might think. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

Just six days after the mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, a country where mass shootings are rare, passed a sweeping new ban on semi-automatic rifles and large ammunition magazines. Meanwhile, in the US, despite a mass shooting every nine months, we cannot even pass a moderate degree of gun control. Where is our self-respect? Where is our respect for life?

In a recent opinion piece, Thomas Friedman addressed in his words one of the themes of OurFutureAmerica: that many of us no long have a home in either major political party. Could it be that America needs more parties so that all us can find representation? As he often does, Friedman helps us be fact-based and rational.

Axios provides a daily diet of useful headlines and efficient and accurate summaries of the news behind the headline and, in their words, why it matters.

On March 8th, Axios writer Sam Baker provides a bitesize and useful piece entitled “The unique problem with U.S. health care. He does our work for us as we try to be fact-based and rational.

As the debate about “Medicare for All” heats up, we will continue to help our readers sift through the noise and find the facts. Our launch point today is a recent editorial appearing in the New York Times by Vin Gupta, assistant professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. His title was “The Unforced Error of Medicare for All, Democrats would be wise to seek reform, not revolution.” In it, Mr. Gupta says the following: “Recent polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that although voters like the concept of Medicare for All, net favorability falls by almost 50 points when they are presented with hard truths such as the higher taxes, less provider choice, and increased wait times that will inevitably result.” “Hard truths?”  We don’t think so. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

Last week, when the federal deficit surpassed $22 trillion, there were several references in the media, most of which observed that no one seemed to care. It was just yesterday that the Republican party, led by Paul Ryan, criticized President Obama on what seemed like a daily basis over the “debt crisis staring us in the face” and for a national debt that was “out of control.” But now, no one seems to care. Larry Kudlow, the director of the President’s National Economic Council, dismissed it as not “a problem.” So what sense are we to make of this? Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.