OK.
Let's go next to our caller from the four four three.
Area code, who is calling today from four four three.
Hey, it's me.
Yes, it is.
Who's this?
Hi, this is Alex from Maryland.
How you doing, David?
Good.
How are you?
I'm doing good.
I just had a quick question for you.
If you were to update the federal poverty levels, how would you do it in a progressive
way?
That's interesting.
So there's a couple different things.
The federal poverty level in and of itself is is potentially not a good measure because
cost of living varies so dramatically from state to state.
So federal poverty level that has to apply to New York City and rural Wyoming is inherently
problematic because the cost of living is so dramatically different in those two places.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
And so so first and foremost, I would say we would want to maybe revisit what the federal
poverty level is even used for, because it's not a good measure for a lot of different
things.
Maybe maybe it should be done at the state level or county or city that, you know, the
problem about city is do you do it based on where someone lives or where someone works?
You have people who who work in New York City but live in Connecticut.
There's complexities.
But conceptually, I. I think that what it costs to the living wage needs to be taken
into account.
When we think of the federal poverty level and probably the poverty level, combined with
whatever social safety net benefits you would qualify for, should add together to be a living
wage.
Like the ideal thing would be every job pays a living wage.
That's a different type of legislative apparatus then setting the poverty level.
So I think that we should be looking at a framework where, adjusted for cost of living
poverty level, has to get you a certain amount of social safety net benefits where when combined,
you get to a living wage.
If that makes sense and if this is like a fantasy, I mean, this is like we're nowhere
even close to this being a serious discussion.
Yeah, this is all theoretical at this point.
I was just looking up apartments around my area and I was I saw that the federal poverty
level is still fifteen thousand dollars and change, and I thought that was ridiculous.
There's no way you could live anywhere in the U.S. on that.
So.
Right.
Good question is that if you know, if it's fifteen thousand in a lot of places, you could
be making double that.
And you can't afford a one bedroom apartment.
And that makes no sense.
Which I think is the point I'm making.
Yes, exactly.
All right, David, thanks.
OK.
Thank you.
Appreciate the call.
Yeah, likewise.
Let me go next to our caller from the three, four seven area code.
Who's calling today from three four seven.
Oh, lost my pen here.
Hey, let me.
Yes, it is.
Hey, Dave, how are you?
Good.
New York.
Hey, Peter, what's up?
I was wondering if you could wave a magic wand and implement any three policies.
What would it do?
Oh, boy.
I mean, I guess at the micro level, some kind of healthcare for all would be would be number
one.
Number two, we would want to do campaign finance reform because that connects to.
Like, if you care about education or abortion or whatever, the way that elections are financed
is a huge part of how all of those issues are dealt with and used as fundraising wedges.
So we would we would do campaign finance reform.
And that's not one law.
Right.
Like, that's changing a huge apparatus.
I would say health care, campaign finance and probably something serious on climate
change, because, again, it's going to be hard to deal with any other issues if the country's
under water or nobody can breathe.
So maybe most urgently, I would go with those three.
Well, what do you feel about rank choice voting?
Yeah, rank it so that if you said top five, I would include changing the voting system.
And I've actually said before I do.
I'm not necessarily married to ranked choice, but there's a few different versions, including
single transferable vote and a number of others that we've talked about.
What if you said, what's your election reform package?
It would be a combination of getting rid of first past the post combined with campaign
finance reform.
And I've got a bunch of clips about ranked choice versus other systems that you can check
out.
I remember all of that.
Yeah.
All right.
Thanks a lot.
OK.
Appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
We're going to take a quick break, but we will go right back to the phones when we get
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Don't hang up.
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