Would Barack Obama be too conservative for today’s Democrats?

Election 2020: When Bernie Sanders announced on Tuesday that he was running for president, the only surprising thing was how much competition he’ll have on the far left. The current crop of 2020 candidates is so liberal, in fact, that it makes the Barack Obama of 2008 look positively right wing.

When Obama first ran, he tried to position himself as something of a fiscal moderate.

Obama complained about “the orgy of spending” under President George W. Bush. He pledged that all his spending plans were more than offset with spending cuts.

“What I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut,” he said.

He attacked Hillary Clinton for wanting to mandate the purchase of health care, and John McCain for proposing a tax on employer-provided health benefits. About the latter, Obama warned that it would unravel the country’s employer-based private health insurance system.

“That, I don’t think, is the kind of change that we need,” he said.

Instead, Obama said he’d focus on lowering health costs to make insurance a more affordable option.

(Read more here.)

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