I'm not advocating for "making billionaires poorer" or taking their money away and giving it away. Putting a governor in place to slow down the growing economic disparity growth is what I'd support. Some of the left might advocate taking existing money away whereas as I believe you should only put changes in place looking forward (e.g. increase marginal tax rates).
I don't think AOC is advocating a wealth tax (at least not yet). I think she's advocating a new 70 percent income tax bracket at $10M per year. My concern is what this looks like in practice. You raise about $70B per year (at best) with this tax. It is not enough money to meaningfully help the lower classes. It's not enough to fund their healthcare, their educational opportunities, or much of anything else that's meaningful. However, it is enough to diminish private investment, which means less economic growth and lower job growth. I'm not seeing much of an upside.
I'm a strong supporter of trade schools and an educational system closer to the European system of "tracks" for children of lesser academic prowess.
Most on the Right agree with this, but the identity politics people hate it. Why? Because who is going to get diverted toward trade school? It's going to be lower academic achievers, and that is almost sure to be disproportionately minorities (except Asians). They're going to ask why a bunch of blacks and Hispanics are pushed toward becoming auto mechanics, heating and AC repairmen, plumbers, etc. rather than doctors, lawyers, and CPAs. It's going to be viewed as racist and criticized as such.
The health care system is definitely distorted but not sure I'd lay it at the feet of government rules except those written by lobbyists that further entrench Insurers, medical service and equipment providers and the Pharmaceutical industry.
There are plenty of such lobby-driven rules, but government money is the bigger distorter than the rules. But by far the biggest distortion is caused by the nature of financing healthcare through insurance. Whenever you have a third-party payer with unlimited resources, things get expensive. I don't know how you break that cycle. Frankly, we are probably headed toward a government system within the next twenty years for better or for worse. It's just a matter of whether it'll be financed through a payroll tax or by deficit spending (and therefore financial ruin).
In turn, its not just AOC and Sanders that are playing on the underclass but demagogues like Trump too. The style is the same but the policies are different. Trump simply convinced his base that immigrants, foreign trade deals and Coastal liberals are the root of all evils, not their relative education level in a knowledge worker economy.
Certainly Trump played on it. In fact, politicians have been playing on the underclasses so long as the underclass has been allowed to vote. The difference is that at least for now and until it's convenient, Trump isn't trying to explode the entitlement state and reorganize the economy. (I still think that if Democrats take control of Congress and pass a single payer bill while he's president, he will sign it.)
Social Security may have started as a 'Democrat' idea but it's bi-partisan now. It's a sacred cow that nobody will touch as long as the Baby boomers are a significant voting bloc.
Presently, yes; historically no. In the Trump era, the GOP has basically capitulated to a non-reformed Social Security system, as they've become dependent on older voters. However, they have attempted meaningful reforms at various times in the last 30 years. They were demonized by Democrats for throwing old people in the street, etc., and the media basically cheered them on. Nobody gave a crap about the math. They lost elections trying, and they have given up. It's a shame.
It is not necessarily a Baby Boomer problem though. When I started following politics 28 years ago, it was the WWII generation that fought reform. Most Baby Boomers saw the problems with it but weren't motivated enough by it to vote accordingly. I thought that when the WWII generation (and their nostalgia for FDR) died off, things might change. They didn't. By the time Baby Boomers started to care about the program, they were dependent on it or saw their dependency coming.
The voters who should be caring about it are younger voters. That was true in the '90s and even more true now. They're the ones who are really getting ripped off, but they don't understand it and don't care about it. Furthermore, nobody is communicating the problem to them or explaining it to them. So while they're amped up by pot legalization, college tuition, and pet social justice issues, they're literally having six or even seven figures just yanked out of their pockets and either don't know or don't care about it. It's sad. The bottom line is that it'll be a mess until there's an implosion that could be easily avoided if dealt with if we were a little bit sensible and could do math at a 3rd grade level.