But according to TFA, this $2000 policy limit has been in place since 1989. What have the Democrats done? Have they not been in any position of power in the last 30 years?
Probably they have just also sat around and blamed the other party too. Sick of this passing the buck bullshit that literally gets nothing done.
* The 1993 - 1994 congressional term[1], during which they tried and failed to do healthcare reform, but succeeded in passing bills for medical leave, NAFTA, gun control, violent crime, taxes, and education.
* June 30, 2009 - February 4, 2010 (72 working days total)[2], during which they passed a major healthcare reform bill, the Affordable Care Act.
From 1981 - 1992, 1995 - 2008, and 2011 - 2020, Republicans have held the presidency or at least one house of Congress. During 2009-2010 and 2021-present, they have also abused the Senate filibuster to obstruct almost the entire Democratic agenda, with the goal of making the public perceive Democrats as ineffective. (As you have seen for yourself, it worked!) In the current term, the Democrats have a bare 50%+1 majority, which means that the most conservative Democrat (usually Joe Manchin of West Virginia) effectively has a veto.
On top of that, the Supreme Court has been controlled by Republican partisans since 2006, when Samuel Alito was appointed. Currently there is a 5-vote majority of extreme Republican partisans. This creates an additional Republican veto point for effectively any Democratic legislation.
One can (and should) criticize the Democrats for not ending the filibuster when they had the chance. But the reality is that the American legislative process involves a lot of veto points, and it only takes control of one to kill a bill.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/103rd_United_States_Congress#M...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress
NAFTA doesn't really count here since it was passed over strong (but not unanimous) Democratic resistance with almost unanimous Republican support.
Or maybe it does, since while it was a break from the existing and prior policy orientation of the party, it was a Clinton policy which presaged the emergent dominance of the anti-worker neoliberal capitalist wing of the party that dominated the party from after it's defeat in the 1994 midterms until now (weakening a bit in the last several years.)
This isn't to let the Democrats off the hook, only to explain that Democratic voters are not uniformly behind improving these policies.
The democrats in office simply do not represent their constituents. The democrat-voting population is farther left than the democrat politicians. However, outside of the more radical democrats like Sanders and AOC, most democrats have been bought by the wealthy just like the republicans.
That is your opinion, and based on your experience in your cohort, and additionally does not really address what "more left" actually means. There are many different types of people that vote Democrat at many different stages of life, in many different industries and in different states/areas where certain things have more support than others. And that's before we even start breaking things out to being "left" socially or fiscally.
I don't think the answer is "quite simple" at all, at least not in the way you explained it.
Couldn't it also just be that there's a lot to keep track of for our current government (of laws and making/updating/enforcing them)? As society grows, you inevitably will have issues that fall through the cracks if administration doesn't also grow accordingly. Maybe they haven't gotten to updating this $2,000 thing because they're focused on other more important things? Hell, I doubt there's a single politician, that knows at the top of their head, all the laws and policies we as a government have in effect, along with all their nuances...
And then the other problem is that the majority has to come to agreement for things to actually change. This is often a slow process. Sometimes you have politicians trying to change stuff like this, but they alone don't quite have enough power, and it takes time for them to convince others that it needs addressing, let alone the proper way to address it.
I notice we have not had Bernie Sanders on the Presidential ticket, despite two runs; and there is surely some reason for that.
Possibly the voters have identified that those candidates will not gain sufficient independent or Republican support to actual win in general elections.
In any case, it seems likely to be a lot more nuanced than you're suggesting.
Assuming that the primaries represent who will actually win a presidential election is as much of a mistake as assuming that polls are accurate when it comes to election day.
On the other hand, the far right thinks anyone left of Trump is a socialist and will vote Republican just to try to keep away socialism.
While there is that, welfare traps are not limited to the US, and through countries with very different levels of “social democratic” focus, so they are clearly a broader and more compelling thing somehow.
Government programs don't need Republicans to add the dysfunction.
They tried to do so in January but Manchin and Sinema voted against it.
In fact they've already done so at least once:
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/585192-senate-passes-bil...
1. Drag their feet until Democrats reluctantly agree to include something guaranteed to cause dysfunction (uneconomic means testing, perverse incentive cliffs, adverse selection, etc).
2. Point at the dysfunction they created as a reason to kill the program.
I'd be a lot more sympathetic to #2 if I didn't see so much #1.