WHAT AMERICA NEEDS TO HEAR: The mood of the Democratic Party seems to have improved lately because of the Bush Administration’s recent mixture of bad luck and stupid flubs. The Dems could arguably re-take control of the House of Reps. during the Congressional elections this fall. The Senate is a harder proposition; most commentators see that as ‘one bridge too far’ for the Dems. Still, the GOP’s margin in the Senate may be reduced to 2 or even 1. <\/p>\n
I think that’s generally a good thing, but not all that good. What do the Democrats stand for these days? About all they’ve got going is that they’re not Republicans. They don’t have a plan or a vision for the country, as they arguably did back in the 60s and 70s. <\/p>\n
I know what I’d like to hear them say. But they won’t. No one that wants to gain political power would ever say what America desperately needs to hear right now. But just for laughs, let me tell you what it might sound like:<\/p>\n
Over the past 6 years, really since 1980, we’ve been cutting taxes mostly for the rich and dismantling much of our federal government. When we tried to use what’s left of that government recently to rebuild a nation (Iraq), we saw that it wasn’t ready for prime-time. Had we gone into Iraq with another 100,000 troops in ’03 and brought with us enough resources to quicky recover the basic infrastructure, re-open the schools, and jump-start the economy, our dream of a unified, democratic, secular liberal government over there might have come true. But it’s too late now. <\/p>\n
As to Katrina and New Orleans, we again saw that our federal government didn’t have the capability to respond quickly and keep the situation from becoming dire. And if that bird flu mutates and becomes a human pandemic, heaven help us all. As to rising gasoline and energy prices: this time it’s not just a spike because of world politics; despite our technology, the planet is running out of cheap oil. We need to get our economy off the oil standard without passing thru a great depression. Big business is not set up to do that; the stock market forces business to think mostly in terms of quarterly earnings. It’s going to take long-term government leadership. <\/p>\n
And as to health care, just look what happened when we decided to help seniors out a bit recently (the drug plan) but tried to do it without government coordination. Then compare our current space program to what we had in 1970; who would imagine back then that we’d someday have to send our guys up in Russian capsules. And think about the mistakes that our lawyers made in the Moussaoui terrorism case (coaching witnesses in violation of a direct court order); once upon a time, being a federal lawyer meant being the best of the best. Now, apparently, it doesn’t.<\/p>\n
To get back the kind of government institutions that we need and once had is going to take a commitment on the part of both our leaders and our citizens; but realistically, it will also require money. That means higher taxes. We can’t keep borrowing; we’re already in debt way over our heads to foreign nations, including that big one in the east that now dreams of unseating us in ten years as the most powerful nation on this planet (i.e., China). We will spread the burden of these higher taxes fairly, asking those who have benefited the most from our unbridled economy over the past 30 years to contribute the most. But everyone is going to have to help out at least a little if America is going to regain its greatness. Oh, and while we’re in the mood for cold, hard reality, we’re probably going to have to re-establish the draft, although we may be able to put in a public service option such as the Peace Corp or Americorp coupled with Reserve training.<\/b><\/p>\n
Don’t hold your breath waiting for anything like this. Even Howard Dean isn’t crazy enough to be this honest!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WHAT AMERICA NEEDS TO HEAR: The mood of the Democratic Party seems to have improved lately because of the Bush Administration’s recent mixture of bad luck and stupid flubs. The Dems could arguably re-take control of the House of Reps. during the Congressional elections this fall. The Senate is a harder proposition; most commentators see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}