Democrats go on offensive with new TV Ad

[SlowwHand]

Actually, I don't blame democrats for tying their hopes, dreams and memories to Clinton.
Going past Clinton, when was there last a decent democratic president?

[Barnabas]

Clinton was the president right before Bush Junior, it is not like they are going faaaaar back in time.

People have a modern example of successfull democrat administration, Bill!

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
why so skeptic?

Do you think in the 8 years of Clinton dems showed they cant rule a country? I thought all those years were very good.

The Clinton years were largely divided government, with the Republicans in control of the congress for 6 years.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Admiral

Democrats do have an agenda. Recently, the Dems came out with both a plan called "six in 06 ," and the agenda for their "first 100 hours ." And in a recent Newsweek Poll, a majority of Americans supported this agenda.

That's some remarkably good stuff if a bit light on specifics. Then again the Republican's Contract with American platform was the same, mostly slogans, which weren't fleshed out until after the election was won.

There is a lot of intentional disinformation out there claiming the Democrats don't have a plan or that they intend to go on a partisan crusade to impeach Bush. The truth is they've published their plan and Pelosi has publically said she will not persue impeachment and instead wants to go right to work passing the laws in their platform. I can't blame the Republicans for lying though since most of politics seems to be about lying.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sikander

The Clinton years were largely divided government, with the Republicans in control of the congress for 6 years.

Divided government seems to work best. It forces the two sides to compromise and work together while one party rule ends up totally excluding the other side and the dominant party going off on ideological circle jerks.

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Offensive? All they've done is take shots and offer no alternatives.

I think that Democrats only know attack and no substance


come on and give me a real reason in detail ( no retortic)

[Dinner]

You saw Admiral's links, right?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Admiral
....

Democrats do have an agenda. Recently, the Dems came out with both a plan called "six in 06 ," and the agenda for their "first 100 hours ." And in a recent Newsweek Poll, a majority of Americans supported this agenda.

Let's have a look at that agenda:

"REAL SECURITY AT HOME AND OVERSEAS
Reclaim American leadership with a tough, smart plan to transform failed Bush Administration policies in Iraq, the Middle East and around the world."

Wow, that's certainly something that I can get behind. I like stuff that is "tough" and "smart". And so vague as to be meaningless. Of course they do get into some specifics later on...

"Require the Iraqis to take responsibility for their country and begin the phased redeployment of US forces from Iraq in 2006."

Begin a "phased redeployment" sounds a lot better than cutting and running, but it would be hard to describe it as anything more than an admission of defeat and a precipitous retreat when it is slated to begin less than two months after the elections and before anyone even takes their seats in congress. I'm sure there's enough time to plan so as to minimize U.S. casualties on the way out, but for the Iraqis it's more of "ready or not here we go". Don't forget to have the U.S. commander stop by and wish the Iraqi government luck before it is taken over by Sadr or murdered in its sleep.

"Double the size of Special Forces to destroy Osama Bin Laden and terrorist networks like al Qaeda."

Perhaps a good long range goal, but does anyone else wonder how we are going to retain the combat power in place while embarking on a massive doubling of the force? Someone has to train these new guys, and a lot of current guys themselves will need to be trained in order to be ready for their new command responsibilities in the new units. Once this is done these new units will need time to get up to snuff as units, you can't simply assign a lot of people to a new unit and expect it to perform well in combat. It takes about two years to train an enlistee to become a low-ranking special forces troop btw, and that assumes that you have a steady stream of excellent candidates. If you rush things you end up as we did in Vietnam, with a lot of guys who would never have qualified for the SF manning the units, and extremely junior NCOs leading them.

"Rebuild a state-of-the-art military capable of projecting power wherever necessary."

Erm, ok that sounds like what anyone in power is going to say (and hopefully do). Certainly the Army and Marines are going to require rebuilding after Iraq if not immediately. It's vague as hell though. I'd suggest a permanent increase in troops capable of security / counterinsurgency in order to retain some of the capabilities / knowledge we had to scrap the old army for in Iraq. A permanent unit who only does peacekeeping / occupation would seem the best way to go here.

As important would be a permanent group of professionals made up of both military and the state department personnel who could effectively put together an aid policy that isn't rife with incompetence, corruption etc., as well as training / development of some very senior personnel to run these sorts of programs and serve as military governors if necessary. No more Paul Bremers, no more building this sh!t from scratch when we need it now, and no more undercutting whoever is in charge by either the military or the state department.

"Implement the bipartisan 9/11 Commission proposal to secure America’s borders and ports and screen 100% of containers. Fully man, train, and equip our National Guard and our police, firefighters and other first responders."

Bipartisan doesn't mean prescient, apolitical or correct. It means made up of stakeholders from the two dominant political parties, whose genius we can see in any number of ads on television right now. In this case the 9/11 commission took a kitchen sink approach to security, largely by promoting ever larger bureaucracies like the homeland security department, and point defense. Point defense is the most effective type of defense, but it is also staggeringly expensive to implement on your entire territory as well as around any bases or permanent interests a country like ours may have overseas.

Bush got one thing right, in that he realized that 99.99% of our enemies are overseas and the bulk of our efforts should be expended there. Given an unlimited budget one could of course pursue both policies, or even a neo-isolationist policy of point defense only. It's not surprising that the commission would suggest such a thing, as paying for this stuff was not part of their mandate. It is the responsibility of whomever has to govern however. Aside from the extremely poor cost / benefit of such a policy in most instances, it is a terrible temptation to use such funds as yet another source of pork for congress to dole out.

"Honor our commitments to our veterans."

A very honorable and expensive sentiment which I share, but fear will end up gutted due to all the other spending being added to the budget as well as the many truly gigantic entitlement programs mysteriously not being mentioned at all.

"BETTER AMERICAN JOBS - BETTER PAY
Prohibit the Congressional pay raise until the nation’s minimum wage is raised. End tax giveaways that reward companies for moving American jobs overseas."

Ah, raising the minimum wage. It would be pretty painless up to the point where it would be meaningful. Once it started to actually give people raises who actually matter to the economy it is going to begin to push more business overseas or underground to be done by illegal aliens.

Why not instead put the effort into building a bullet-proof ID for workers in this country and then improving the laws that prohibit dodging the labor laws of this country such as hiring illegal workers etc. And then enforce those laws like your life depended on it. This would pretty quickly raise the wages of lower caste American workers without distorting the market, and comes with a large number of side-benefits.

As for the second part, why not truncate it to - End tax giveaways - and then do so.

"COLLEGE ACCESS FOR ALL
Make college tuition deductible from taxes, permanently. Cut student loan interest rates. Expand Pell Grants."

I'm of the opinion that we are throwing a lot of good money after bad here when our K-12 public education system is so poor. Why should we use such an expensive method of remedial education? Top students (as measured by some objective measure) should get scholarships, financial aid etc. All students should get a high school education the equal of what the average college student receives now. The extra 5 years of their life to do with as they wish are a bonus.

"ENERGY INDEPENDENCE - LOWER GAS PRICES
Free America from dependence on foreign oil and create a cleaner environment with initiatives for energy-efficient technologies and domestic alternatives such as biofuels. End tax giveaways to Big Oil companies and enact tough laws to stop price gouging."

Finally a sentiment that everyone can get behind. Or is it? Lowering gas prices seems to contradict the independence thing, as the vast majority of our gas comes from overseas. The market is a great motivator for innovation, so why shouldn't we use it by raising gas taxes in order to make oil users pay for the externalities such as environmental degradation and the portion of the defense and foreign policy budgets that are utilized to keep that oil flowing? Let the new methods stand on their own merits rather than subsidizing them in order to bribe people in farm states. Investment in pure and applied research will likely pay for themselves, so why not?

Again, why be so specific about "tax giveaways", unless there are some tax giveaways you intend to keep in place. End them all. As for price gouging, why waste the energy enacting new laws for a problem that doesn't exist? Unless you are cynically claiming it does for your own political gain.

"AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE - LIFE-SAVING SCIENCE
Fix the Medicare prescription drug program, putting seniors first by negotiating lower drug prices and ending wasteful giveaways to drug companies and HMOs. Promote stem cell research that offers real hope to millions of American families who suffer from devastating diseases."

Again with the giveaways. I'm with you, end them all. Negotiate lower prices if you can without forcing them, it's high time America stopped paying for the lion's share of the research costs for new medicines. Of course that means one of our leading industries may be harmed, but it's not our responsibility to lead the way here.

As for affordable health care, I don't see how these meager proposals are going to do it. I also don't see why we want to continue to focus on health care for senior citizens when it is the least cost-effective way to improve the general health of the country and amounts to another subsidy for the wealthiest sector of the population. They are old and they are going to die soon enough without us spending untold billions keeping them on the dole for a couple more years. Of course they vote, and the majority are apparantly either ignorant as hell or selfish as hell, or both. That money would be better spent on healthcare for children, the poorest and also the most cost-effective demographic group in terms of medicine.

As for stem-cell research, I'm all for research. But let's not get too carried away about what we think this area can provide. Let's find out in an orderly and disciplined fashion, not a stampede that may shut out other more promising research in other areas. These people don't need hope, they need cures.

"RETIREMENT SECURITY AND DIGNITY
Stop any plan to privatize Social Security, in whole or in part. Enact real pension reform to protect employees’ financial security from CEO corruption and mismanagement, including abuse of the bankruptcy laws. Expand personal savings incentives."

Ever wonder why no one but government implements their pension schemes so that current workers pay for current retirees benefits? Because they have to have a rational basis for their plans and cannot simply tax the sh!t out of people in the future to pay for their political cowardice in the present. A plan whereby current workers save for their own retirement holds up whatever happens demographically in the future. It makes tons of capital available to grow the economy rather than fund the government. It's stable.

As for private penions, I'd be all for a government managed plan that took the money away from corporations that could go out of business tomorrow and puts it into the hands of thousands of independent though tightly regulated government fund managers whose results would be pooled and dividends paid back into the fund. Come to think of it, it wouldn't be a bad way to run Social Security either, if you hadn't expended so much political capital demogoguing the issue already.

I'd like to hear exactly what the plan is to reign in corporate corruption, but I'm not holding my breath. Democrats take huge bribes from corporations just like Republicans.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Offensive? All they've done is take shots and offer no alternatives. No worth much. Democratic donators should be just real pleased with what their money bought.

You mean like the Republicans have been doing. The only solution they've been offering is "Stay the course" and even that they're non-commital on.

[dannubis]

i highly doubt that the republicans who are currently in charge even have an attention span that is long enough to know what course the were stearing 5 minutes ago.