The so-called newsmen are nodding sagely and talking about some national "shift to the right," and the pundits are all moaning about the Democrat's need to put 'family' and 'morals' at the center of our next campaign. By which they mean we should adopt the Republican model for what's right and wrong. There's just one problem with that plan -- it won't work.
2002 showed well enough that grafting an elephant trunk of war support onto a donkey is a bad idea. If we think we can win by slapping on a coat of elephant morality gray and cutting gays loose to sink in a sea of prejudice... well that would be monumentally stupid.
Instead, we have to let Democrats be Democrats. We are the official party of the American dream.
If we failed this time around, it's not because we were not enough like them. It's because we've forgotten just how much better than them we already are.
The Republicans may be holding up a facade of morality, but behind it they are as rotten as a brown tooth. There's only one color this elephant can see, and that color is green. In short, your go get 'em attack message for 2006 is: Republicans are thieves. If there's anything that we should have learned from 2004, it's that your language can never been too brief, or too blunt. So say it again, brothers and sisters. Republicans are thieves. The Republicans will stop at nothing to loot the American people. The Republicans won't be happy until your last dollar is in their pen-striped pocket. The Republicans weren't just friends with Enron, they take that as their role model. They want to preside over the Enroning of the American government. Howard Dean has said it, hell, innumerable Democrats have said it, but they don't say it enough or when it's most important: you can't trust Republicans with your money. And if you trust them with your government, they will have all your money. Everything they propose, from Bush's 'environmental' plans to his new Social Security farce is desinged around one thought: how can I get more public cash for me and my buds?
So what are we going to do about it? What we're not going to do is whine. Instead, we're going to be the party that saves America. We're going to save our seniors, save our working people, save our environment, and save our government from going the way of Argentina.
We're going to:
Secure Social Security
Everybody put on your best Al impersonation and say it with me... lock box. We're going to pass legislation that will stop the looting of the current Social Security surplus. Every penny that comes in for Social Security will remain in Social Security. Other programs -- including military programs like the complete idiocy that is missile defense -- will have to be cut to cover the loss to the general fund. And, by God, we're going to put on our insulated gloves, lay a finger on that third rail, and speak some truth -- by 2012, we'll increase the retirement age by two years. What about those twenty-somethings that might be craving all the hypothetical money they'd make from the Bush plan? First off, they're going to vote for us anyway. But to cement that vote, we're going to double the amount of money that can go into IRAs over the same period that the Social Security age is going up. Young people get their money, seniors get what they were promised, we get credit for standing up to the firestorms involved in raising the retirement age, and the Social Security system doesn't turn into the National Stockbroker Enrichment Act.
Limit CEO Pay
I have to admit, this one's personal. The raises given to all the employees at the company where I work ranged from 2% to a whopping 2 1/2% this year. Ahhh, but those officers. VPs got a 50% increase. The CEO got 130%. And then they had the nerve to send us letters about cracking down on costs. Well, okay, Mr. CEO, here's a cost-cutting memo for you. I call it the Corporate Compensation Fairness Act. It's primary provision is quite simple: no officer of a public company may receive compensation, salary and benefits, exceeding fifty times that of the company's lowest paid full time employee. Frankly, 50x is too high, but compared with the 3000x now in place at all too many companies, it's a nice target. The companies will stomp and snort. There'll be a CEO brain-drain! Uh, where are they going to go? Europe? The CEO's there average about 30x their lowest workers. Japan? Ditto. Maybe they'll go to China. It is, after all, the neo-con dream state -- single party rule, little to no regulation, and a robber baron on every corner. I'll be watching to see which of these erstwhile leaders of capitalism reaches first for the Little Red Book. Some companies may be taken private to dodge this rule. That's fine, too. But if you're going to be a public company, and benefit from all the access to funds that provides, you are going to behave in a way that has benefit to the public. You want a raise, Mr. CEO? Fine. Raise the salary of the guys at the bottom, and you can go up just as fast as they do. But not one lick faster.
The New Manhattan Project
It's been mentioned before in a thousand diaries, and national politicians, including Kerry, have made weak stabs at it. But it has to be front and center if you want people to believe we're really going to do something more than just talk about it. We are going to kick oil out of our energy economy, and we're going to do it within a decade. This is actually a two stage plan. First, we have to get the oil our of our gas tanks. That's where oil goes in America. You can cover Arizona in solar panels, or put windmills shoulder to shoulder along the Rockies, but it won't save one drop of oil. Oil is burned by cars. So the first phase of this plan is closer to "rural electrification" than to the invention of the bomb. We have to select a method of storing energy in cars to power electric engines. Maybe that's hydrogen. Maybe that's quickly replaceable Lithium ion batteries. Whatever it is, we quickly settle on a technology then support the roll out of a national infrastructure to handle that technology. At the same time, we start a program that will both subsidize vehicles running on the new system and start escalating fines for those running on icky old gasoline. By the end of the decade, only a few specialty gasoline vehicles with massive sticker prices will be available in the US (you can still get your shiny new Enzo, but the gas-use tax on that bad boy will be supporting health care for a whole town in West Virginia). Long before we reach 100% vehicles on the new system, we will have passed the point so that no American need ever again die to support a foreign tyrant in control of oil, and no American government need ever compromise our support of human rights in oil-rich countries. After our gas tanks cease to be gas tanks, we can start phase two: replacing our energy production system with one that produces radically less pollution and green house gases. We should also leave no doubt that, in all phases, this is a public works bill. This project doesn't just come with a price tag, it comes with jobs. Lots of jobs. Good jobs. It will bring jobs in new technologies that we can build at home, then export to the world. If any Republican starts to gripe at the price tag attached to this project, ask them how it looks compared to the hundreds of billions we are currently spending to secure our access to oil.
Democrats: saving Social Security, protecting workers from CEOs who are looting our companies, and protecting our nation from the real costs of foreign oil.
Republicans: thieves.
Ladies and gents, your soundbites are ready. Now, who's got a good house or senate candidate in 2006?