Crossposted from Democratic Convention Watch, where the poll resides.
We've talked for a long time about how the Republicans set and then move the goal posts. Finally, the goal posts have left the field. Harry Reid's last (?) offer involves $2.7 trillion in cuts and no revenues. No shared sacrifice.
Reid said the plan "meets Republicans' two main criteria" — spending cuts greater in size than the increase in borrowing authority and no new revenue. - AP
The only term that seems to fit is "utter capitulation".
A few days ago, some long-time DCW folks debatedover a comment noting that one of our ranks has left the Democratic Party. That discussion had to do with Obama, but here, if Democrats vote for the Reid initiative, our party may well be lost. Reid's idea is that this is better than the Boehner proposal because it's one step instead of two steps of cuts.
While there is no list of the cuts specifically, you can bet it includes chained Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts, food stamp cuts, WIC cuts, and basically an end to the Safety Net as we knew it. No shared sacrifice, no closing of tax loopholes, no incentive for employers to create or even keep jobs.
It may not cost Obama the 2012 election, but voting "yes" on the Reid proposal will solidify the Republican grasp on the House, and likely cost us the Senate. Obama's position has been, from the start, that "the base" doesn't matter, only Independents do as Democrats will vote Democratic no matter what.
My question now is "vote for what?" For a party that is the party of capitulation? For a group of elected officials who vote Republican? Certainly it's not the Democratic Party of FDR. There's a terrific postabout what FDR did, and it includes this FDR quote:
To balance our budget in 1933 or 1934 or 1935 would have been a crime against the American people. To do so we should either have had to make a capital levy that would have been confiscatory, or we should have had to set our face against human suffering with callous indifference. When Americans suffered, we refused to pass by on the other side. Humanity came first.
No one lightly lays a burden on the income of a Nation. But this vicious tightening circle of our declining national income simply had to be broken. The bankers and the industrialists of the Nation cried aloud that private business was powerless to break it. They turned, as they had a right to turn, to the Government. We accepted the final responsibility of Government, after all else had failed, to spend money when no one else had money left to spend.
See the parallels?
For years, I've been telling legitimately moderate Republican friends that their party abandoned them. And I can't speak for the rest of you, but my party has now abandoned me. I cannot be a member of a party that looks, acts and actually is the Republican Party of the early 1960's. If the Reid bill passes on Democratic votes, I see no choice but to pull one of my voter registration forms out of the stack, and leave the party. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that because being a Democratic is as inculcated into me as being female.
My thought at this point is about registration and not voting because in an off year, especially the year after a Republican rout, the registration numbers may be the only way to make a point to the Democratic leadership.
What about you? Click here for poll.