If John Kerry had been elected we'd...

This is for the Anti-Administration posters only, Please.
I’m asking for genuine, serious discussion, Please.
No one-liners or cheap shots, Please.
<ul type="square"> ****************************************[/list]Republicans keep complaining about Democrats not offering “Plans.” They say Dems only want to bitch and moan. Truth be told, I don’t see answers coming from many Dems - just questions and complaints.

I would like to hear thoughts about how people who are dissatisfied with the GWB administration think things would be going today if Senator Kerry had been elected.

Iraq and “The War on Terror,” are not the only topics I’d like to hear about. Social Security, Medicare, Education, Border Security, Bankruptcy law, Immigration - it’s all open.

Yes, the House and the Senate are controlled by Republicans. Assume Kerry would have used the Bully Pulpit and all the powers of negotiation he could muster to get his agenda satisfied. I’d rather not hear “But the Republicans wouldn’t let it pass.”

[theweatherman]

I am against the GWB administration, but I would also be against the Kerry admin. Since you want to talk about Kerry I'm goingto drop out of the thread, just wanted to let you know where I stand since I know you love my posts so much.

[MtSmalls]

If Kerry would have been elected, we:

- Wouldn't have wasted millions of dollars touting a failed Social Security Plan
- Wouldn't have Mike Brown as head of FEMA
- Would have put together a more fiscally sound budget. I think we'd still be running a deficit, but I think it would be less (assuming a reversal of the Bush tax cuts from his first term)
- Would be closer to finding out what happened to $8 billion in US taxpayer dollars that disappeared into the IRAQ blackhole.
- Would have made attempts to kill NCLB, the "Clear skies" and "healthy forests" initiatives.
- We would be allies/friends with a democratically elected government in Venezuela

I think there is a lot more, but those are some of the more obvious ones.

[FishHooks]

I believe he wants more specific answers, like how would you do all those things, we have heard those talking points before, but we would like to hear the dems plan of action.

Well, the first answer has to be that we would have un-done a lot of the stupid [censored] Bush has done. Roll back tax cuts on the top 1%, install competent and professional managers for government agencies, and generally treat governing as management rather than campaigning. (Joe Klein had an excellent article about how the fundamental flaw in Bush's administration has been to handle absolutely everything as a political issue rather than a substantive one).

The GOP criticism has been that this is the extent of Democratic ideas, that we're just saying "Bush is bad," and not offering new ways to move the country forward.

Here are four big ideas that the Democrats would move on if we had the power to do so:

-A new Apollo program to develop alternative energy sources and achieve energy independence. This country had the brains and technology to build nuclear bombs in three years before computers were invented. We put a man on the moon ten years after we set our minds to it. Surely we can come up with a solar panel that gets &gt;50% efficiency and a cheap car that gets 40 mpg.

-Basic health care for everyone at a reasonable price. America has the most expensive health care system in the world, which results in very good care for people with a lot of money, and very poor care for nearly 25% of the country. There needs to be an internal debate about how to best to implement this system (I'm partial to a plan that calls for "Medicare for everyone," along with steps to reduce the cost of care by training more doctors and closing a lot of loopholes for the pharma industry), but it's pretty clear that our current system is both inefficient and unfair, and America can do better.

-Pension reform. There is a tidal wave of pension defaults coming. Companies see that their pensions are underfunded, and recognize that they can declare bankruptcy and foist those responsibilities onto the government. The corporations and their big investors make out well, while the small investors and pensioners get screwed. That's just not fair. If Kerry were president, we'd have had corporate bankruptcy reform before we had the personal bankruptcy "reform" that passed recently.

-Make it so everyone who can get accepted into a college can afford it. For a long time, state schools offered a very good education at a very reasonable price. My mother always talks about how, when she was in college, her father sold a cow from his farm once a year to pay her tuition. It's not like that anymore. Budget cuts at the state level have forced state schools to raise their tuition, making it basically unaffordable to a lot of people who could otherwise get educated and join the middle class.

Ultimately, I think ideas like these will coalesce into a Democratic platform in late 2006, similar to the GOP's 1994 Contract with America. Everyone in the party realizes we need to project a positive vision of America in order to start winning elections, and there's no lack of good ideas out there.

[FishHooks]

And democrats say republicans are running up a debt, all those programs you mentioned cost money, some of them massive amounts. I take it you think rolling back the tax cuts will fund that, but accoring to economics it wont... but at least you have some ideas...soo nice post.

Another one: Fair trade. I'm not a protectionist. I know that trading with other countries is generally beneficial to both countries, on average. But it would be foolish to ignore that the globalization of trade pushes all countries into a race to the bottom for labor and environmental standards. Whichever country is willing to accept the most pollution and lowest wages can offer the lowest price, so they get the jobs. This causes permanent environmental degradation, locks workers in developing countries in poverty, and causes job losses here in the US. America can take a lead in addressing these problems by requiring that our trading partners conform to certain environmental and labor standards.

Plus our agricultural subsidies are a huge waste of money ($100 billion per year) that simultaneously cause misuse of land in the US, and screw over farmers in the developing world. The subsidies (which mostly go to giant agribusiness corporations) lower US food prices, making it uneconomical for farmers outside the country to export their excess food and create capital in those countries.

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but accoring to economics it wont...

[/ QUOTE ]

Go back to the kids' table. The grownups are talking.

[Mroberts3]

"And democrats say republicans are running up a debt, all those programs you mentioned cost money, some of them massive amounts. I take it you think rolling back the tax cuts will fund that, but accoring to economics it wont... but at least you have some ideas...soo nice post."



You can not simply dismiss the well crafted post above by just saying it would cost money. Sure it would, and we probably would be running in the red, but there is one important thing that these liberal policies has going for them.

the money we spend now is an investment in the future.

Improved energy efficiency is a MUST, if you look at the headlines many otherwise successful companies are hurting because of increased fuel costs. A substantial investment in clean energy now could save a lot of money down the the road. With healthcare and education spending money now will also pay dividents in the future.

With a war and tax cuts, the money sort of vanishes. With tax cuts less so, but the point still stands. When the government spends massive amounts of money on borrowed credit with no significant returns we are going to be hurting in the future.

Lets just face it: a war is -EV and that social spending is +EV.

[bobman0330]

[ QUOTE ]
Plus our agricultural subsidies are a huge waste of money ($100 billion per year) that simultaneously cause misuse of land in the US, and screw over farmers in the developing world. The subsidies (which mostly go to giant agribusiness corporations) lower US food prices, making it uneconomical for farmers outside the country to export their excess food and create capital in those countries.


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Is this not an area in which Bush is showing a lot of leadership?