dagblog - Comments for "Dem Manifesto: Catfood Commission Report Underscores Need for Health Care Reform"

I think the real objection

miguelitoh2o — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 23:16:44 +0000

In reply to Dem Manifesto: Catfood Commission Report Underscores Need for Health Care Reform

I think the real objection from the right towards maintaining the social safety net is not even so much to protect the entrenched interests of the healthcare sector so much as it is the action of an avaricious eye cast on all the wealth that is removed from the "free enterprise" system by these programs. Just loosening up the amount of wealth captured by these federal programs, and removed from any possibility of being able to support and inflate whatever the next "bubble", (read: middle class wealth extraction device), happens to be would benefit these robber barons immensely. This is probably also the right's biggest problem with any healthcare plan that didn't entrench the insurance companies, whose role in the finance sector is as significant as the banks themselves. Finance rulz, and all others be damned. Thanks for the post SJ. Never know. Maybe there will be a populist uprising someday, but the questions being asked rarely reflect the real issues that should be under consideration. That's the real problem with trying to get the Dems to act meaningfully. The public debate is like a sleight of hand in which one hand, (public political discourse), distracts while the other hand is busy picking the pockets of middle class Americans in the long run.

It wasn't a 'sorry' thing; I

we are stardust — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:43:10 +0000

In reply to Sorry, we are, I've been away

It wasn't a 'sorry' thing; I jst meant to convey it was so effective, and so great at cementing the meme that I poked around about it. Hell; I can't even remember whose diary I stuck it all on! 'They' are much better at selling a message, even if it means supporting it ruins your life. I swear.

Looks like Lux's list is pretty good, though I already forgot if it incluses taxes on every financial transaction.

And welcome back. AmiBlue.

Sorry, we are, I've been away

AmiBlue — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:34:55 +0000

In reply to Yeah, hugh Jidette (as in

Sorry, we are, I've been away from the computer and didn't see your post. hugh jidette, that's the blowhards name? Aren't they clever.

Mike Lux at Open Left has a

cmaukonen — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:19:20 +0000

In reply to Dem Manifesto: Catfood Commission Report Underscores Need for Health Care Reform

Mike Lux at Open Left has a few ideas to eliminate the deficit.

You could write a deficit reduction plan, as well as a plan to shore up Social Security (the two are very different things) that would garner pretty broad support from the American people. On Social Security, a very minor adjustment- raising the cap on payroll taxes- would keep Social Security solvent through the end of this century. On the deficit itself, there are a whole set of options to dramatically reduce the deficit that garner clear majority support in the public polling on economic issues, including:
1. Increasing taxes on millionaires and billionaires.
2. Imposing a financial transactions tax on Wall Street speculation.
3. Ending a wide array of corporate tax loopholes for things like overseas investment.
4. Ending corporate agribusiness subsidies larded into the farm bill.
5. Ending loopholes and subsidies of various kinds to the big energy companies.
6. Reforming the government contracting process to end no-bid contracting, impose penalties on cost over-runs, and cut down on excessive bonuses.
7. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the big pharmaceutical companies.
8. Having a vigorous public option to provide competition for health insurers.
Depending on the level you did them at, all of these items would bring in or save tens of billions of dollars a year, some of them hundreds of billions.

Not that anyone in Washington these days gives a wet slap about the Middle Class anymore.

Yeah, hugh Jidette (as in

we are stardust — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:07:30 +0000

In reply to I was watching television

Yeah, hugh Jidette (as in 'huge debt', ha ha ha.) Josh has it up. I put the websire up a couple days ago after the ad freaked me out. Apparently they have huge buys in lots of markets, plus billboards. Get people thinkin' right about the debt, they'll be dyin' ta be heroic, and give up their saftey nets!

I was watching television

AmiBlue — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 22:50:19 +0000

In reply to Dem Manifesto: Catfood Commission Report Underscores Need for Health Care Reform

I was watching television last night when a commercial came on showing a generic politician giving a stump speech with fans in front of the podium holding signs. I mute all commercials so I didn't hear any of the audio, but I watched it to the end because I wondered what idiot product would put on a commecial that looked like one of the political ads everyone was so thoroughly sick of during the midterm campaigns. Turned out it was the Pete Peterson's foundation trying to keep the tea kettle simmering for debt reduction. At least they added a line claiming credit for it. I can't imagine that it was effective given the timing, but then it would never have seemed effective to me because I disagree that the issue is priority at the moment, or if at all.

Anyway, it seems the push is on from old Pete, Erskine, and Alan and the rest of the gang. I thought it was very strange and pointedly partisan that the two chairs released their manifesto without any agreement at all from the rest of the commission and most particularly when Obama was out of the country. The opponents are obviously trying to keep him off balance.

/FDRdog

YeeGads! I wish LBJ were

SleepinJeezus — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 18:30:10 +0000

In reply to Lord luv a duck, Jeezus; I

YeeGads! I wish LBJ were around to pay a little visit to the Oval Office. For all his faults, the former President knew politics. He'd chew Obama a new ass, telling him to get up off the floor and fight like a man.

Aw, hell, I guess I'll tell him myself. Time to send another goddam email to add to the collection.

Thanks, AD, for your

SleepinJeezus — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 18:24:40 +0000

In reply to I believe arguments such as

Thanks, AD, for your well-considered comments. Please look to my response to "we are stardust" (below) for additional perspective.

I think the single most important limitation on the Democrats' ability to actually embrace the "Class War" message is their fear of pulling free from the corporate teat. This is not an unreasonable fear. In a system wherein money is "speech," our Dem pols can be forgiven their anxiety over potentially killing the golden goose that supports their increasingly more expensive political campaigns.

But we are now at a very dangerous crossroads in our history, and we can no longer afford the gamesmanship that allows for half-measures designed to appease both the Democratic base and the wealthy oligarchs. The Dems can no longer afford the luxury of serving two constituencies - the middle-class wage earners AND the wealthy campaign contributors. It truly is time for "Change We Can Believe In." And it begins by sticking it in the neck of the corporate campaign contributors and casting the Democrats' lot with the honorable opposition in this Class War at last.

It's an extremely dangerous move in political terms. But the present duopoly (H/T to was) is untenable if we are ever to realize the benefits of democratic rule in our lifetime. It's time to embrace the drastic option of turning our backs on easy access to campaign contributions in favor of defending democratic (small "d") principles, and to see if a change in direction can at last steer us away from the precipice to which we are presently headed.

Ultimately, the relevant question centers upon the people's ability to support a political party that will stand tall against those who would oppress and "own" them. Can this support be effectively mobilized in the face of all the money and riches and power that will be allayed against them? I wish I could say with confidence that the answer is "Yes!" But I can say that we will never know unless we try. And the alternative of surrendering in this Class War without a fight is simply too depressing to consider.

Lord luv a duck, Jeezus; I

we are stardust — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 18:20:36 +0000

In reply to I think you are aware that I

Lord luv a duck, Jeezus; I didn't mean to sound critical: I do know what you know ang get. I am just feeling so less than enthusiastic for hope of changing it, and am in awe at the moment at your strength and hard-charging rhetoric.

So for now, there's a Lame Duck session of two or three weeks, depending? So we need to make a whole hell of a lot of calls, and connect with each other and hope the unions get jazzed up, and Indies and whomever start seeing things more as us v. the Money Class. I sure wonder what will be the agenda for the LD session; Pelosi will be key to so much.

The man we hired to be President just called for a three-year spending freeze in his Saturday radio/internet address, and will support earmark reform. Kinda going right of most Republicans. Dunno exactly waht a freeze means, but I'm pretty sure that means no jobs bill, and the small business bank sitting where it is..a bad time for government not to spend money.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/crossing-gops-obama-calls-earmark-reform-threeyear-spending-freeze/

I think you are aware that I

SleepinJeezus — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 17:53:04 +0000

In reply to I love your verve, and I love

I think you are aware that I am keenly aware that there is little reason to have faith in the Democrat pols as presently constituted. And I make this point in the blog post at its conclusion. George Carlin has it right about who owns the government, and this point is heartily reinforced in the "America's Duopoly" link.

My suggestion here arises from a fact that it is a duopoly; that there is room for only two parties in this republican (small "r") form of government. My further point is that there are two sides to the very real Class War that has been visited upon the middle class. Our only hope, therefore, is that one of the two entities engaged in the duopoly be inspired (forced?) to disengage from the circle-jerk-dance and actually take the opposing side in this supposed two-party system. The Dems are all we've got. They're the logical candidate to stand in the arena in opposition to the corporate oligarchy. And I stand by my suggestions for the message (followed by consistent action) they need to adopt in defense of the middle class in this ongoing assault we suffer at the hands of the monied interests.

My faith - such that it is - is predicated on a belief that the corruption of this system is an anomaly that can be corrected if only we all accept our responsibility to "own" our government rather than surrender it to the oligarchs. We are all collectively "We, the People" after all. They may have the guns (or the money, as it is), but we've got the numbers. It's about time someone points that out, and inspires the true patriots among us to regain control of this corrupt system that has supplanted our legitimate democracy. And it begins by securing a political party that envisions a future in actually choosing to fight for our side while letting the bastards be damned to choke on their money and their hubris.