Will the Democrats Ever Matter?

[Charles S.]

Can the democrats ever really matter again? Can they win? Can they do more than complain about the Republican agenda? Election season is in full swing, and the Dems apparently have a chance to take back the House and the Senate. All they have to do is. . . well, say something.

 

Say something other than, "We are against terrorists, too, but we want to be fair about it. We want a strong military too, but there are other priorities, so don't pick on me. We can implement government programs without raising your taxes, and we know you don't believe us."

 

How did this Democratic double-talk become the norm? How did the Democratic party end up forever on the defensive, merely echoing a watered-down version of Republican priorities? Didn't they once have a lock on power, and successfully labeled the Republicans as the party of the rich? Yes, they did. So what happened?

 

Let's go back to the heyday, when a discredited Herbert Hoover ceded power to an Administration that spent lots of government money with the full approval of America. Back when President Roosevelt proposed Bill after Bill that put government squarely in the center of America's life. Government was not a dirty word. The Administration created jobs, created public works, and only the Ultra-Rich cried foul. The rest of us put the "socialist" label to rest for the time being and accepted the knowledge the Government Saved Us. The federal government created programs to make sure the old and the poor didn't die in the streets. We built highways, created federal Parks systems, built bridges and dams, schools, science academies, hospitals and enacted huge Public Works programs, fought a war that saved the world, all of which made America proud, all of which cost lots and lots of money.

 

Then in the 60's, Presidend Johnson implemented two expensive projects at once: His Great Society, which aimed to provide education, job and a safety net for everyone in this country. . . and the Vietnam War. The result was higher taxes. And then in the late 1960s, we began hearing tales of Welfare abuse, people living permanently on the public dole. We also witnessed the rise of that great American stereotype, the Government Worker, slow and slothful, dumb and inefficient. In our thinking, Big Government was no longer a good thing.

 

Then the 1970s gave us the Bussing issue, in which Liberal judges in urban areas like Boston and Los Angeles forced integration at public schools. Black kids were bussed to White schools, and vice versa. The pubic was not impressed. Then came California's watershed vote: Proposition 13, which capped property tax increases, and California's entire public sector cried foul. Hospitals will go unfunded, we said. Schools and the Criminal Justice system will go starving, we said. California citizens responded, "so what?" and the measure won by a landslide. Also, the death penalty was abolished nationwide, a move that most Americans did not agree with, and liberal judges like California's Rose Bird loudly handed down pro-criminal verdicts that sealed America's opinion that the Justice system was run by ivory-tower bleeding-hearts. At this point, government became the enemy.

 

Enter the Reagan Revolution of 1980. Federal agencies were slashed, the federal budget for domestic spending was gutted, and America said "it's about time." But by 1984, though, President Reagan was fairly unpopular. Unemployment was at record highs, and many voters felt Reagan had swung the country too far to the right. Thus, the Democratic party ran an old-style liberal at the top of the ticket, Walter Mondale, who went on TV and said, "I will raise your taxes."

 

The Democrats lost by a landslide, and the party has never recovered from those five words. The notion that Democrats are "tax and spend" is a permanent part of our political landscape.

 

So that's your answer. We won't pay for things. America will pay for Bush's war against Muslims without blinking an eye, but we don't want to pay for better schools, better hospitals, publicly-funded disease research, roads and bridges, global warming prevention, earth-friendly transportation. We don't want to be what we once were: World Leaders in the public sector, the best in science, the best in manufacturing, the best in education. American voters don't want that anymore. What do we spend money on? Electronics, all built overseas, consumer gadgets of all types, all built overseas. None of that is investing in America. And yet our thinking is so twisted, we believe the Republicans are the more patriotic party. But what could be more patriotic than building great schools, developing cures for diseases, and preserving America's resources, all of which will help ALL of us. And yet those priorities are considered "soft," "liberal," not patriotic, like fighting wars.

 

And as long as Americans maintain that twisted idea of patriotism, Democrats will teeter on the edge of extinction. Until we decide we love our country enough to make it work, to produce students that can read, cars that don't pollute, cures that benefit all, until we get our heads out of our Ipods and computers and decide that we are willing to spend what it takes to make America a proud place again, then yes, Democrats will always be dancing around what they are too afraid to say: "Quality costs money, people. Tax money. Not as much as destroying Iraq, but a proud nation costs money."

 

Are we ready to hear that fact this election season? We'll find out soon enough.

[BlingBling]

Charles, did you know that students and parents who take out new loans to pay for college will pay considerably higher interest rates. Also, college graduates who don't consolidate and lock in their rates will be subject to a rate hike. This drastic change will affect millions of Americans. In 2005 alone, seven million students took out federal college loans to pay the increasingly high cost of college tuition, which has increased an average of 40 percent for four-year public colleges under the Bush Administration.

 

In February of this year, the Republican-controlled Congress voted to eliminate $12.7 billion in student aid — the largest cut to federal financial aid in history. 216 Republicans voted for the cuts, while 200 Democrats voted against them. Not a single Democrat voted to cut student aid. Washington Republicans have slashed student aid programs, not for deficit reduction as Republicans have claimed, but to finance additional tax cuts for special interests and the wealthy, leaving trillions of dollars of debt for future generations to pay off.

 

Democrats have an alternative plan that eases the burden on America’s working families by cutting up to $5,600 in interest costs on loans while fully funding student aid programs like the Pell Grant and Perkins Loans.

 

College Democrats of America President Grant Woodard issued the following statement:

 

"The Republican Party has once again demonstrated how out of touch it is with real American values. Providing all young people with the opportunity to attend college is crucial to the future of this great country. Today's students are tomorrow's doctors, lawyers, and politicians and they deserve leaders who make it easier, not harder, to pay for their education."

[Human]

Here is the solution, and it's brought to you by a republican;

 

http://www.lib.msu.edu/harris23/grants/3specpop.htm

 

Also www.grants.gov

 

I use to give it to the kids in my neighborhood till I found out that they never bothered to read up on the information "ON FLOPPY DISK".

 

So now when I run into a kid getting ready for college, I give the floppy with the said information to the PARENT.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

What this also brings up is a Fundamental Question as to how the counselors in school ARE really helping the kids??????

 

When I talk with the parents, the parents tell me that the counselors NEVER tell them about the Educational Grants out there for kids.

 

Also when I went to college, the kids there didn't even know, nor did my group "the Adults" know that this type of information exists.

 

It really is sad.