JustOneMinute: Missing Stories

The Democratic Party's Plan:

I'm a little bemused by the notion that putting forth an platform agenda should be a threat, rather than a duty for a political party, but that does appear to be the tone of this memo.

If Republicans proceed to pull the trigger on the nuclear option, Democrats will respond by employing existing Senate rules to push forward our agenda for America.

Shouldn't ya'll be doing that anyway? Ah, well. Here's the agenda (hat tip Just One Minute):

1. Women’s Health Care. “The Prevention First Act of 2005” will reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions by increasing funding for family planning and ending health insurance discrimination against women.

2. Veterans’ Benefits. “The Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2005” will assist disabled veterans who, under current law, must choose to either receive their retirement pay or disability compensation.

3. Fiscal Responsibility. Democrats will move to restore fiscal discipline to government spending and extend the pay-as-you-go requirement.

4. Relief at the Pump. Democrats plan to halt the diversion of oil from the markets to the strategic petroleum reserve. By releasing oil from the reserve through a swap program, the plan will bring down prices at the pump.

5. Education. Democrats have a bill that will: strengthen head start and child care programs, improve elementary and secondary education, provide a roadmap for first generation and low-income college students, provide college tuition relief for students and their families, address the need for math, science and special education teachers, and make college affordable for all students .

6. Jobs. Democrats will work in support of legislation that guarantees overtime pay for workers and sets a fair minimum wage.

7. Energy Markets. Democrats work to prevent Enron-style market manipulation of electricity.

8. Corporate Taxation. Democrats make sure companies pay their fair share of taxes to the U.S. government instead of keeping profits overseas.

9. Standing with our troops. Democrats believe that putting America’s security first means standing up for our troops and their families.

As one of the commenters at JOM says, "Of course #3 is amusing as well ... 'Democrats will move to restore fiscal discipline to government spending and extend the pay-as-you-go requirement.' since #1, 2, 5 and presuably 9 talk about spending increases."

That said, it is a decidedly mixed bag. I'm outright in favor of some of these notions -- 2 and 9 (although I'm not really sure what they mean by this last one: it's possible they could come up with some tortured notion of #9 that I wouldn't agree to support).

I'm persuadable on other points, depending on the details of the plan -- 1, 3, 5, 7, and 8 (although, in general, my notions on tax reform have less to do with taxing corporations, and more to do with an across the board revision of the tax code: a flat tax, perhaps, or a sales tax replacing all other national taxation). All of these either could be good or bad, depending on how they're handled. For example, I have no idea what the plan to "make college affordable for all students" would entail. Southern Appeal had a link to an interesting article the other day, which pointed out ways in which reducing government mucking-about would lower tuition costs in a real fashion. You could win or lose me on most of these, depending on whether you are trying to increase efficiency (e.g. by reducing wasteful mandates, or through tort reform), or whether you're trying to increase the number of government mandates and spending.

The more socialist the plan, the more likely you are to lose me; but there are a lot of good ideas for addressing these from a libertarian/centrist position. Since that is the very demographic that Republicans seem to be having trouble with over certain religious-oriented policies, it would be a smart play for the Democrats to remold their party's agenda to win that ground. We'll see if they have the institutional will for such an endeavour.

I'm opposed to points 4 (because it was tried in the 1970s, and didn't work; so why waste the oil?) and 6 (opposed to the minimum wage, and in general to Federal meddling with peoples' ability to negotiate contracts on their own terms).

That's really not bad: I'm only decidedly against as many of these as I'm decidedly in favor of. The Democrats have something here, if they've got the guts to play for the center instead of structuring these things as statist, socialist mandates. You'll forgive me if I have my doubts that they do, but I am eager to be surprised. We'll see.