The Democratic Party can crush the Re-publicans in this election if they will simply follow the advice of President Truman: quit acting like Re-publican Lite and start acting like Democrats.
I think a couple of jobs bills, fast tracked through Congress, even if we have to nuke the filibuster, would give us not only a majority, but a super majority in both houses. Throw in a couple of investigations of Wall Street and the Democratic Party could see the biggest majorities since just after Watergate.
Let the Bush Tax cuts die: the middle class understands that in a time of crisis, we all have to step up to the plate and sacrifice a little bit for the good of the nation. It has always been the plutocrats who want to have their cake and eat it too.
We must also reduce our military budget. Rome kept 25 legions, 150,000 men, under arms, when the entire World's population was fewer than 200,000,000 souls; it did not keep them safe, it bankrupted them. We can no longer afford to spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined: some $623,000,000,000.00 to $600,000,000,000.00 in the next fiscal year. Such profligate spending will just as certainly bankrupt us. We must reduce our overseas commitments--including real withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, downsizing our nuclear arsenal, and concentrating on putting the defense back in the Department of Defense. I would also at the same time improve some of our defense production infrastructure so that we don't have to buy rifle ammunition from Israel if we become involved in another war.
President Franklin Roosevelt spelled out his vision for America on January 11, 1944, in his annual message to Congress. It was not a vision of empire, but--like George Washington--a vision of honest friendship with all of the nations of the world who were willing to accept it. It was not a vision of plutocrats dominating America, as they had twice in FDR's lifetime, but a vision where his Second Economic Bill of Rights would bring us closer to the realization of Jefferson's pronouncement, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal..." The essential points of this Second Bill of Rights were to provide:
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useful and remunerative employment, together with the potential to find an avocation and not simply a job;
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wages that provide adequate food, clothing, opportunity for recreation, and decent shelter for themselves and their families;
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adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
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protection from unfair competition and monopolistic practices at home and abroad, for every business in America, large and small;
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the ability of farmers and ranchers to raise and sell the the bounty of their lands at a return which will give themselves and their families a decent living;
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protections from the fears attendant to old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
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