Thursday, March 30, 2006
All Sold out, but En Vogue: Even Democrats Rush to Christen Themselves "Libertarians"
Michael Lind takes a skewering glance, over at the Coffee Shop at the Democratic Party, which he calls a "socially-liberal, pro-business party." Looks like, without some kind of broad crisis in job availability or total political transformation, we may never see another public workfare program again, even if the Dems reclaim control of the federal government. What happens when welfare programs can no longer be reformed Republican-style and when cheap labor markets are super-saturated? What happens when America becomes overrun with sweatshops for both citizens and illegal immigrants, thanks to the Earned Income Tax Credit (which Lind rightly calls "corporate welfare, a massive redistribution of wealth to the very employers that treat their workers the worst")? What happens when we no longer have clear choices between political parties come election time?
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Blake beat me to it. Essentially I'd agree with him. Especially when it comes to the curtailment of our choices.
ReplyDeleteWhenever someone says, "Oh the parties are all the same," you can be reasonably sure that person is rationalizing, because the differences could not be more clear.
ReplyDeleteBill Clinton: 8 years of peace
George W. Bush: A mismanaged war in Afghanistan (i.e., we didn't eliminate our enemy and the state we "liberated" has about 4 square liberated blocks) and an utter failure of a three-year war in Iraq.
Bill Clinton: Budget surpluses of $5 trillion and we paid down more than $360 billion off our long-term debt
George Bush: Budget deficits of $3.4 trillion and a $9 trillion long-term debt
Bill Clinton: 100,000 new police officers and crime drops
George Bush: Do away with the police officers, crime rises
Bill Clinton: 22 million new jobs
George Bush: 2 milion new jobs and a net job LOSS for his first term--first president since Hoover
Now, are the times different? Yes. 911, I know, I know. But with the exception of massive government expenditures--always kept off-budget--for a war that is going virtually nowhere, the Bush Administration hasn't changed. It's still tax cuts and government handouts for the wealthy, zippo for the rest of you.
Finally, ask yourself this question. If Al Gore had been president the last 6 years, do you seriously think we'd have lost 2,300 kids in Iraq and started a civil war in the Mideast?