{"id":7696,"date":"2006-06-15T14:11:31","date_gmt":"2006-06-15T18:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7696"},"modified":"2006-06-15T14:11:31","modified_gmt":"2006-06-15T18:11:31","slug":"the-dems-new-direction-vs-the-gops-mystery-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-dems-new-direction-vs-the-gops-mystery-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dems’ ‘New Direction’ vs. the GOP’s mystery agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve been hearing about it for a while now, but the [tag]House[\/tag] [tag]Democrats[\/tag] are unveiling a policy agenda<\/a> they’d implement if they take back the [tag]majority[\/tag] in November. It sounds pretty good.<\/p>\n

The “[tag]New Direction[\/tag]” platform hits all the high points — stem-cell research, use Medicare to negotiate lower prescription-drug prices, minimum wage increase, a repeal of subsidies for oil and gas companies — while clearly emphasizing domestic policy. There are some national security\/foreign policy pronouncements — the agenda includes following the recommendations of the 9\/11 Commission and boosting port security — but most of the weight is on the issues on which Dems already excel.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the one argument that seems to annoy party leaders more than anything else is “I don’t know what we’d get if Dems win back the majority.” The whole “New Direction” platform seems geared towards answering that question with policy specifics — and with proposals that should generate fairly strong public support.<\/p>\n

I’d like Dems to consider one other possibility: How about asking what [tag]congressional[\/tag] [tag]Republicans[\/tag] would do in 2007 and 2008 if they keep<\/i> the majority?<\/p>\n

The current [tag]GOP[\/tag] line on the elections is to scare the hell out of voters. If Dems win a majority, they’ll raise your taxes! They’ll force you to marry some gay person! You’ll be required to hire undocumented immigrants in your own home!<\/p>\n

But the GOP, at least since 1994, has never actually said why they<\/i> want to keep the majority, short of keeping the Dems out of power. In other words, I think the Republicans are projecting — their raison d’etre is to stand in the way of the Dems’<\/i> agenda. They don’t want to legislate; they want to block legislation they don’t like. They<\/em> are the obstructionist party, who happen to control all the levers of government.<\/p>\n

Name three pieces of legislation or major policy initiatives we can expect to see next year from the Republican Congress. I can’t. I don’t mean stuff they’d bring up despite not having the votes (ban on gay marriage), nor do I mean stuff they want but won’t even try (privatize Social Security), I mean actual legislative priorities.<\/p>\n

Dems are laying their cards on the table. Republicans are responding with attacks, but not with an alternative [tag]agenda[\/tag]. How about it, GOP? What do you want all that [tag]power[\/tag] for?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve been hearing about it for a while now, but the [tag]House[\/tag] [tag]Democrats[\/tag] are unveiling a policy agenda they’d implement if they take back the [tag]majority[\/tag] in November. It sounds pretty good. The “[tag]New Direction[\/tag]” platform hits all the high points — stem-cell research, use Medicare to negotiate lower prescription-drug prices, minimum wage increase, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}