[Mb-civic] A *Real* Contract With America

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

This article is a couple of months old but quite relevant right now!!     

 A *Real* Contract With America
      Robert L. Borosage

The Nation (Oct. 24th Issue)

Democrats are likely to pick up seats next year just by continuing to
hammer at GOP failures and corruption. But to engineer a landmark election
that dislodges incumbents and marks a fundamental shift, Democrats have to
make themselves the party of change, championing an activist government in
service to the common good. House leader Nancy Pelosi has stated that
Democrats are working up their version of a Contract.

In concept, the task isn't too difficult. Simply putting forth popular
progressive alternatives that contrast with glaring Republican failures
would provide a clear platform for change. Central elements could include:

§ Crack Down on Corruption: In contrast to conservative cronyism, shut the
revolving door between corporate lobbies and high office. Prohibit
legislators, their senior aides and executive branch political appointees
from lobbying for two years after leaving office. Require detailed public
reporting of all contacts between lobbyists and legislators. Pledge to
apply this to all, regardless of party. Take the big money out of politics
by pushing for clean elections legislation.

§ Make America Safe: Commit to an independent investigation of the
Department of Homeland Security's failures in response to Katrina. Detail
action on the urgent needs that this Administration has ignored: Improve
port security, bolster first responders and public health capacity, and
require adequate defense planning by high-risk chemical plants. End the
pork-barrel squandering of security funds.

§ Unleash New Energy for America: In contrast to the Big Oil policies of
the Administration that leave us more dependent on foreign supplies,
pledge to launch a concerted drive for energy independence like the one
called for by the Apollo Alliance. Create new jobs by investing in
efficiency and alternative energy sources, helping America capture the
growing green industries of the future.

§ Rebuild America First: Rescind Bush's tax cuts for the rich and
corporations, which create more jobs in China than here, and use that
money to put people to work building the infrastructure vital to a
high-wage economy. Start with challenging the Administration's
trickle-down plans for the Gulf Coast, which will victimize once more
those who suffered the most.

§ Make Work Pay: In contrast to the Bush economy, in which profits and 
CEO
salaries soar while workers' wages stagnate and jobs grow insecure, put
government on the side of workers. Raise the minimum wage. Empower 
workers
to join unions by allowing card-check enrollment. Pay the prevailing wage
in government contracts. Stop subsidizing the export of jobs abroad.

§ Make Healthcare Affordable for All: Pledge to fix America's broken
healthcare system, with the goal of moving to universal, affordable
healthcare by 2015. Start by reversing the Republican sellout to the
pharmaceutical industry by empowering Medicare to bargain down costs
and by allowing people to purchase drugs from safe outlets abroad.

§ Protect Retirement Security: In contrast to Bush's plan to dismantle
Social Security, pledge to strengthen it and to require companies to treat
the shop floor like the top floor when it comes to pensions and
healthcare.

§ Keep the Promise of Opportunity: Instead of Republican plans to cut
eligibility for college grants and to limit loans, offer a contract to
American students: If they graduate from high school, they will be able to
afford the college or higher technical training they have earned. Pay for
this by preserving the tax on the wealthiest multimillion-dollar estates
in America.

§ Refocus on Real Security for America: In contrast with Bush's pledge to
stay in Iraq indefinitely, sapping our military and breeding terrorists,
put forth a firm timeline for removing the troops from Iraq. Use the money
saved to invest in security at home. Lead an aggressive international
alliance to track down stateless terrorists, to get loose nukes under
control and to fight nuclear proliferation.

These proposals are concrete, doable and poll well. They pose a sharp
contrast to the priorities of the Republican Congress. Other measures or
different framing could be proposed as well.

But gaining widespread agreement from risk-averse politicians--even on a
poll-tested agenda--isn't easy. In 1994 many Republicans thought
Gingrich's Contract was political folly, giving Democrats something to
attack when they were down. Most Republican Senate candidates would have
nothing to do with it. Some worried that excluding the right's social
issues would alienate their base. The Contract was far more popular with
the challengers Gingrich had helped groom than with incumbents.

Those same problems bedevil today's Democrats. As the corruption of the
Republican majority makes headlines, Democrats continue to observe the
truce against filing ethics complaints. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has even found it hard to 
get
Democrats to unite behind basic reforms that would apply to them, like
banning legislators from taking lucrative lobbying posts after leaving
office. Calls to invest in energy independence and affordable college
education poll off the charts, but Democrats are reluctant to support any
large new investments in the face of Bush's deficits. Democrats who went
through the collapse of Hillarycare shudder at the thought of taking on
our broken health system.  Controlling drug prices is a natural, but the
drug- company lobby insures that even the Democratic leadership splits on
this question. It is hard to present yourself as a party of change if
you're not ready to break with the present

Iraq poses the hardest questions. Democrats in office are deeply divided
on the occupation, which their base overwhelmingly opposes. If they could,
Democratic leaders would deal with Iraq the way Gingrich treated
right-wing social issues, omitting it from any common platform, arguing
that it isn't a problem voters expect Congress to solve and that Americans
want more attention paid to domestic concerns anyway. But ducking on the
war is likely to dismay more than Democratic activists. By next fall the
war will have cost many more lives and more than $250 billion. With no
compelling domestic agenda, Bush and the Republicans may seek to turn the
election into a referendum on who stands with the troops. If they don't
face the issue, Democrats will look like they're playing politics with the
nation's security. And if they remain divided, Democrats will be hard
pressed to say they are ready to lead.

Gingrich was able to pull off the Contract in 1994 partly because
Republicans were ready to try anything after four decades in the minority.
Gingrich also had built a farm team of candidates who were willing to
follow his lead. And he had the support of an independent conservative
movement on the march against Clinton and the Democratic Congress. If
Democrats are to find their voice in 2006, it will take aggressive leaders
who are willing to take big risks and overcome internal opposition as well
as a strong citizen's movement that's driving the attack against the right
and pushing Democrats to stand up.

It took DeLay's Republicans barely a decade to grow even more arrogant and
corrupt than the old order they had challenged. The yet-unanswered
question is whether Democratic politicians and progressive activists are
as determined and desperate after a decade in the wilderness as
Republicans were after forty years.

***
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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