Reasons To Vote Democratic

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Reasons To Vote Democratic
by James Hall, Senior Associate Editor

October 30, 2002

"Leaning Left"

James Hall While the UN Security Council debates a resolution to authorize force against Iraq, where is the President of the United States? Is he at the White House on the phone, convincing Council members of the importance of this vote? Is he in New York lobbying for the resolution personally, showing the world how important it is to the American people?

No. The president is hopping the country, raising money for Republican candidates, lobbying for Republican governors, senators, and representatives. Does anyone wonder why the world leaders of APEC, meeting in Mexico this past week, didn't take his resolution seriously? If the president won't go to the mat for it, why should they?

In a week we'll know if the Bush election strategy pays benefits. Mid-term elections are frequently about local issues: the local economy, the price the area crop gets at harvest, what the federal government can do to help out with local roads, sewers, schools and airports, the kitchen table issues about which candidate can do the most for his or her district or state. But the President and the Vice President have worked hard to make this midterm election a national referendum over the coming war with Iraq, instead. So be it.

The White House strategy had the president out campaigning for Republican candidates for more than 80 days this year and raising more soft money than ever before. Republicans in Congress have been this president's yes-men, rubber-stamping each bill, each initiative he sends them, so it's not surprising he wants more of them in Congress. Democrats have been a bit less respectful, a little less subservient to the chief executive's will.

The election on November 5 comes down to clear choices. With control of both the House and Senate balanced on the razor's edge, do you want a Congress marching in lockstep with a president who has nominated our nation to be the world's policeman, or do you want a Congress that charts a more independent course, one that requires the president to convince it that he is pursuing the best policy for us at each juncture? At stake is not only a war with Iraq, but the continued occupation of Afghanistan, the fight with al-Qaeda, and potential conflicts with North Korea, Iran, and any other nation that the president deems to have joined the "Axis of Evil."

And that's just foreign policy. There are huge differences between Republican and Democratic domestic positions, including:

*Prescription Drug Benefits: Republicans favor a $350 billion program run by private insurance companies to provide prescription drugs as part of Medicare. Democrats prefer spending more money for an entitlement program run by Medicare that would negotiate drug prices as the Canadian medical system now does, resulting in Canadian drug prices between 50% to 90% less than what the pharmaceutical companies charge US patients now. Seniors who favor the corporate-run program should remember how quickly private insurance companies dropped their Medicare HMOs---and the seniors enrolled in them---when they didn't make profits up to their expectations.

*Making the Tax Cut Permanent: Because of Congressional budget rules, the Bush tax cut is good only until 2011. Now Bush wants Congress to make the cut permanent, even though the national budget deficit is back and growing, even though defense spending is up and no one knows how much the future wars the president is steering us towards will cost. Even though there's a $1 trillion cost to fix Social Security that no one has funded yet. Nine years is a way off, so why not let the Congress and electorate of 2011 decide whether or not they need the revenue? Republicans are for making this tax cut permanent, while Democrats favor waiting to see what happens to the nation's finances first.

*Social Security Reform: President Bush has proposed partially private Social Security accounts for Generation X and Y. To make that possible, a $1 trillion transition cost will be necessary, but the president has yet to say where that money will come from, especially if plans to make the Bush tax cut permanent in 2011 are passed by Congress. Democrats favor preserving Social Security as it is, using the Gore proposal to buy up the national debt with the current Social Security surplus and use the interest to deal with the problem.

*Balancing the Budget: When was the last time you heard a Republican concerned about fiscal responsibility? "Deficits R Us" is the new conservative mantra for cutting taxes without cutting any spending. Democrats will find ways to balance the budget if given the chance---as they did in 1994, creating eight years of prosperity.

*Health Care: Republicans aren't even talking about the 40 million uninsured Americans who are one major illness away from bankruptcy. Democrats favor an approach which adds to CHIPS, a federal-funded state insurance program for uninsured children, to cover their parents also.

*Corporate Integrity: The laissez-faire attitude of Republicans to the SEC created the climate for Enron, Tycho, Worldcom, and Global Crossing. Republicans have offered fig-leaf legislation to cover the same old same old practices. Investor confidence requires more than that. Democrats have legislation in mind that holds corporations and their CEOs accountable for white collar crime.

*Focus on the Economy: With the president firmly focused overseas on Afghanistan, Iraq and North Korea, the economy has been left to drift slowly downward. A Congress controlled by Democrats would find ways to get the chief executive to turn his attention occasionally back to domestic issues, or do so themselves.

Since the president has chosen to make this mid-term election a referendum on his policies, ask yourself whether you want to elect a Congress subservient to this president and his expansionist foreign policy, or a Congress that will challenge the president to slow down, seek allies, build a national consensus, and make a good case for action before he acts. For all it's flaws, a divided Congress has done just this during the past two years. The Founding Fathers approved of divided government as a check on the chief executive's power. How do you feel about it? ***

Photo of the author courtesy of staff files