Tips for Preventing a Dem Wimp-Out
Published on Friday, January 10, 2003 by the Madison Capital Times
"Tips for Preventing a Dem Wimp-Out"
by John Nichols
WASHINGTON - The 108th Congress sworn in this week is the most conservative
since the 1929 Congress that helped Herbert Hoover guide the United States into
the Great Depression. I hope history will not repeat itself - even if the Bush
camp's economic policies appear to have been borrowed from the most discredited
of the old Republican playbooks.
Opposing this administration's wrong-minded policies would be easy - and effective - if the Democratic Party had anything akin to a coherent set of progressive values. But, as the 107th Congress illustrated, the Democrats have a hard time being coherent or progressive - let alone effective.
So, as the new Congress gets going, here are some tips for an opposition that has yet to learn how to oppose a popular yet vulnerable president:
Fight back against GOP class warfare: Since George W. Bush became president, 1.8 million manufacturing jobs have been lost, unemployment has soared and confidence in the economy has plummeted. New House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., proved her worth by filleting the administration for allowing 800,000 families to lose unemployment benefits during the holidays. Bush aides were so rattled that they included an extension of benefits in the president's "jobs and growth" plan, but the plan's proposals to cut taxes on dividends and to speed up income tax cuts for the richest Americans make it a recipe for further decline.
Opposing the Bush plan should be a no-brainer, but there will still be Democrats who shudder when the president accuses their party of engaging in "class warfare." Democrats should counter by echoing Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders' line: "The Republicans started waging a class war on working-class and middle-class Americans on Jan. 20, 2001. All we are doing is fighting back on behalf of the victims of administration policies." That fight back must focus on more than unemployment benefits. "We need to be serious about wage and benefit issues, but we have to go further and start talking about the maldistribution of income, about trade policies that are failing miserably and about the fundamental question of how many jobs the Bush administration is willing hemorrhage in order to shore up Wall Street," says Sanders.
Offer an alternative foreign policy: While the majority of Democrats in Congress opposed last fall's vote to hand Bush a blank check to wage war against Iraq, the party has no coherent stance regarding Iraq, North Korea or the war on terrorism. Instead of letting the agenda be set by administration apologists like Sens. Tom Daschle and Joe Lieberman, senior Senate Democrats such as Florida's Bob Graham, Hawaii's Dan Inouye and Michigan's Carl Levin, all foes of the Iraq resolution, should be encouraged to spin their free-lance critiques of the White House approach into a coherent Democratic policy that supports containment rather than confrontation.
Just raising the right questions matters, such as the proposal by Charlie Rangel, a senior House Democrat and Korean War veteran, to create a draft if the United States goes to war - so that all Americans, even those of Bush's class, can share in the sacrifice the president demands.
Don't let Bill Frist privatize Medicare: New Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a health care industry millionaire, has a lot of ambitious ideas about privatizing Medicare and Medicaid. Frist and the White House will seek to cloak their schemes in complex funding mechanisms, and they'll try to soften the blow by promising to increase cash flow for states that have historically felt cheated. Congressional Democrats need to get some Ross Perot-style charts and start educating voters about how privatization of health care programs is just as dangerous as privatization of Social Security.
Challenge more than just judicial appointments: Bush will probably nominate at least one new Supreme Court justice in 2003, and the fight against that nominee is likely to be a defining moment. But congressional Democrats make a mistake when they limit nomination challenges to the judicial sphere.
Bush is packing federal positions with extremists on everything from abortion rights to environmental protection, and well-chosen battles to block nominees offer opportunities not just to block bad picks but to highlight bad policies. Bush's treasury secretary pick, CSX Corp. CEO John Snow, was just guaranteed a pension of $2.4 million a year for life, yet the administration wants to undermine pension regulations so corporations can reduce payments to retirees by as much as 50 percent. Why not oppose Snow unless he pledges to protect pensions for all Americans? Confirmation hearings for Snow, a supposed critic of corporate wrongdoing, also provide a terrific opportunity to revisit the corporate corruption scandals that Democrats failed to exploit as an issue in 2002.
George W. Bush has governed for two years without opposition. As the 108th Congress convenes, Democrats must either mount an effective challenge to him, or they will find themselves in an even worse position when the 109th convenes.
John Nichols is associate editor for The Capital Times.
Copyright © 2003 by Madison Capital Times. All rights reserved.