Democrats are drooling like hungry dogs waiting for steak at the prospect of unified control of the entire government. And lest we forget, from 2001-2006, they were out of power and in the minority. It sucks to be in the minority; all you can do is sometimes block the majority from doing something that is really unpopular.
So now that the reins of power are going to be handed to them in a big way — rendering the Senate filibuster-proof is not out of the realm of serious consideration even though that means Senator Al Franken — the Big Idea Democrats are trying to cook up an agenda. They need to do this in part because the Obama campaign has not really had a lot of solid policy proposals other than expanded health care and withdrawal of troops from Iraq with varying degrees of speed. It’s been about emotions, about hope and a desire for change and frustration with the incompetence of the incumbent.
I don’t discount the political power of those things but Obama hasn’t really pushed a policy agenda all that hard. Nevertheless, one of the burdens of being the majority is that you have to propose something. You can no longer sit back and blame the majority for failing to fix problems. You now have to try to fix them yourself. So here’s a preview of what a Democratic agenda will look like.
You’ll lose your tax break for contributing to your 401(k). Sound good?
Hey, why should we subsidize rich people feathering their own nests for their comfortable, idle retirements? We need to spread the wealth around, that’s better for everyone. The rich have plenty already. Poor people will need things like Social Security and we need the tax base to support that.
