desh | (no subject)

(no subject)

Franklin Roosevelt had his first hundred days.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is thinking 100 hours, time enough, she says, to begin to "drain the swamp" after more than a decade of Republican rule....

Day One: Put new rules in place to "break the link between lobbyists and legislation."

Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Time remaining until 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients.

Congrats, Speaker Pelosi. I look forward to holding you to those promises. If you can pull it off, and all this happens before I turn 26, I will be one happy American.

(Oh, and apparently South Dakota voted down the proposed draconian abortion ban!)

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IF the Senate ALSO flips Dem... and IF it can pass a veto by formerly veto-less GW Bush... and IF the Blue Dog Dems that helped them WIN this election go along with all of it... we'll see.

--Jeff

To some extent, Day One can be done with just House rules, without resorting to legislation. And coincidentally, it's the one on the list I care the most about.

Also, just by bringing up Day Two and another thing from the article (stem cells) will get the narrative back in our favor. The country is strongly in favor of national security and stem cell research. This way the Republicans will be backed into a corner, and the Dems will be agenda-less no longer.

The other things on the list will be harder.

You probably just care about the ethics thing number one from being brainwashed by The West Wing, hehe.

I really wish people would have more balls about the education stuff though. The underhanded change in Stafford Loan rates sucks, but increasing grant aid (and low fixed rate loans that are not as entangled with bank craziness like Perkins), increasing, supporting, and better advertising loan forgiveness programs are way more important. I dunno, just not ready to concede that it should be "make debt more manageable" rather than "less debt overall." (the loan forgiveness programs are more of a manageability issue especially since even if you KNOW the loan is gonna be paid off, tens of thousands of dollars over your head can exert an enormous pressure, but it's another good program that is not tied to interest rate junk)

Ugh! Even the minimum wage thing is sorta half assed. Living wage anyone? I understand the importance of incrementalism (and compromise and veto power) but you KNOW you are going to be compromised into something else so why not start asking for exactly what you want? Isn't that how negotiation is supposed to work?

I think my negativity in this case actually springs from unfortunate idealism, gotta get rid of that!

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