Democrat?
I have been a card carrying Democrat since Adlai Stevenson ran for President in 1952.
My father was a Republican businessman which likely had a lot to do with my first identifying myself as a Democrat.
I have believed that the Democrats, since FDR, make certain that the weakest in our country are looked after. Though I understand the Republican wish for government to get out of the way so ambitious and clever people can make money without being taxed to death or frustrated by over regulation, it seems common sense that those people will always find ways to prosper. The measure of a a great country is how it cares for those who, for whatever reason, drop off the radar screen.
So I have found it shocking, now that I live on Social Security, a pension and the proceeds of a modest portfolio, to look at the employment figures each month, and the wage numbers, worrying that if they are too strong, if workers have plenty of jobs and their wages are rising, interest rates are likely to rise, the stock market will languish and my income is likely to fall.
Bill Clinton tried, with modest success, to identify the Democratic Party with middle class America by curbing welfare and sponsoring our participation in the global market place. Many Democrats - and I was sometimes among them - felt this was where Clinton's so-called triangulation, while politically effective, dropped some of the old Democratic constituents below the safety net.
I think the global markeplace is inevitable; the Internet makes that clear. But there are still many in this country - and this now stretches into the old middle class - who are steadily falling behind. I hope I will have enough money to live out my days with a decent income, but it is high time we put our best minds to work figuring out how to include more people at the bottom of the economic ladder in the radically changed world of commerce.
There is an agenda worthy of the Democratic Party.
My father was a Republican businessman which likely had a lot to do with my first identifying myself as a Democrat.
I have believed that the Democrats, since FDR, make certain that the weakest in our country are looked after. Though I understand the Republican wish for government to get out of the way so ambitious and clever people can make money without being taxed to death or frustrated by over regulation, it seems common sense that those people will always find ways to prosper. The measure of a a great country is how it cares for those who, for whatever reason, drop off the radar screen.
So I have found it shocking, now that I live on Social Security, a pension and the proceeds of a modest portfolio, to look at the employment figures each month, and the wage numbers, worrying that if they are too strong, if workers have plenty of jobs and their wages are rising, interest rates are likely to rise, the stock market will languish and my income is likely to fall.
Bill Clinton tried, with modest success, to identify the Democratic Party with middle class America by curbing welfare and sponsoring our participation in the global market place. Many Democrats - and I was sometimes among them - felt this was where Clinton's so-called triangulation, while politically effective, dropped some of the old Democratic constituents below the safety net.
I think the global markeplace is inevitable; the Internet makes that clear. But there are still many in this country - and this now stretches into the old middle class - who are steadily falling behind. I hope I will have enough money to live out my days with a decent income, but it is high time we put our best minds to work figuring out how to include more people at the bottom of the economic ladder in the radically changed world of commerce.
There is an agenda worthy of the Democratic Party.
posted by Blayney at 2:40 PM
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