A reminder of Third Way policies..words of their leader through the years.

[madfloridian]

I notice discussion of this group lately and their influence on the party. In my mind the words of its present leader make it clear that their Third Way ideals are not for regular people. They are geared to benefit the corporate world.

Jonathan Cowan's attacks on Social Security started way back in 1995. From an editorial by him:

Op ed from Third Way prez Cowan calling to privatize Social Security.

The time has come to reinvent Social Security based on a "cut and privatize" approach that will be fair to all age groups. This reinvention should be based on three principles:

Start immediately to lower boomers' expectations of the returns they will get and encourage them to increase private savings.

Separate out the welfare portion of Social Security and pay out poverty benefits to today's--and tomorrow's--needy seniors from general government revenues.

Idea #3 is to lower the Social Security payroll to 10% (where the heck was it in 1995...isn't it 6.2 now?) and "give workers the option of putting their money into private pension programs that offer far higher returns and sounder prospects than today's Social Security system."

Cowan even had the nerve to appeal to "grandpa and grandma" to stop being so greedy.

Past words of "wisdom" by Third Way prez, Jon Cowan. Too much influence on Democrats.

From 1993:

Dear Grandma and Grandpa:

We write to ask for your help. We're in a financial mess, and unless everyone in our family gets together to fix the problem, we're heading for "economic and fiscal catastrophe." That's not a phrase we picked up on MTV-it's from a recent U.S. government report on the budget deficit.

This year alone America's budget deficit will be nearly $300 billion, which means we're spending $300 billion more than we take in. That's $300 billion on top of the $4.2 trillion debt we've already built up, enough to pay basketball star Michael Jordan's salary for almost a million and a half years.

We are not ungrateful. We respect and value the sacrifices you've made for our country and have no desire to take money away from those in need. But our generation is in trouble. We were educated in a collapsing school system. Our incomes and skill levels are lower than any previous generation-by the year 2000 over one-third of younger Americans will be living in poverty. And we will be the first Americans to inherit a lower standard of living than our parents.

We're not asking that your generation solve all our problems. And there certainly are many other programs that also must be cut to get the deficit under control. But Social Security must be considered, just like everything else in the budget.

Cowan is not fond of "the left", which is a main characteristic of Democratic think tanks. He writes about our fantasies.

Third Way's Jon Cowan. "The left's four fiscal fantasies"

Fantasy No. 1 is that taxing the rich solves our problems

Fantasy No. 2 is that "we can have it all" — a bigger safety net and more investments that spur growth and opportunity. Events of the past 50 years say the opposite.
(Wrong. We certainly can have both. They just don't want to have it.)

Fantasy No. 3 is that a delay on entitlement fixes is benign for the middle class. As evidence, some liberals point to this year's Medicare trustee report, in which the program's fiscal outlook — mercifully — improved. In truth, it improved from horrid to awful.

Fantasy No. 4 is that the politics to fix entitlements will get better. In fact, the politics will get worse every election cycle. In 2012, one out of six voters was a senior citizen. By 2024, one in four will be, based on the Census Bureau's Statistical Abstract. How will we possibly fix safety-net programs for the elderly then? The answer: on the backs of the working-age middle class.

He's right about part of it....seniors tend to vote against their own best interests. Only now there are two parties wanting to cut their benefits.

I think 2010 would have been different if the Democrats had taken strong stands for the needs of the people instead of corporations. I think 2014 should not be a toss up. We should be coasting to a win. Get teachers on board instead of alienating them. Never again talk of cutting the safety nets for seniors and the needy.

The DLC is now defunct, the Third Way took its place. The goal of both was to have enough money from the rich that they did not need the rest of us.

I think it may be coming back to bite them. Or us.

[Scuba]

1. Meanwhile, among rank and file Democrats (and independents and Republicans) ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101674947

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101674947

Americans are more liberal than either Republican or Democratic pols realize

When we compare what legislators believe their constituents want to their constituents’ actual views, we discover that politicians hold remarkably inaccurate perceptions. Pick an American state legislator at random, and chances are that he or she will have massive misperceptions about district views on big-ticket issues, typically missing the mark by 15 percentage points.

What is more, the mistakes legislators make tend to fall in one direction, giving U.S. politics a rightward tilt compared to what most voters say they want. As the following figures show, legislators usually believe their constituents are more conservative than they actually are. Our attitude measurements are most accurate on the questions about same sex marriage and universal health insurance – and in both instances the legislators’ guesses about their constituents’ views were 15-20 percent more conservative, on average, than the true public support for same-sex marriage or universal health care present in their districts.

Our study also found that politicians don’t learn in the normal course of events. After November 2012, we posed the same questions again to some candidates. Even after conducting campaigns and seeing the results, politicians did not arrive at more accurate perceptions of constituent views—not even those who had spent more time talking to voters. Much remains to be learned about why U.S. legislators think constituents are more conservative than they truly are, but researchers have found that politically active citizens tend to be wealthier and more conservative than others. Politicians who want to represent all the people in their districts need to keep this in mind.

Our findings also suggest that progressive groups might be able to use a simple lobbying strategy—just let legislators know the truth about what their constituents think and want! Most of the time, legislators will discover that their constituents are more liberal than they suppose. Would that lead to policy change? It is an open question, but some research suggests that public opinion can influence what politicians do. Perhaps helping representatives perceive their constituents correctly could pave the way for public policies closer to what Americans really want.

The DLC / Third Way is the worst thing that ever happened to the Democratic Party.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Yet, we're supposed to wrestle with our noses and vote for them under the banner of "Not as bad".

[woo me with science]

3. K&R. The Third Way is a corporate-bankrolled infiltration of the party.

The rise of the Third Way agenda in our party was never a grass roots phenomenon, but rather a deliberately orchestrated and corporate-bankrolled one, ...just like the propaganda supporting it.

As Scuba points out above, it has never represented the interests of actual voters. It's entire purpose was to shift representation of the party from the people to the interests of corporations.

Corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats/neoliberals sure spend a lot of time attacking the same people and defending the same policies. So much in common that they almost seem like the very same people:

When the DLC connections to the Koch Bros. became well known, they just rebranded the infiltration
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4165556

When you hear "Third Way", think INVESTMENT BANKERS
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024127432

GOP Donors and K Street Fuel Third Way’s Advice for the Democratic Party
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101680116

The Rightwing Koch Brothers fund the DLC
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x498414

Same companies behind the GOP are behind the DLC
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1481121

[SwampG8r]

4. not as bad? they are worse!

which is worse
a wolf you can clearly see
a wolf in sheeps clothing ?

heres a riddle
whats the difference between the GOP and the third way?

yeah trick question there are no differences
the third way is where Reagan democrats gather when the democratic candidates are conservative enough for their comfort

[madfloridian]

5. Their own words "a business led party"

A business led party

A Business-Led Party

Freeing Democrats from being, well, Democrats has been the Democratic Leadership Council's mission since its founding 16 years ago by Al Gore, Chuck Robb, and a handful of other conservative, mostly southern Dems as a rump faction of disaffected elected officials and party activists.

..."Privately funded and operating as an extraparty organization without official Democratic sanction, and calling themselves "New Democrats," the DLC sought nothing less than the miraculous: the transubstantiation of America's oldest political party. Though the DLC painted itself using the palette of the liberal left--as "an effort to revive the Democratic Party's progressive tradition," with New Democrats being the "trustees of the real tradition of the Democratic Party"--its mission was far more confrontational. With few resources, and taking heavy flak from the big guns of the Democratic left, the DLC proclaimed its intention, Mighty Mouse–style, to rescue the Democratic Party from the influence of 1960s-era activists and the AFL-CIO, to ease its identification with hot-button social issues, and, perhaps most centrally, to reinvent the party as one pledged to fiscal restraint, less government, and a probusiness, pro–free market outlook.

And that is what our party is now.

Now we are even into free-market education, the goal of Newt Gingrich for years.

It's hard to argue that they haven't succeeded.

[Octafish]

6. You got to be at least a B-movie actor to utter such bilge with a straight face.

[JEB]

7. Greed, graft, corruption:

the three pillars of Third Way politics.

[madfloridian]

8. Hard to believe Look published that, even back then.

Oh, well, considering today's climate maybe not so surprising. I remember when some homes here had those on the front lawns. Really.

[TBF]

9. Look no further than who funds them -

Notice that Humana, a major health insurance company, lists its $50,000 donation to Third Way not as a donation to a think tank but as part of its yearly budget spent on lobbying activity, up there with the Florida Chamber and other trade associations. The company views financial gifts to Third Way as part of its strategy for increasing its profit-making political influence.

What’s more, Third Way’s leadership has tenuous connections to the Democratic Party it hopes to shape. Daniel Loeb, a hedge fund manager listed as a trustee on Third Way’s 2012 annual disclosure, bundled $556,031 for Mitt Romney last year. Third Way board member Derek Kaufman, another hedge fund executive, also gave to Romney.

There is a long and storied tradition of corporate, right-wing interests seeking to shape the economic policies of the Democratic Party. The DLC, another Third Way–style group that folded in 2011, was funded by none other than Koch Industries. Richard Fink, a strategist to the Koch brothers who helped found what is now known as Americans for Prosperity, was on the DLC’s board.

Source: http://www.thenation.com/blog/177437/gop-donors-and-k-street-fuel-third-ways-advice-democratic-party

[Octafish]

10. Pruneface called Progress ''Socialism''

His followers still do.

Pruneface called President Kennedy a SOCIALIST in 1961 for proposing universal health care.



Operation COFFEECUP - How Reagan Worked to Stop Universal Health Coverage in 1961

In December 1961, the AMA pulled out all the stops to prevent President John F. Kennedy from proposing universal health coverage. For their effort, they recruited a TV-personality.

Write those letters now. Call your friends, and tell them to write them. If you don't, this program I promise you will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country, until, one day . . . we will awake to find that we have so­cialism. And if you don't do this, and if I don't do it, one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free.

Echoes throughout the Tea Party crapola today. Ironic: Corporate McPravda and all the think tanks in DelMarVa avoid mentioning how one has-been B-movie actor took part in the organized opposition to Medicare in the early 1960s. Here's the story, thanks to Mr. Scott E. Starr:

The Campaign Against Medicare

Monday, March 22, 2010
By Scott E. Starr

EXCERPT...

In order to maintain the illusion of spontaneity, the AMA did not announce the existence of Operation Coffeecup or publicize the Reagan recording. The record was to be used, campaign organizers cautioned, only in the groups meeting under the controlled conditions of the informal coffees. Under no circumstances, recipients of the record were warned, were they to permit commercial broadcast of the recording.

Operation Coffeecup was kept deliberately low-key and internal to the AMA, its Woman’s Auxiliary, and the trusted friends and neighbors of the Auxiliary women. Reagan’s efforts against Medicare were revealed, however, in a scoop by Drew Pearson in his Washington Merry-Go-Round column of June 17th. Pearson titled his item on Reagan, “Star vs. JFK,” and he told his readers:

Ronald Reagan of Hollywood has pitted his mellifluous voice against President Kennedy in the battle for medical aid for the elderly. As a result it looks as if the old folks would lose out. He has caused such a deluge of mail to swamp Congress that Congressmen want to postpone action on the medical bill until 1962. What they don’t know, of course, is that Ron Reagan is behind the mail; also that the American Medical Association is paying for it.

Reagan is the handsome TV star for General Electric . . . Just how this background qualifies him as an expert on medical care for the elderly remains a mystery. Nevertheless, thanks to a deal with the AMA, and the acquiescence of General Electric, Ronald may be able to outinfluence the President of the United States with Congress.24
Reagan’s recorded remarks are quite extensive, and reveal a determined and in-depth attack on the principles of Medicare (and Social Security), going well beyond opposition to King-Anderson or any other particular piece of legislation.
My name is Ronald Reagan. I have been asked to talk on the several subjects that have to do with the problems of the day. . .

Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program. . . .

But at the moment I'd like to talk about another way because this threat is with us and at the moment is more imminent. One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. . . . Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We have an example of this. Under the Truman administration it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.25

And what was this frightful threat that Reagan perceived as “imminent”?

. . . Congressman Forand introduced the Forand Bill. This was the idea that all people of Social Security age should be brought under a program of compulsory health insurance. Now, this would not only be our senior citizens, this would be the de­pendents and those who are disabled, this would be young peo­ple if they are dependents of someone eligible for Social Security. . . .

It should be obvious that Reagan’s description of the Forand bill is a description of any Medicare-type program, not just a specific piece of legislation.26 The idea that people of “Social Security age should be brought under a program of compulsory health insurance,” just is the idea of Medicare.

CONTINUED...

http://geotheology.blogspot.com /

Thank you for your OP and this thread, madfloridian. Thanks to corrupt media and co-opted educators, many -- if not most -- people have no idea how the country got into the condition it's in.

[FiveGoodMen]

11. Third Way = GOP

[woo me with science]

12. +100000

[rhett o rick]

13. Third Way Democrats = GOP Maybe that goes w/o saying. nm

[Youdontwantthetruth]

14. I am hoping many of the Third Way Dems LOSE next Tuesday

America and the Democratic Party can no longer afford them.

If it were up to me I would treat them just like the TeaHadists, they are no different.

[hifiguy]

15. The Turd Way

is a gigantic scam. The DLC basically sold the Democratic Party to the Republican greedheads who weren't quite comfortable with the jesus-wheezers and the libertarians. The chickens - or perhaps vultures is a more apropos simile - have come home to roost.

[KG]

16. This thread should have thousands of recs!

[Phlem]

17. Thank you friend.

It just needs to be shouted from the roof tops.

[nashville_brook]

18. k and r

[ieoeja]

19. I can explain one thing for you.

Idea #3 is to lower the Social Security payroll to 10% (where the heck was it in 1995...isn't it 6.2 now?) and "give workers the option of putting their money into private pension programs that offer far higher returns and sounder prospects than today's Social Security system."

Employees pay 6.2% of their income as half of SSI. Employer pays 6.2% of employees' incomes as the other half of SSI. Presumably, they were talking about the whole thing, e.g. lowering both Employee and Employer SSI tax to 5%.

The Employer share, not the Employee share, is why raising the cap has been a non-starter. I have never seen a proposal to raise the cap on Employees only, not the Employer. If we made that offer, they might actually take raising the cap seriously.

I'd bet eliminating the cap entirely as well as eliminating the Employer share would actually increase the total withheld for SSI. But I don't know the actual numbers. That could be way off. One thing to remember about the CEOs making millions is that a large percentage of that is typically in stock options, etc which is taxed as capital gains, not payroll, and therefore exempt from SSI withholding anyway.

[JDPriestly]

20. Let's name names, at least a couple of them: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emmanuel

Barack Obama? Not sure. What do you think?

[nashville_brook]

21. Majority of Third Way support from Wall St (no surprise)

?1386110745

http://www.thenation.com/blog/177569/third-way-majority-our-financial-support-wall-street-business-executives#

As TheNation.com and others have pointed out, the majority of Third Way’s trustees are finance industry executives, many of whom might have a vested interest in using a surrogate to attack Warren. Warren, whom Time magazine calls the “new sheriff of Wall Street,” has demanded greater regulation of the industry. Many of the trustees listed on the Third Way website hail from an assortment of private equity firms and other investment businesses. Others work indirectly, like Third Way trustee Thurgood Marshall Jr., whose professional website at the public affairs firm Bingham Consulting lists his work as “government relations” on issues concerning, among others, “banking regulations.”

[nashville_brook]

22. +1

[Erose999]

23. + infinity

[polichick]

24. k&r Thank-you!

[99Forever]

25. k.r

[Warpy]

26. I think people know that

and will vote for a real Republican than a pallid imitation.

Unfortunately, this gang took control of the party a long time ago, disaffected Republicans who promised the party to counteract Nixon's Southern Strategy by running southern conservatives for president and softening the party's message of social and economic justice so it wouldn't frighten the Republicans who saw justice as creeping socialism.

They are entrenched. It will take a lot to remove them.

[truebluegreen]

27. Amen.

And by extension, it is just about the worst thing to happen to the country in our lifetimes

[randys1]

28. And yet if that happens the damage the right will attempt will be legendary

I hate the 3rd way as well, and I guess it doesnt matter either way, if the Repubs take the Senate for these two years the only people who will be harmed will be the Veterans and others who rely on our govt for one thing or another.

Obama wont allow the terrorists to kill Women from illegal abortions or kill Veterans from starving them or whatever, or kill or starve single mothers of 3 working 3 jobs who still need food stamps to survive.

I mean Obama will do the best he can to limit the number of dead, but be sure of one thing, dead ANYBODY doesnt bother these terrorists.

[madfloridian]

39. Very true.

[madfloridian]

35. He called himself one. Here's the link.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19862.html

President Barack Obama firmly resists ideological labels, but at the end of a private meeting with a group of moderate Democrats on Tuesday afternoon, he offered a statement of solidarity.

“I am a New Democrat,” he told the New Democrat Coalition, according to two sources at the White House session.

The group is comprised of centrist Democratic members of the House, who support free trade and a muscular foreign policy but are more moderate than the conservative Blue Dog Coalition.

Obama made his comment in discussing his budget priorities and broader goals, also calling himself a “pro-growth Democrat” during the course of conversation.

[woo me with science]

34. Hmm. This reply should be under Tierra_y_Libertad's post.

But I agree with you that the Third Way are a bunch of manipulative liars.

[madfloridian]

36. Okay that is weird. Here's the only one from her I see.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025731619#post2

I could swear I was replying to you. But then I lost all my recs, my post was lost, and two other people have posted in my journal today with posts from 2011.

Really weird bug today.

Now I don't even see the one I replied to.

[woo me with science]

37. Heh. I was trying to respond to SwampG8r's post #4,

which in the original thread was replying to Tierra y Libertad's post, not to mine.

I guess we still have glitches....

[adirondacker]

29. Kick and Recc! nt

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

30. K&R

[madfloridian]

31. Thanks for any recs you might give. Lost the others earlier today when post link was changed.

I think there's a bug according to ATA. Someone else's post from 2011 is in my journal today in the place of this thread's other link.

[woo me with science]

32. K&R

It's back!

[madfloridian]

33. Yeah

First time in ages I thought I make get enough recs to make front page...and they all disappeared.

[woo me with science]

38. kick