Rilgin
Rilgin's JournalStrengthening a Program is expanding it not cutting it.
One of the things democrats should not be saying is cuts strengthen a program. Cuts in the benefits or coverage of SS or Medicare weaken the program as a program they do not strengthen it. I understand that it is not pure since they are referring to the fiscal aspects of the program but that is still not the program, that is only how much money its worth budgetting and again this is not a pure argument since SS is technically a self sustaining seperately funded program. However, the underlying argument is still the same. Republicans want to cut back on the program and are using a fiscal argument. Hopefully, democrats think these programs are essential and valuable and should be expanded. Democrats are arguing on the wrong theoretical framework and the wrong direction of compromise.
The democrats should be fighting for a compromise on how much to increase benefits and coverage not how much to decrease those benefits. This would be a compromise and set up a balance between the parties in negotiating and in political representation of he various interests of the population.
Voters vote for issues, leadership or charactor not "compromise"
"Compromise" as a definition of what Voters want is being pushed on us by politicians of both stripes including Obama as something voters vote for. Obama has been using it as a meme to justify putting policies on the negotiating table including SS and Medicare.
This is a total fallacy. Compromise is not a goal in itself. No voter ever voted for compromise. No voter voted for their vote to mean they want a politician to retreat on policies they ran on mere weeks earlier in an election. This is true of voters and politicians of both political parties.
This is Obama's true failure, the failure to understand the nature of politics and compromise and ultimately why volutary bipartisanship in a totally divided country cant work. Republicans and Democrats totally disagree on certain policies. These policies are incompatible not independant goods. Voters did not vote for their politicians to compromise those policies. This is true of republican voters as well as democrats.
Obama should understand we voted for him to fight for democratic party solutions to problems not to compromise them. Compromise can sometimes work but it is never an independant goal and in the SS and Medicare area, only one side can really win the policy.
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Member since: Thu May 8, 2008, 03:38 PMNumber of posts: 787
