What's your pet plank for the '08 Dem platform?

[smoogatz]

I've got three:

1.Energy independence by 2025! A national drive to invent and build an oil-free, CO2-free energy infrastructure in less than twenty years, on the scale of NASA. He who owns the next generation of energy production owns the future; if America wants to retain its economic preeminence, it must be in the lead in energy production. This program will pay for itself in the long run; short run we finance it by rolling back Bushco's tax cuts for the rich.

2.Iraq: win or get out. Either we commit the necessary troops, cash and materiel to doing the job right, a la the Marshall plan in post-war Germany, or we get the fuck out. No more doing it on the cheap--that's a sure way to get a lot of Americans killed on the way to a bloody Iraqi civil war.

3.Nationalize health insurance. Not national health care--national health insurance. Doctors will be largely unaffected--health insurers will cease to exist as we know them today. Our current health care system amounts to an annual tax on individuals and employers of 4.3 trillion dollars every year--or 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense. The average employer insurance policy for a family of four costs $10,000 annually. We spend 15% of our annual GDP on healthcare, compared to 9.7 percent in Canada--where everyone's covered. It's time to take the waste, fraud and profiteering out of the health insurance picture--and the only way to do that is to nationalize.