Democrats organize to fight back

[Ragnarök_62]

(11-14-2016, 02:52 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: So the Democrats are going to double down on their losing strategy?  Excellent.

Yes, I do believe you're correct there.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/na...trategy-in

We Democrats need to dispense with assorted litmus tests and ideological rigidity.  What plays in Sacramento for example, will not, ever fully play in Oklahoma City. Yeah, I've been thinking this over, ... a lot. After all, there are, believe it or not, a lot of planks what will work in both places. As such:

1. Adopt a 50 state strategy, like yesterday, man. Let's look at issues that make , lil ole me a Democrat.

a.  Access to health care, NOT health insurance.  Democrats need to grow a pair and just go with Medicare for all. That of course includes a funding mechanism.  I'd ditch payroll taxes. [I can't figure out the infatuation with Democrats with payroll taxes. Going forward, this can't possible work. The number of employed folks is falling which means the tax base is rotten. Let's take Trump's "border tax" and substitute a VAT tax. Yup, lots of folks here know my own favoritism wrt VAT. So, just 2 things need to happen to implement that plank. The first is to discard the Medicare part of the payroll tax. Next set the age of Medicare eligibility to 0.  Now put Tricare, Medicaid, and any other government program out of business since they now are redundant. With a single program, the administrative costs will go down. A counter to Republican nagging wrt a tax is simple. The VAT tax will replace insurance premiums. [I don't care if health insurance companies sell Medigap insurance, or concierge insurance for those who want that].  Republicans can bitch all they want about "new taxes". I'm betting most folks would love to just ditch private health insurance because of coding hassles, THEY are hopelessly bureaucratic entities like no other.
b. Legalize drug imports. There was a bill drafted by Bernie Sanders.  YO, Democrats, make the vote on that an issue. It's Republicans who want to deny folks access to cheaper alternatives. I've nagged my representatives about voting no on this. I in fact called them shills for Big Pharma!.

c. Legalize weed. Weed is a veritable pharmacopoeia, Schedule I is just some lame political thing. Rags wonders if Big Pharma/ Big Cotton are behind said scheduling.

d. Tax reform:  I don't think any destitute/working poor/lower middle class/middle class voter benefits from our spaghetti code tax code. Here's the place for repeal/replace. All income, regardless of source shall be taxed at the same rate. There shall be no loopholes/special cases/ etc.  Just tote up your income and apply the proper bracket.  I don't care if HR block /accountants lose business.  Tax preparation is an utter waste of economic resources, man.

e. The immigration/farm worker mess.  Let's try this out.  Dunno what others think.  And.. so. I think a good compromise would be to have a "guest worker" program.  If Mexicans , for example are doing stuff US citizens won't do, then here's a plan. A Mexican citizen can register as a guest worker. This person would then be issued a legit TIN and thus would not be underground anymore and subject to exploitation.  Worker exploitation screws all workers, not just those who are not legal. The guest workers would be afforded the same rights as citizen workers, except for access to social programs. That's the compromise.  Nextly, if certain states want to pay for additional benefits, then that's OK as well.

f. Global warming.  I think us Democrats have that issue pretty well settled. No change needed here.

g. Trashing the environment.  Hopefully , add some sort of deposit on plastic stuff. Most plastics are forever. Plastic in future rock layers will be a good marker for the Anthropocene.