Democratic Oak Tree

What are the priorities of our great nation in the first years of this new century?

This month, the Republican-controlled Congress extended the Bush administration’s tax cuts on dividends and capital gains.

This is estimated to cost $70 billion over the next five years.  A few millionaires will save $42,000 in taxes. Not enough to buy an ocean-going yacht, but nice to have.

Most of us will benefit by $20 to $50. We can celebrate by taking the whole family out for pizza.

Almost all Republicans voted for this cut. Almost all Democrats voted against it.

In December, a bill came up for a vote that cut $40 billion over five years in welfare, child support, and student loan programs.

Guess how the vote broke down by party.

Yes, virtually all the Republicans who voted to give $42,000 in tax cuts to millionaires also voted to cut programs that help people of modest means get by, including kids and the elderly. 

Not one Democrat voted for those cuts.

Republican politicians have been chafing at President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal since it was originally proposed. Now that the Republican Party controls the executive and legislative branches, they want fast action to destroy as much of the New Deal as they can while they remain in power.

You can see Republican philosophy (“We’re all in this alone”) in the attempts to “reform” Social Security, cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and reduce spending on “entitlements.”

Yes, Democrats do believe that all Americans are entitled to basic fairness. Our President FDR said in one of his fireside chats:

“I am constantly thinking of all our people — unemployed and employed alike — of their human problems of food and clothing and homes and education and health and old age. You and I agree that security is our greatest need; the chance to work, the opportunity of making a reasonable profit in our business — whether it be a very small business or a larger one — the possibility of selling our farm products for enough money for our families to live on decently. I know these are the things that decide the well-being of all our people.

“Therefore, I am determined to do all in my power to help you attain that security and because I know that the people themselves have a deep conviction that secure prosperity of that kind cannot be a lasting one except on a basis of fair business dealing and a basis where all from the top to the bottom share in the prosperity.”

Democrats object to tax cuts for the richest Americans because we know what those cuts will mean for our country.
 
We’re already in debt as far as the eye can see and we’re waging a trillion-dollar war. In FDR’s words, the “human problems of food and clothing and homes and education and health and old age” – the “well-being of all our people” – will suffer even more.

Our country’s prosperity can’t be lasting and secure unless “all from the top to the bottom share.”

The gap in pay between the top executives at the largest corporations and the bulk of employees has grown shamefully, and the recent tax cuts accentuate that prosperity gap.

Meanwhile the federal government says it can’t afford to take on projects critical for the country’s future. It tells states they need to pay. The states tell cities and towns they need to pay. The cities and towns cut services, because there’s just not enough money.

It’s a downward spiral. No wonder there’s little available for investment in public education, public transportation, public infrastructure (road, bridges, dams), public safety, public health.

In this new century, our nation must — for the sake of its future health –- address some new challenges, such as global warming and escalating global competition for energy resources, while facilitating a prosperity that promotes the “well-being of all our people.”

In 2006 and 2008, it’s essential that Democrats regain power in Washington and across the fifty states. Work for the Common Good – led vigorously by all the Democratic presidents since the Great Depression – must resume.

This new century of our still youthful country, founded with the noble intention to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” looks bleak indeed, unless we transform our future by electing Democrats to power once again.