Winning Progressive

Of the many factors that contributed to the GOP’s substantial losses in the 2012 elections, perhaps the most significant are that today’s GOP is focused on obstructionism and denying reality, rather than on making a serious effort to address the serious economic, social, and foreign policy challenges facing our nation.  The GOP’s obstructionism has led to, among other things, an inability to fully address the impacts of the 2008 recession, the downgrading of the nation’s credit rating due to the debt ceiling fight, and growing levels of vacancies on the federal judiciary. And far too much of the GOP has been focused on climate denial, rejecting evolution, birtherism, anti-immigrant nativism, death panels, Black Panthers, the myth of voter fraud, “creeping” Sharia law, denying that rape can lead to pregnancy, and other ridiculousness, rather than on serious issues like jobs and economic growth.  Faced with the choice of steady and pragmatic Democratic leadership versus a Republican Party that has gone off the deep end, it is not surprising that voters chose the Democrats.

The results of the 2012 elections have led some Republicans to suggest that the party has learned its lesson and is already moderating its approach by, for example, reaching out to Latino voters, being more open to compromise, and prioritizing jobs and the economy.  But the reality is that there is virtually no evidence that the GOP is offering anything more than meaningless talk on these issues.

If you want to get a sense of just how empty the purported efforts by the GOP to return to sanity are, check out David Brooks’ recent column in the New York Times, titled The Republican Glasnost.  Brooks claims that:

Over the past month, the Republican Party has changed far more than I expected. First, the people at the ideological extremes of the party have begun to self-ghettoize. The Tea Party movement attracted many people who are drawn to black and white certainties and lock-step unity. People like that have a tendency to migrate from mainstream politics, which is inevitably messy and impure, to ever more marginal oases of purity.

. . . . .

Second, politics is being reborn. For a time, Republican candidates like Richard Mourdock of Indiana proudly declared that they didn’t believe in compromise. Political activists spent more time purging deviationists than in trying to attract new converts.

But that mania has passed.

. . . . .

Finally, there has even been some shifting of economic values, or at least in how the party presents those values.

And what does Brooks offer as proof of these alleged major changes in the GOP?  The primary “evidence” that he points to is speeches by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) at last week’s Jack Kemp Leadership Foundation Award dinner in which the two offered some positive rhetoric about economic opportunity, reducing poverty, and immigration.  This is weak tea to say the least.  While Rubio and Ryan’s speeches included some nice-sounding, though vague, platitudes, they offered little in the way of policies to support such platitudes or to moderate the core Republican strategy of providing tax giveaways to the wealthy, increasing military spending, eviscerating Medicare and Social Security, and demolishing the safety net.  While Rubio and Ryan may be offering some nice talk to try to mask their policy goals and make themselves appear more palatable to the media as they gear up for likely Presidential candidacies in 2016, unless those policy goals change there is little reason to think that the GOP itself is changing.

More importantly, a look at Republican actions since the election demonstrates that the GOP crazy train is continuing to chug along virtually unabated.  For example, any claim that the GOP is returning to reality is belied by the Senate Republicans’ absolutely disgusting vote last week against ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. As described at this FAQ:

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is a treaty that describes the obligations of ratifying countries to promote, protect, fulfill, and ensure the rights of persons with disabilities.  The treaty embodies the American ideals that form the basis of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): empowering persons with disabilities to be independent and productive citizens

Ratifying the treaty would have put the US in a leadership role in helping to advance the cause of equality for persons with disabilities throughout the world, would have helped equalize employment standards regarding disabilities throughout the world, and would have assisted Americans living abroad who have disabilities.  Ratification of the Convention was endorsed by the US Chamber of Commerce and every major veterans organization, and former Senator Bob Dole, who has a disability as the result of his military service in World War II, made a special trip to the US Senate to encourage his fellow Republicans to vote for the Convention. Yet ratification went down to defeat in the Senate because all but eight Republican Senators voted against it.  And why did they do so?  Because Rick Santorum (R-13th Century) and Glenn Beck raised blatantly false conspiracy theories about the Convention threatening US sovereignty and letting the United Nations dictate how people raise their children. Such conspiracy theories are typically limited to the tin-foil hat crowd, but in today’s Republican Senate caucus, they trump common sense and disabled WWII veterans like Bob Dole.

Other evidence that the GOP has not changed abounds.  For example, last week Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has been in charge of the Senate Republicans’ obstructionism strategy for the past four years, took obstructionism to new heights when he filibustered legislation that he himself had proposed.  Over in the House, the GOP has selected only white males as chairs of the nineteen major committees, and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is to be headed by a climate skeptic, Lamar Smith (R-TX).

Finally, Brooks suggests that there are “increasing signs that House Republicans are willing to unite behind Speaker John Boehner so he can cut a deal to avert the ‘fiscal cliff.’”  It is true that House Republicans are realizing that they have no real bargaining power because, without a deal, taxes will go up for everyone next year and the American people will hold the GOP responsible for that result.  And yet, Boehner and the rest of the House Republican leadership have not really put a serious proposal on the table.  Instead, they are demanding lower tax rates, combined with closure of unidentified loopholes, that would purportedly provide increased revenue only due to the mythical growth that allegedly would result from such tax changes.   And Boehner has made it clear that he plans to hold our economy hostage each time there is a need to increase the debt ceiling.  In short, there is little sign that the GOP believes more in compromise today than it did before the 2012 elections.

Brooks is a GOP apologist who make lots of money pretending to be a “reasonable” centrist.  As such, it is understandable that he needs to keep telling himself that the GOP is changing so that he can feel better about continuing to support a party that is riding a crazy train to nowhere. But, as the actions of Republicans over the past months have shown, it is going to take a lot more than a couple of speeches full of platitudes for the Republican Party to free itself of the crazy that has taken over what used to be the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Eisenhower.

(By NCrissie B)

This week I am exploring Simon Johnson and James Kwak’s White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters To You. Previously we considered the history of our federal debt and the relationship of government, money, and credit. Today we look at our long-term debt outlook. Next we’ll conclude with the authors’ proposals for a sustainable budget that preserves essential programs and services.

Simon Johnson is a professor of entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan School of Management and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He is a member of the CBO’s Panel of Economic Advisers and of the FDIC’s Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee. He was previously the chief economist of the IMF.

James Kwak is an associate professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. In 2011–2012, he is also a fellow at the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance. Before going to law school, he was a management consultant and co-founded a software company.

Johnson and Kwak founded The Baseline Scenario economics blog and also wrote 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown.

The Party of Fiscal Responsibility

If the debate over our federal debt were really about the risks of debt, President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress would not have passed budget-breaking tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Economic growth in the 1990s – fueled by Baby Boomers in their peak earning years, boosting both tax revenues and our overall economy – left a budget surplus in 2000. A fiscally responsible party would have recognized those Baby Boomers would soon be retiring, and proposed saving the current budget surplus to pay for the Social Security and Medicare benefits those Baby Boomers would soon need.

Indeed a fiscally responsible party recognized and proposed exactly that in the 2000 presidential election campaign. The party of fiscal responsibility were Democrats, as Vice President and presidential nominee Al Gore said:

We will balance the budget every year, and dedicate the budget surplus first to saving Social Security. Putting both Social Security and Medicare in an iron-clad lock box where the politicians can’t touch them – to me, that kind of common sense is a family value.

Texas Governor and Republican nominee George W. Bush proposed not fiscal responsibility to prepare for the future, but tax cuts to boost current consumption:

I believe that cutting the taxes will encourage economic growth. I believe cutting all marginal rates will keep the economy growing. I believe we ought to get rid of the death tax. I believe we ought to get rid of the earnings test on Social Security. I believe we ought to mitigate the marriage penalty. I believe we ought to use this time of prosperity to get money out of Washington and into the pockets of the taxpayers.

That pattern has not changed over the past twelve years. While Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan howl about our federal debt, their budget proposal is vague and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that it could push the debt up to 96% of our GDP by 2021.

How did Republicans become the party of fiscal irresponsibility?

Two views of government

Conservatives often call for a “return” to our nation’s true roots of: limited government, little regulation, and low taxes. Yet as we saw in E.J. Dionne’s Our Divided Political Heart, that history is more myth than fact.

However, Johnson and Kwak note that scientific and technical advances increased the scope of government. We learned how public utilities could reduce disease and improve public health, and the need to weigh the risks from pollution against corporate profits. The Great Depression highlighted the need for insurance to ease the suffering of market failures and allow seniors to retire with dignity. Science and technology also increased the need for a better educated population who could both develop and use new technologies. And as advances in medicine pushed health care costs beyond families’ budgets, we saw the need for effective, affordable health insurance to pool the risks. This was less a “government takeover” than increasing awareness that the often brutal hardships of middle- and low-income families’ lives were not inevitable.

Faced with that choice, the authors write, the inevitable result is redistribution of wealth. The only question is who the redistribution favors:

In a low-tax/low-benefit world, your bank account is a little bigger (if you make enough to pay taxes), but you face more risk of running out of money in retirement or not being able to afford health care; in a high-tax/high-benefit world, your bank account is a little smaller, but you face less risk. Since rich people are better able to self-insure, they gain less by pooling their risk with other people, so they might be better off in a low-tax/low-benefit world; poor people cannot self-insure, so they gain the most from risk pooling, and they will be better off in a high-tax/high-benefit world. Compared to current policy, reducing benefits so we can keep our low tax rates is a form of redistribution from the poor to the rich; raising taxes so we can maintain today’s benefit levels is a form of redistribution from the rich to the poor (assuming that the tax increases are progressive).

Thus we get then-Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), now chairman of FreedomWorks, admitting why Republicans really talk about deficits and the federal debt:

Balancing the budget in my mind is the attention-getting device that enables me to reduce the size of government. Because the national concern over the deficit is larger than life. [...] If you’re anxious about the deficit, let me use your anxiety to cut the size of government.

Or, at least, to cut taxes. Tax cuts are usually popular, but spending cuts are not. So the Republican playbook has been to cut taxes but not spending while a Republican is in the White House, then howl about deficits and force fiscally responsible Democratic presidents to take the political fallout for raising taxes or cutting spending.

A long view of debt

That understanding sets the stage for the authors’ long-term outlook for our federal debt. Our current $11 trillion debt is partly due to the 2001 Bush tax cuts ($3 trillion), partly due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ($1 trillion), and mostly due to the 2008 financial collapse that cost nine million jobs and wiped out an estimated $7.8 trillion in projected GDP growth from 2008-2018. That lost revenue coincided more families eligible for unemployment benefits, Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and tax expenditures such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. Many displaced older workers also chose early retirement and applied for Social Security benefits.

Our current fiscal crisis will pass, but the long-term debt dangers lie in our primary government insurance programs: Social Security and Medicare. For Social Security, the issue is simply that more people will soon retire and they will live longer. Thus, their benefits will exceed then-current Social Security revenues and deplete the program’s existing trust fund.

For Medicare, those issues are compounded by rising health care costs. That is partly a function of medical advances that offer new tests, new drugs, and new procedures, such that treatment for a given illness costs more now than it did even two decades ago. It’s also partly a function of our fee-for-service model that spurs providers to prescribe as many tests, drugs, and procedures as insurers will reimburse. The authors acknowledge that the Affordable Care Act attempts to limit the growth of health care costs, but argue there isn’t yet enough data to know whether or how well those provisions will work. Their projections assume health care costs will continue to rise as they have the past two decades, and that would create a serious, long-term debt Medicare debt risk.

But as the authors emphasize, privatizing Social Security and Medicare would not eliminate or even reduce those costs. Indeed, turning those tasks over to private, for-profit investment firms and health insurance companies would likely increase net spending for retirees, with the costs borne by retirees and their families or – for those who could not afford it – other public programs that shelter and care for the indigent.

The Baby Boomers will retire, and will need health care in their senior years, and we will all pay for it, one way or another. Given that, the authors argue, both moral and economic factors suggest we should preserve Social Security and Medicare in their current forms, which are less expensive and far less cruel than the alternatives.

But there’s no such thing as a free lunch … and tomorrow we’ll see how they propose to pay for the government we need.

(Crossposted from Blogistan Polytechnic Institute (BPICampus.com))

For this weekend’s reading list we have articles on the impact of the 2012 elections on our judicial system and health care policy, Paul Ryan’s reactionary budgets and bad debate performance, and how Mitt Romney dodges taxes and failed to be a bipartisan leader in Massachusetts.

The Hidden Stakes of the Election – While the fate of the Supreme Court gets almost all of the attention in talk about what is at stake this November, the differences in the judges that President Obama would appoint to lower courts versus those that Mitt Romney would appoint is critical to determining whether our judicial system will uphold or overturn important public health and safety regulations.

The Health Policy Election – an overview of the differences between President Obama and Mitt Romney on health care reform, Medicare, and Medicaid, and what those differences would mean for each program.

Ryan Meets Reality – a great summary of the Vice-Presidential debate explaining how it appeared that “one vice-presidential candidate [was] speaking from knowledge and experience and the other from index cards.”

Ryan Roundup: Everything You Need to Know About Chairman Ryan’s Budget - While Paul Ryan may be trying to hide his reactionary fiscal and tax policies, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have offered a helpful reminder of what Ryan really stands for by collecting all of their articles about Ryan’s proposals to abolish Medicare, eviscerate Medicaid, and slash the safety net in order to finance more tax giveaways to billionaires and big corporations.

Mitt Romney’s Tax Dodge – a helpful summary of all of the ways that quarter-of-a-billionaire Mitt Romney manages to pay a lower effective tax rate than most middle class Americans.

Romney Claims of Bipartisanship as Governor Face Challenge – a closer look suggests that there is little to back up Romney’s claims that he was a bipartisan leader in Massachusetts.

For this weekend’s reading list we have articles on Romney’s right-wing reactionary agenda, a comparison of Obama and Romney on energy policy, how Paul Ryan is similar to and even more extreme than Barry Goldwater, the benefits of ending the lower tax rates for capital gains, the GOPs’ anti-urban agenda, and the moral and factual arguments supporting the death with dignity movement.

Mitt Romney’s Real Agenda – after Romney at the first Presidential debate pretended to forget every reactionary policy he’s campaigned on for the past 18 months, this article is a helpful reminder that Romney’s real agenda closely mirrors that of the conservative Republicans in Congress.

Everything You Need to Know About Where Obama and Romney Stand on Energy Policy – a thorough side-by-side comparison of the fundamental differences between the policies and proposals of President Obama and Mitt Romney on energy issues.

Paul Ryan’s Debt to Barry Goldwater, Who’d Be Mortified By Paul Ryan – How Paul Ryan is the spawn of the right-wing infrastructure that Barry Goldwater conservatives created, with one big exception; Paul Ryan has happily gotten in bed with the religious fundamentalists who Goldwater detested.

Ending the Capital Gains Tax Preference - a report on the how ending the preferential status of capital gains income in the US tax code (under which capital gains are taxed at only 15% while income earned through work is taxed at a higher percent) would be fairer, raise more revenue, and simplify the tax code.

Republicans to Cities: Drop Dead - how the GOP has gone from a party that had a strong urban base in the early 20th century to one today that promotes an agenda with a significantly anti-urban focus.

May Doctors Help You to Die? – The moral and factual arguments supporting the death-with-dignity movement, which seeks to allow terminally ill individuals to get medical assistance in hastening their death, but only through a highly regulated system that includes multiple doctor sign offs, waiting periods, and other precautions to ensure that sick people are not being pressured into assisted suicide.  Our previous coverage of this issue can be found here, and to support a Massachusetts ballot initiative to allow for death with dignity in that state, click here.

(By Mark Bridger, cross-posted at ThatMansScope)

In my last post, I described Mitt Romney as a defective human being: someone who, in spite of his success at making his money and avoiding taxes, lacks understanding and sympathy for his fellows — as evidenced by his obsessive reluctance to share his wealth with anyone except his proselytizing church, and his obvious contempt for just about everyone’s intelligence.

His running mate Paul Ryan is cut from the same cloth. Ryan’s so-called “budget” is so grossly anti-poor and anti-middle class that even the quite conservative Conference of Catholic Bishops declared it immoral. It is perhaps the single most unpopular document released in recent years, and only a tone-deaf party would have doubled down on it and nominated its author for Vice President. The arrogance and contempt exhibited by the Party for The Rich is, however, consistent with the attitudes of its candidates.

I am glad to report that Ryan and his budget are not fooling anyone this time around. The New Republic shows some statistics about how the man and his work have contributed to the tremendous decline in the popularity of the PTR‘s ticket; you can find the article HERE.

Of course Romney and Ryan do have a certain animal cunning: this time around they left off a lot of details about how the “budget” would close “loopholes” and somehow become “balanced.” They don’t want people to know exactly which popular and worthwhile programs would be cut in order to give tax breaks to the rich. That’s why I refer to it as a “budget” not a budget. It’s a phony and a mere shell. No one I’ve read, even Martin Feldstein, can seem to make it work without very big tax increases for all but the rich — see Jared Bernstein’s analysis on his blog.

Ryan is a person who’s taken some economics courses in college — he was a dual political science and economics major. As far as I can tell he never took a graduate course in either subject, but he is considered among Republicans and easily-impressed media folk to be some sort of expert on economics and finances. Ryan also read a lot of Ayn Rand — a novelist well-known for her “me first” two-dimensional characters. Somehow Ryan, who calls himself a religious Catholic, missed out on the fact that Rand was a committed atheist. Ryan has been skewered several times by prominent economist and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman; two of his most devastating columns (with further links) can be found HERE and HERE (where Krugman so famously said about Ryan: “Mr. Ryan isn’t a serious man — he just plays one on TV.”)

Ryan has never impressed even a single economist. Now it is clear, in spite of a lot of Republican hype and media money, that he hasn’t impressed too many others either.

Somewhat overlooked in the excitement generated by powerful speeches given by Michelle Obama, keynote speaker Julian Castro, Lily Ledbetter, Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA), and others, was the fact that the Democratic Party yesterday also approved a progressive party platform that stands up for Medicare, Social Security, the right to organize, marriage equality, and many of the other policies and values that make this country great.   The contrast with the reactionary platform that the GOP approved at their convention last week illustrates well the fundamental differences between the two parties and the critical issues at stake this November.

Here are some of the highlights from the 2012 Democratic Party platform, and key places where that platform is diametrically opposed to the GOP’s agenda:

Medicare

The Democratic platform vows to defend Medicare as a guaranteed, universal program for seniors, stating:

Democrats adamantly oppose any efforts to privatize or voucherize Medicare; unlike our opponents we will not ask seniors to pay thousands of dollars more every year while they watch the value of their Medicare benefits evaporate. Democrats believe that Medicare is a sacred compact with our seniors.

By contrast, the Republican platform specifically calls for ending Medicare as a “defined-benefit entitlement” and replacing it with inadequate vouchers.

Worker’s Rights

In an age of increasing attacks on working people and labor unions, it is refreshing to see the Democratic platform include a ringing endorsement of the right to organize, stating:

Democrats believe that the right to organize and collectively bargain is a fundamental American value; every American should have a voice on the job and a chance to negotiate for a fair day’s pay after a hard day’s work. We will continue to fight for the right of all workers to organize and join a union. Unions helped build the greatest middle class the world has ever known. Their work resulted in the 40-hour workweek and weekends, paid leave and pensions, the minimum wage and health insurance, and Social Security and Medicare – the cornerstones of middle class security. We will fight for labor laws that provide a fair process for workers to choose union representation, that facilitate the collective bargaining process, and that strengthen remedies for violations of the law. We will fight for collective bargaining rights for police officers, nurses, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, teachers, and other public sector workers – jobs that are a proven path to the middle class for millions of Americans. We will continue to vigorously oppose “Right to Work” and “paycheck protection” efforts, and so-called “Save our Secret Ballot” measures whenever they are proposed.  We will raise the minimum wage, and index it to inflation.

By contrast, the GOP platform promises to continue the attacks on labor unions that have been carried out by GOP Governors, and calls ultimately for a national right-to-work-for-less law.

Campaign Finance

The Democratic platform calls for reducing the corrupting influence of money on our political system and echoes President Obama’s recent suggestion that a constitutional amendment to allow us to take back our democracy may be necessary:

We support campaign finance reform, by constitutional amendment if necessary. We support legislation to close loopholes and require greater disclosure of campaign spending. . . . . We support requiring groups trying to influence elections to reveal their donors so the public will know who’s funding the political ads it sees.

The GOP platform reiterates that party’s opposition to even such basic steps as the DISCLOSE Act, which would require disclosure of donors to SuperPACs and other groups that try to influence elections.

Taxes

The Democratic platform sets forth President Obama’s call for billionaires and big corporations to pay more of their fair share, stating:

We support allowing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest to expire and closing loopholes and deductions for the largest corporations and the highest-earning taxpayers. We are committed to reforming our tax code so that it is fairer and simpler, creating a tax code that lives up to the Buffett Rule so no millionaire pays a smaller share of his or her income in taxes than middle class families do. . . . . The Democratic Party opposes efforts to give additional tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the middle class and investments in our future.

The Republican platform calls for further tax giveaways to the wealthy, including elimination of the estate tax, and consideration of repealing the 16th Amendment, which allows for a federal income tax, in favor of a regressive national sales tax.

Reproductive Freedom

The Democratic platform strongly endorses reproductive freedom, stating:

Democrats support access to affordable family planning services, and President Obama and Democrats will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers.

. . . .

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right. Abortion is an intensely personal decision between a woman, her family, her doctor, and her clergy; there is no place for politicians or government to get in the way. We also recognize that health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions. We strongly and unequivocally support a woman’s decision to have a child by providing affordable health care and ensuring the availability of and access to programs that help women during pregnancy and after the birth of a child, including caring adoption programs.

The GOP platform calls for passage of a “human life amendment” to the Constitution, which would apply the 14th Amendment to unborn fetuses and effectively outlaw choice even in cases of rape and incest, and repeats the false claim that abortion “endangers the health and well-being of women.”

Equality

The Democratic platform strongly supports equality for women and LGBT Americans, stating:

We are committed to ensuring full equality for women: we reaffirm our support for the Equal Rights Amendment, recommit to enforcing Title IX, support the Paycheck Fairness Act, and will urge ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

. . . .

We support the Employment Non- Discrimination Act because people should not be fired based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

. . . .

We support the right of all families to have equal respect, responsibilities, and protections under the law. We support marriage equality and support the movement to secure equal treatment under law for same-sex couples. We also support the freedom of churches and religious entities to decide how to administer marriage as a religious sacrament without government interference.  We oppose discriminatory federal and state constitutional amendments and other attempts to deny equal protection of the laws to committed same-sex couples who seek the same respect and responsibilities as other married couples. We support the full repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act.

The GOP platform describes approval of marriage equality as an “assault on the foundations of our society” and calls for a Constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality.

Climate Change

The Democratic platform acknowledges the threat that is climate change and the need for action, stating:

We know that global climate change is one of the biggest threats of this generation – an economic, environmental, and national security catastrophe in the making. We affirm the science of climate change, commit to significantly reducing the pollution that causes climate change, and know we have to meet this challenge by driving smart policies that lead to greater growth in clean energy generation and result in a range of economic and social benefits.

The GOP platform is silent on the issue, which I suppose is better than joining Mitt Romney in echoing the false claims of climate deniers.

Party platforms are, of course, not binding documents and, as such, there is no guarantee that the policies set forth in either party’s platform will come to fruition.  But the platforms do provide a good sense of the agenda each party would pursue if they were to be in power, and offer an important look at the values and goals that motivate the people who would assume positions of power if their party wins.  And what the Democratic and Republican platforms shows is that under a Democratic Administration with a Democratic Congress , political debates would revolve around deciding the best ways to enact the types of progressive policies and goals that are set forth above, rather than having to spend four years playing defense on issues like Medicare, choice, LGBT equality, etc. As such, the Democrat’s 2012 platform draws a clear contrast between the retrograde and reactionary policies and values that today’s GOP is offering, and demonstrates well why all of us progressives need to stand up and fight for our President over these next two months.