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Democratic, Republican Platforms Show Sharp Differences
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As the Republican Convention gets under way in Minnesota this week and delegates recharge after the Democratic Convention in Denver, both parties’ platforms are now available, and they illuminate key differences as the election approaches.
When Sen. John McCain accepts the Republican nomination on Thursday, he’ll also be signing on to a platform that tilts far away from working families and toward the corporate interests that have been the beneficiaries of the Bush administration. It stands in contrast to a Democratic platform that reflects Sen. Barack Obama’s strong commitment to making the economy work for all.
Thea Lee, the AFL-CIO’s policy director and a member of the committee that drafted the Democratic platform, said she’s very pleased with the platform and the vision it sets out for the country.
I think that this is a strong, unapologetic, pro-worker document. This year, it’s clear that the economy is going to be the centerpiece of the election, and the platform lays out a robust and comprehensive pro-worker economic policy.
If you look at the outcome, it’s a good set of policies that we can be proud of.
Lee said the Democratic platform shows, in specific language, the steps an Obama administration would take to help working families and strengthen the economy. That includes:
- Passing the Employee Free Choice Act to allow workers the freedom to form unions and bargain without employer intimidation.
- Implementing a trade policy that protects jobs and fights unfair trade practices.
- Ensuring that everyone has access to secure, high-quality health care.
- Making equal pay for women a reality.
- Protecting workers with paid sick leave, overtime protections and prevailing wages.
- Investing in the renewable energy sector, infrastructure, innovations in fuel-efficient cars and communications technology.
- Preventing privatization of jobs and misclassification of workers.
The Republican platform touches on few, if any, of these issues. Only seven of the platform’s 60 pages focus on the economy. With somewhat veiled and very misleading language, it opposes the Employee Free Choice Act. The platform promises to “aggressively” push international trade and calls for Fast Track approval of trade deals without input from Congress.
The McCain camp’s message on the economy is clear: It’s not a top priority, and they won’t fight to make sure workers can succeed.
Indeed, in a morning convention event today, sometime McCain adviser Phil Gramm repeated his claims that people concerned about the economy in this election are “whiners”—and economic illiterates.
If you’re sitting here today, you’re not economically illiterate and you’re not a whiner, so I’m not worried about who you’re going to vote for.
On health care, one of the most important issues facing working families and the U.S. economy, the Republican platform is built on a baffling contradiction. It says “radical restructuring of health care would be unwise,” but then lays out a plan for radical changes that would take our health care system in the wrong direction—increasing the power of private insurance companies, leaving millions of families on their own and changing the tax system to raise taxes on those who get health benefits at work.
As scholars, Robert Gordon and James Kvaal point out today at The New Republic, McCain’s health care proposal amounts to:
a tax agenda that costs trillions of dollars yet delivers no benefit to tens of millions of middle-class Americans.…Before long, nearly all families would be paying higher taxes on their health insurance.
The difference between the Republican and Democratic platforms isn’t just in the policy, it’s in the process as well, Lee said. Before the writing of the platform, more than 1,600 sessions were held around the country, organized at the grassroots level by voters who brought together more than 30,000 people to participate.
The [Democratic platform] process was more inclusive than ever before, and the product reflects that….If you look at all the layers of participation, it’s a very democratic process. Each one of these meetings is held in public.
Lee attended two of these sessions to observe—in Washington, D.C., and in New Orleans—and said more than 100 people attended each one. Hearing from participants about their priorities and interests helped shape the platform, she said.
It was very useful—these workers illustrated the issues we would be talking about, like health care, trade and pensions, and they did so in a very compelling way.
The drafting committee also heard from national leaders, including AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, USW President Leo Gerard and Alliance for Retired Americans Executive Director Edward Coyle.
The contrast between the two party platforms—on the issues and in terms of the input of working people—is clear, Lee said. The Republican and Democratic platforms offer very different visions of the challenges facing our country, and the solutions we need.
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Been watching the Repubs yakking away on values, integrity, then Bush comes on! He had to look like he was working on the Gustav issue at the WH so speaks via satelite since Louisiana is still hurting from Katrina. (Heckofajob dubya!)
Constant talking about the poor souls that gave their lives in Bush’s illegal war (like they were all Republicans), THEN! Here comes the turn coat of the century Joe Leiberman, the chump we all supported 8 yrs. ago! He comes on stage, bragging how he is a democrat..(wait, he was, then an independent because he couldn’t win, now he is a democrat again), talking to the conservatives, calling them my good friends. Now he wants democrats to cross over and open our arms to 4 more yrs. of conservative, country destroying, law breaking BS that has occurred for the past 8 yrs.
GO TO HELL JOE!! Go back to being a Republican, if you support McSame, you are the nut case! Why don’t you help Bush pack for his trip home?
We will be the deciders! WE WILL TAKE BACK AMERICA and turn this country back to a prosperous, proud land! We will nurse the blackened eyes of Lady Liberty so they will shine again!
“The Republican and Democratic platforms offer very different visions of the challenges facing our country, and the solutions we need.”
On the contrary, the platforms of the Republicans and Democrats, are basically the same! Both platforms maintain the corporate control and profiteering over every aspect of our lives.
The only political party that offers a platform and a perspective that really favors the interest of working people is the Green Party. They have prepared several web pages comparing the parties on the vital issues that concern working people:
http://www.therealdifference.org/issues.html
This first page gives an overview of the many issues of concern in this election.
http://www.therealdifference.org/issues2.html
This page (called ISSUE DETAILS) gives a more detailed explanation of each issue listed in the first page above.
Especially notice the category “National Health Insurance” and note that only the Green party supports “single-payer” health insurance!
Also please note the sections called “Invasion and Occupation of Iraq” and
“Military Budget”.
The war budget is now taking over half of the budget. The money for the war (and war-profiteering) is constantly draining tax money from public education, public health, and threatens many social programs needed by working people to survive.
Working people and the organized labor movement should stop funding the Demoratic Party and consider running leading union and knowledgeable working people, under the Green Party, as candidates at every level of government.
I was listening to a local investment banker this morning as he was giving his advice on where to invest your money. The talk turned to how to invest based on the platforms of the two major parties. His advice was designed to give investors an insight on where to put your money and was based on the platforms adopted by each party, not on campaign rhetoric. His advice was very eye-opening. If the Republicans win in November, he advised investors to look into oil stocks. He felt anything to do with drilling would be a good investment. He said if the Democrats get in, you want to invest in infrastructure companies. He also stressed alternative energy companies that produce energy from wind or solar. As far as infrastructure companies, he said invest in companies that do bridge and road construction.
What does this mean to us? I sure don’t have any money to invest, I don’t have enough money to invest in anything, my wife and I can’t even afford to go to a dinner and a movie. But I will tell you what this means to all of us. If the Republicans get into office, they will have two advocates in the White House with the goal of keeping things pretty much as they are economically. They are going to be fighting to open ANWR and start off-shore drilling down along the Florida coast, the California coast and along the Atlantic coast. This smoke screen is already playing well as they have been getting a fairly positive response in all the national polls using this theme. As far as the Republican talk of alternative energy, because they do advocate for solar, wind, clean coal technology and other sources of alternative energy, just as the Democrats do. So what is the big difference? It is very simple; the Republicans investment in these alternative energies is to be market driven. In other words it will be private investment in the public sector and will be profit driven. Now I am not against private investment or anyone making a profit, as long as it is a fair and reasonable return on investment. However when the profits are on the excess and it is being made at the expense of others then I am not sure it is either fair or reasonable. There is another factor that I want everyone to consider, the constitution place the responsibility for controlling interstate commerce on the federal government. Now for the last eight years we have seen a federal government that has a record that is not to stellar in that regard. The response to the last power failure that caused a blackout to half the country was to identify what caused it and to let the company responsible repair the cause. It ignores the message being sent about the state of our interstate power grid. It is woefully outdated and totally inadequate for the present demand being placed on it and will collapse as the demand being projected for it come into reality. The Democrat platform is the only place where mention is made of this potential crisis.
Of course the Republican Party is correct when they say Obama wants to increase spending. That is pretty much the reality facing both parties. No matter how the Republicans gloss over it, they too will be increasing spending. The big difference is how it is presented to the public. There is a lesson to learn from history on how the Republican Party spends money. They want to hide it in appropriation bills not in the budget. This is how they funded the war in Iraq and were able to shift billions of dollars to the private sector without oversight or any accountability for our tax dollars. The debt they run up for the government is just as real and just as expensive to our children and grandchildren but it is not in the budget for discussion and debate. With the Democrat platform it is upfront with an attempt at funding what is appropriated and will, I am sure, be debated. At this point in time, I fully expect that this tactic will continue by the Republican Party for there is very little discretionary spending addressed in their platform. I also realize spending on infrastructure is critical to the future economic health of this nation. I have a slightly different view on spending our tax dollars inside this country. I am totally committed to improving our ability to provide for our own citizens. Improving our infrastructure will lower the cost of manufacturing in this country, provide jobs and improve our ability to protect ourselves.
Let me address each in turn. First, how will we lower the cost of manufacturing? Improving the reliability of our electrical grid is the only way we will be able to take advantage of any of the savings possible from alternative energy such as wind, solar or even nuclear. Increased reliability in the grid will lower the cost of electricity and hence lower the cost of energy for manufacturers. Improving our transportation system to incorporate mass transit and more efficient vehicles will lower the cost of transporting our goods or providing services inside our economy. These improvements will also lower cost of moving people who work which will have the benefit of freeing income to spend on goods and services. I fully anticipate that as the cost of transporting goods across the ocean from China to the US remains at the level it is now, along with the questions of quality and the costs that this occurs for manufacturers, we will see a return of many of the jobs that were exported on the premise of lowering the cost by lowering the cost of labor, being returned to the United States. So I am convinced that the key to recovery of our economy is the investment in ourselves, and I stress the word investing.
The third point I made was in reference to our ability to defend ourselves. One little known fact that was driven home in the war in Iraq was our inability to manufacture the goods we needed to maintain our troop’s ability to fight. We had to depend on other countries to manufacture our small arms ammunition used by our troops to fire in combat. We all fully know of the shortage of body armor and the inability to get armor plate for our vehicles. Finally we had the Commandant of The Marine Corp on national Television saying we had Marines dying and being maimed because we did not have the manufacturing capabilities to produce the vehicles capable of protecting them as they patrolled Iraq. These problems were solved not by our ability to step up production, but by the shift in the political climate inside Iraq. It was “The Awakening” and the shift in the position of Al Sadr that caused the downward shift in violence against American forces. Coupled with the tactical advantage given by the increase in the troop level of both U. S. and Iraqi forces, we saw an increase in the stability across the provinces of Iraq. We now have a time table in place for the withdraw of troops from Iraq and shifting them to Afghanistan. But what message did this inability to provide in a timely manner for our troops send to the enemy and to other adversary nations around the world. As a former intelligence officer I will tell you this is a critical piece of information. It would lead me to believe that escalating my activities against an enemy would further aggravate the situation, hence leading me to increase my attacks to further cause the consumption of what is already a shortage. It also will serve to embolden others who were held in check by the threat of military action. It was obvious to anyone looking at our troop capabilities that we could do nothing to stem or thwart any military action anywhere in the world. This is proof of the saying that in order to have a world class military, you must have the ability to supply and maintain it. We no longer have that capability because of the policies put in place over the past Republican administration. There is no plan to alter or change the idea of a market driven government or military in the new Republican platform. I see no plan to shift control of intelligence away from the private sector; we now buy 65% of our intelligence from civilian contractors, back to the government agencies responsible for intelligence gathering.
I don’t know if anyone at the national level of the Democrat Party is aware of the subtle shift in the campaign that the Republican’s have been able to make in the last few weeks. Issues are no longer critical because they have shifted the debate back to social issues and we can’t win fighting among ourselves on issues such as abortion, gun control, gays or tax and spend. We have to re-orient the discussion back to what I point out above. We have to attack the fallacy that the Republican Party can protect the country better, especially in light of the present state of our military. We have to define and explain the difference between tactical efforts on the battlefield and strategic plans across the region. Hell, we had 19 star level retired military on the stage at the convention; I am sure any one of them could explain this in short quick informational ads to the public. Most of all we have to point out that the Republican Party platform will keep us on the same economic and foreign policy path that we are on now. The inequitable wealth distribution that we have in place now is a policy that is a far greater threat to our stability than any other. History is full of examples of many governments have been subject to instability and have fallen to internal unrest caused by unequal distribution of wealth. We don’t have to go back beyond John Kennedy to find this to be a valid concern for America. I refer to the quote from his inaugural speech in which he stated, “A nation that cannot provide for the many who are poor, cannot protect the few who are wealthy.” After the shifting of wealth in the Republican years under Eisenhower, Kennedy was justly concerned with the accumulation of wealth by a small segment of the population. The same was true following the Reagan/ Bush years and this administration has caused the greatest shifting of wealth in history. This has always been a point of contention between the parties and I suppose always will be. But the lesson of history, with the Democrats acting to correct the inequities of our market is in jeopardy of collapse. Today we have seen a shift in American values away from work hard and a worker getting a fair return for his labor and towards making a killing in the market. That is what drives the Republican fascination with shifting social security to private investing and is again in their platform. Today success is measured by your portfolio not your value to your community. We are now more than ever enamored with wealth and all its trappings. We no longer place any value on hard work or the worker who succeeds by the sweat of his brow, in fact we want to devalue it and replace it with a service economy. The Republican Platform does not change this attitude but further embellishes it. With McCain and Palin in the White House the only change you will see is the change in your pocket going from your pocket to theirs, they already have most of the dollars