A Reform Insurgency (DLC)

<snip> Republicans are now responsible for all the policy failures and special interest dominated procedures of the most powerful central government this side of Beijing. Surveys consistently show that roughly a third of Americans don't know which party controls Congress. How often did you hear Democrats talk about one-party domination of Washington during the last campaign? Not remotely as often, we'd bet, as you heard Republicans, from the president on down, talk about Democrats as the big-government party. That needs to change right away. We need to stop acting like a "shadow government" that's just patiently waiting for the opportunity to get back into power and return to business-as-usual. Washington needs fixing, on a very basic level, and Democrats need to become not an impotent minority party with no agenda other than obstructing the worst excesses of a newly emboldened GOP, but a positive insurgency committed to a whole host of reforms. <snip>

We need to champion election reform to ensure a reasonably uniform set of rules for how Americans register, vote, and have their votes counted. We need redistricting reform to avoid the growing phenomenon, in both the U.S. House and many state legislatures, of politicians choosing voters rather than voters choosing politicians. We need open primaries to enfranchise independents and break the grip of organized special interests on the nominating process and the parties. And yes, we need another and more effective round of campaign finance reform and ethics reform to break the toxic cycle that lets people like Tom DeLay hustle lobbyists for campaign cash and even jobs for Republicans in exchange for access to the legislative process. While we can disagree on the details, there is no principled reason for Democrats to oppose any of these reforms, since Republicans will always have an advantage in a system that puts a premium on the ruthless exercise of institutional and financial power. <snip>

It's time for Democrats to aggressively champion budget reforms, including a restoration of budget controls like spending caps and pay-as-you-go. But Democrats should go further and demand an assault on corporate welfare in the tax code and federal programs; a ban on "earmarks" in spending bills that let Members send pork back home; a crackdown on or even an abolition of the power of appropriations committees; and other dramatic steps. This is not just a matter of "good government"; these reforms go to the heart of the fiscal irresponsibility in Washington. <snip>

Democrats must reject Bush's phony privatization panacea, but they need more than a "Just Say No" approach to Social Security and entitlement reform in general. Democrats need to develop progressive plans to modernize our social insurance system so that they can defend the living standards of today's workers while honoring our commitment to tomorrow's retirees. At stake is not simply the solvency of our retirement system and our federal government, but the interests and political loyalties of millions of younger middle-class voters who increasingly believe their current earnings and their own retirement security will be sacrificed to keep the old system going for a few more decades. <snip>

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=131&subid=207&contentid=253005


My prediction: of all these proposals, DLC will work hard only for open primaries, leading to completely homogenized mush candidates.

This is the DLC speaking. Interesting.