Democrats Could Dominate for Two Decades if They Handle 2023 Correctly
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I dearly hope this site has a great year covering the Democrats, who are in a position to turn out significant majorities for decades if they use their unique position well and watch the Republicans fall apart on live television. Sorry for the language, but there is an old cliche about never murdering a man who is busy committing suicide. The Democrats need only lean back and watch the Republicans overdo every “investigation,” and Dems will benefit. Moderates get sick of Jim Jordan. But it seems to me and many others that the Democrats must jump on the unique opportunity to use this year to put together incredibly forward-thinking, sensible, and bipartisan legislation that the Republicans will block straightaway as they investigate billion-dollar deals in China. (That don’t exist)
People will notice.
The dynamic is obvious. Democrats hold a majority in the Senate, but they can’t get new legislation passed without serious help from some Republicans. They can do things with budget reconciliation or bite off half pieces of legislation so attractive that they can get the nine votes necessary.
The House Democrats won’t be able to get a bill to a vote without McCarthy (Or whoever is Speaker) buying in and placing it up for a vote, but that makes it almost better. House Democrats can be a little more “free” with their proposals, ones that sound great to people and are issues that don’t fall so neatly within partisan positions but perhaps not working through every detail.
New, perhaps more aggressive style.
As but one example, as part of Biden’s “Build Back Better” proposal, Biden had an entire section that counted family caregivers as infrastructure. It was genius insight to recognize the problem as critical to the country’s framework (infrastructure), and ridiculously obvious in hindsight. The wonderful baby boomers that taught us almost everything we know are going to be increasingly home-bound. Almost no one has enough money to privately pay for 24-hour care, and thus a son/daughter or grandchild usually takes up the task. But that takes a person out of the current workforce and is thus almost impossible for most families who need two incomes.
Medicare? Pffft. It covers long-term care in a skilled nursing facility for up to 100 days, and after that, it’s up to you or the long-term care facility insurance that you likely don’t have because you thought the United States was a first-world nation and that it was a basic part of Medicare! I had to use the “skilled nursing ” example because they simply don’t cover anything else. You must buy the insurance, and not two years prior.
So how much is it?
Costs are much lower in Dallas, Texas, where the monthly cost for a nursing home semi-private room is over $5,600 ($68,000 annually) and around $8,400 ($102,000 annually) for a private room.
Take that figure and double it to match what it costs in LA and NYC.
Okay, so those are nursing homes, and we’re talking over $100,000 per person per year. Why not pay a caregiver $50,000 a year (family or a hired person), and simply have a supervising nurse and a shower tech make stops throughout the day? It would save money and keep most people at home. It is one of the “We must do this” things.
SO GO BIG! Put out a proposal. It doesn’t need to be sweeping legislation that addresses every nuance, just a “good start.” But here is the key. Have Joe Biden give an address, highlight the costs and the crisis that our elderly, Gen X, and Millenials face in keeping mom and dad at home. Talk about it with urgency. Run commercials paid for by the “Democratic National Committee,” not some fuzzy-sounding “Citizens for Sentiant Senators” PACs that are everywhere and hide their real position.
The first time around, within the giant Build Back Better, the infrastructure costs of family caregivers didn’t make it through. Now make it one of two or three core legislative proposals for 2023 before the election year.
It saves money. It provides a living wage for someone who will take up the duties. It allows far more people to live at home. The living wage thing is important because, for the first time in American history, Gen X did not make as much money or accrue as much wealth as their parents. The wealth was made. It just stayed with the Boomers. There is a lot to say about how that happened, but that’s for another time. (Greed, anti-union legislation, pensions gone, living wages gone…)
A few families will want to be able to “work” to keep parents safe, healthy, and happy while receiving a living wage.
Ever so helpfully, Jim Jordan will, at the exact same time, be screaming at an FBI agent who had nothing to do with anything, is the consummate professional, but is there for a show trial.
There are a lot of similar ideas for sensible, non-partisan projects. Some may be more deserving. But the one above is certainly easier to “sell” because it could impact the majority of citizens.
GO FOR THE GOLD: IMMIGRATION REFORM
Immigration reform will not pass in 2023, or 2024, for that matter. But put together a perfectly reasonable start that at least addresses the biggest problems. Put an end to the meme that Democrats just want an “Open door” at the border. Put out a proposed solution and invite the GOP to “work” on it, and it’s a huge victory going forward.
This country has needed a comprehensive immigration reform bill for at least 30 years, probably more like 50. Democrats want to be the ones to step up and say, “We can do it.”
*Immigration reform involves people that cross illegally with no record of them being in the United States. Asylum seekers are a different category. They present themselves to border patrol as people leaving dangerous conditions. International law requires a hearing as to whether they are persecuted in their country. There is a record of their request, and can be put in a database.
Immigration reform tackles the first group. The ones that Republican politicians and powerbrokers say they want to be stopped immediately to please voters, but it would all but destroy many states’ economies.
The same nation that has so much hatred boiling over for illegal immigrants needs them. If every illegal immigrant was sent back this month. The economy of California, Texas, and Florida would implode in a week. Perhaps a month or two later, every state would be in the same boat.
The agriculture sector depends on immigrants to do the work that Americans either won’t do or don’t know how to do. (I know farmers in Idaho that won’t let anyone but Mexicans move and set up irrigation piping. They develop expertise, and it’s not easy.) Even mighty California, with all the high tech and industry… farms, and wholesale food distribution, are the bigger economic driver, same with Florida and Texas. Unless you want to pay $15 for a plastic box of strawberries instead of five, you have to have cheap and available workers.
Don’t stop there. How would Hilton Hotels react to a loss like this by the end of the week? Managers would be trying to figure out how to make a bed… and giving up. What about restaurants all over the country? And a more daunting one, the more dangerous meat wholesalers, Tyson Chicken and the like.
Clearly, we need immigrants, and clearly, we invite them with the promise of work once here. That is the system. But for some reason, we need them and benefit from them, and yet we must pay border patrol to drive all over and arrest them. The system makes no sense.
Someone smarter than me will write the bill, but true immigration reform will involve a guest worker visa with strict parameters. People should be required to sign up in Mexico or on the border and find a place currently accepting “labor.” But these labor visas cannot, by themselves, be a path to citizenship, or they’re skipping people in line again.
Obviously, I don’t have the answers. But some smart Democrats DO. And they can put together pieces of the “Immigration Reform for a New Century” and then get angry when the Republicans aren’t participating, at least constructively. Right now, Republicans have no motivation to pass immigration reform. For them, immigration works great. The businesses get their workers. People get to hate and call them “illegals.” They get to criticize Democrats for “letting people in” (Biden has deported more people than Trump). The Republicans might think, “What’s the problem?”
All Democrats have to say is, “Database, work, and return home until next season or apply in two-year pieces (Which is what most hotel workers do anyway). Protect people that follow the rules. Hammer those that don’t… “ And that is more than enough, so long as they’re earnest, to make people wonder why the GOP isn’t interested.
Meanwhile, Jim Jordan moved on to yell at a former Twitter Executive who just told Jordan, “Well, we were a private company that thought that too many Republicans, such as yourself, were fcking morons, and yes, we were Left-leaning. Competitors were set up. What’s the problem?”
Follow me for a short conclusion:
The ideas that I pitched could be replaced with two just as worthwhile and add another. Which topics should be addressed isn’t my area of expertise. My area is assessing what is to be gained under new, aggressive leadership in the House, wanting to make a statement, the mood in the country (Three straight losses for “America Firsters,” MAGAs), and the very predictable Republican behavior. They will impeach someone straight away.
One of Joe Biden’s biggest problems is that he didn’t go out and take a victory lap in 2022 after the elections. He has talked about all they’ve gotten done but not a “tour,” going to six states in eight days or something. It may be too draining at his age. But that’s where a much younger generation, more media savvy (taking nothing from Pelosi) in the House can provide a huge benefit. Hell, if the Democrats in the House got enough decent Republicans to support a Caregiver Act, McCarthy might have to hold a vote to avoid the blame for something a majority of Americans want.
WHAT Democrats choose to tackle is almost less important than they set out to tackle three to four immediate solvable problems with utter clarity and force. Mention this platform in front of every microphone, run the commercials, and have one or two presidential addresses. Because what Democrats will be doing is setting up a dynamic in which the divide is too clear to ignore: “If you want our government to work for people and solve actual problems, like adults, the Democrats are really the only choice. Jim Jordan will be yelling at Sec. Buttigieg for the planes being late on Christmas… Democrats, the party of adults, are trying to solve problems.
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I wish you all a happy New Year. Be safe on the roads and driving yourself.
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to spend more time researching non-obvious issues and then more time writing them, among many other things.
Let’s head to the beach, in our minds at least. This is another of Alabama’s beautiful beaches, ranked near the top in the country.