"We work to find progressive and pragmatic solutions to significant domestic and international problems and develop policy proposals that foster a government that is “of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people.” We believe in honoring work, building strong communities, fostering effective government and encouraging free and fair markets."
We are also foresquare in favor of apple pie.
Baseball, we have some reservations about. We are, in principle, against public subsidy for new ballparks such as George W. Bush foisted off upon the taxpayers of the city of Arlington, Texas. On the other hand, since all such issues are municiple rather than federal questions, and since the participants in such debates are either rapid "fans" (short for "fanatic") or hard-hearted capitalists, we would prefer, and tend to, ignore the baseball matter entirely.
Motherhood we are, reluctantly, against. The removal of large segments of the workforce to provide uncredentialed and poorly-trained child-care within un-inspected facilities and which includes nutritionally suspect menus weighted toward "convenience" foods ... well, it's just too old-fashioned. Expansion of "HeadStart" into federally funded daycare for all (while keeping the program under the Department of Health and Human Services and firmly OUT of the Department of Education which might lead to the kids actually developing dangerous skills in, you know, literacy or arithmetic or something ...)
Sorry. :-) I actually have no idea where the CAP stands on any of these three issues. Of course.
But I confess myself unmoved by platitudes regardless of the source of those platitudes. Tell me -- specifically, with examples -- what you're for and what you're against, and I might be more celebratory regarding you're entry to the great debate.
Posted by: Pouncer on October 14, 2003 07:09 AM"We work to find progressive and pragmatic solutions to significant domestic and international problems and develop policy proposals that foster a government that is “of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people.” We believe in honoring work, building strong communities, fostering effective government and encouraging free and fair markets."
We are also foresquare in favor of apple pie.
Baseball, we have some reservations about. We are, in principle, against public subsidy for new ballparks such as George W. Bush foisted off upon the taxpayers of the city of Arlington, Texas. On the other hand, since all such issues are municiple rather than federal questions, and since the participants in such debates are either rapid "fans" (short for "fanatic") or hard-hearted capitalists, we would prefer, and tend to, ignore the baseball matter entirely.
Motherhood we are, reluctantly, against. The removal of large segments of the workforce to provide uncredentialed and poorly-trained child-care within un-inspected facilities and which includes nutritionally suspect menus weighted toward "convenience" foods ... well, it's just too old-fashioned. Expansion of "HeadStart" into federally funded daycare for all (while keeping the program under the Department of Health and Human Services and firmly OUT of the Department of Education which might lead to the kids actually developing dangerous skills in, you know, literacy or arithmetic or something ...)
Sorry. :-) I actually have no idea where the CAP stands on any of these three issues. Of course.
But I confess myself unmoved by platitudes regardless of the source of those platitudes. Tell me -- specifically, with examples -- what you're for and what you're against, and I might be more celebratory regarding your entry to the great debate.
Posted by: Pouncer on October 14, 2003 07:11 AMDullsville....
Tune out.
Big article on the center in the NYT Magazine.
Posted by: Dimmy Karras on October 14, 2003 01:12 PM"We are also foresquare in favor of apple pie."
Apple pie! Harrumph. What about mango pie? Sweet potato pie? Lychee soup? Typical euro-centric corporatist cultural imperialism...I bet the pie comes out of a box found in the frozen foods aisle, transported, stocked, checked and bagged by scab labor.
"We are also foresquare in favor of apple pie."
Apple pie! Harrumph. What about mango pie? Sweet potato pie? Lychee soup? Typical euro-centric corporatist cultural imperialism...I bet the pie comes out of a box found in the frozen foods aisle, transported, stocked, checked and bagged by scab labor.
Hmm, I always seem to get multiple posts. I clicked once, closed the comment window, quit the browser (Mozilla), came back in, and the comment was repeated. Strange. Wonder if it happens with IE as well.
Posted by: Peter MacLeod on October 14, 2003 02:02 PMHmm, I always seem to get multiple posts. I clicked once, closed the comment window, quit the browser (Mozilla), came back in, and the comment was repeated. Strange. Wonder if it happens with IE as well.
Posted by: Peter MacLeod on October 14, 2003 02:05 PMAll hail the power of balanced budgets, free trade, smaller government, and the all-mighty Fed!! Eisenhower lives!!!
A few hints at where this group is coming from. They want to have a fast and effective response to "conservative rhetoric" per their web page. Seems like a liberal think tank in the works. I then skimmed their first paper which was on the provision of Medicare services in the rural areas. Only a skim, but it looks interesting. Let's put it this way - this will not be the National Review.
Posted by: Hal McClure on October 14, 2003 02:35 PMA little too much about sharing, providing, etc. What happens when those conflict with strength, justice/liberty, and prosperity? How do you pay for all those social programs?
More broadly, the idea of developing a vision by reacting to conservative proposals shows... well, a lack of vision.
A little too much about sharing, providing, etc. What happens when those conflict with strength, justice/liberty, and prosperity? How do you pay for all those social programs?
More broadly, the idea of developing a vision by reacting to conservative proposals shows... well, a lack of vision.
A little too much about sharing, providing, etc. What happens when those conflict with strength, justice/liberty, and prosperity? How do you pay for all those social programs?
More broadly, the idea of developing a vision by reacting to conservative proposals shows... well, a lack of vision.
The idea of the right are getting mighty stale. Time to do better.
The Great One can do better
By WILLIAM THORSELL
Monday, October 13, 2003 - Page A11
'To do a great thing, do a little wrong," wrote William Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice. It was a typically Shakespearean bit of wisdom -- ambiguous at its core -- and it comes to mind these days in respect to the United States. How much wrong is necessary to reach the state of greatness, or is compatible with greatness?
The United States Census Bureau reported this month that 43.6-million Americans have no health insurance, an increase of 5.3 per cent in the past year and the highest percentage of the American population without recourse to insured medical care in the past 10 years.
The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial policy is brilliantly convincing about unfettered markets, often describes in its news pages the marooning of modest families whose breadwinner has lost his job, and any reserves against illness. The insinuation between love of principle and facts on the ground is that greatness has its price. The United States can be economically great only if its social system sloughs off the cost of medical coverage for millions, and insists that the laggards find their own way to cope with illness.
Must the tradeoffs be so stark?
Among industrialized nations, the United States has the greatest proportion of its people without health insurance, the highest cost as a percentage of GDP of providing health care for the rest, and only middling health performance results measured by rates of illness and expected life spans. The "little wrong" here doesn't seem to meet any other test of productivity. It just is.
Meanwhile, median U.S. household cash income has fallen for the third year in a row. The poverty rate increased at the same time. This obviously reflects the recession and its job-loss recovery. It does not yet reflect the Bush administration's tax cuts, which give much bigger percentage reductions to the wealthy than the poor as a means of increasing incentives to work.
Yes, that's the thesis: The wealthy are lazing about too much, discouraged from work and investment by perverse tax incentives, unlike the poor, who you would think, face enormous incentives to work because of their absent health insurance. So the Bush tax cuts give far greater proportional relief to the idle rich -- even though these tax cuts exacerbate the rapidly widening gap between rich and poor.
It's the price of greatness.
In a similarly brutal tradeoff, the United States can apparently sustain acceptable levels of civility only by having the highest rates of prison incarceration in the Western world. It's the price of being great.
The bar is much too low for such a great country. The excuses for these tradeoffs are much too lame.
At some point in the evolution of great societies, the rhetoric of greatness begins to justify failures of delivery that simply defy rationalization. You have to believe that the Americans can do better. Indeed, what is more American than faith in that belief?
The phrase "social justice" sits uneasily with modern sensibilities grown properly wary of smarmy appeals from the left cloaked in guilt-gilded rhetoric. "Social balance" is perhaps a healthier concept, more amenable to rational measurement and practical limits. A great country (like a great person) keeps its balance, because balance is ultimately self-serving.
Too many sick without succour; too many poor without progress; too many jailed without reason. There are worthwhile wrongs to right in the greatest country in the world.
William Thorsell is director and CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum.
Reflected light of a sputtering DLC sun. Perfect.
Gotta run. I'm off to work on my newest invention. It's like, you drive up to a restaurant and get your food through a window! You don't go in, you never get out of your car! Cool huh? I'm gonna call it Mange a Fenetre d' auto or something like that. And I got a cousin who owns a pancake house in Boise -- He says he's interested!
Posted by: bluto on October 15, 2003 01:30 AMReflected light of a sputtering DLC sun. Perfect.
Gotta run. I'm off to work on my newest invention. It's like, you drive up to a restaurant and get your food through a window! You don't go in, you never get out of your car! Cool huh? I'm gonna call it Mange a Fenetre d' auto or something like that. And I got a cousin who owns a pancake house in Boise -- He says he's interested!
Posted by: bluto on October 15, 2003 01:32 AM