Steve’s political argument on health care for kids is persuasive to me, and I’m glad he agrees on abortion reduction. But I’m wondering a little on CAFE standards and card-check.
1) Although I am not sure that Blue Dogs would go along with card check, I’m not sure they would oppose it, either. Although one idea of conservative/centrist Democrats is that they are “pro-business” (a misnomer), another theme is that Democrats should concentrate on economic issues to the exclusion of cultural concerns. Card-check is about as economic of a concern as you’re going to get. I would think that newly elected Dems like Steve Hagen in Wisconsin and Tim Walz in Minnesota would strongly favor it. I don’t have any indication that Nancy Boyda in Kansas and Heath Shuler in North Carolina would oppose it.
2) I’m not sure why increasing CAFE standards is a bad way to go (maybe because of the way one can play around with fleet fuel economy standards). Speak, Steve!
In any event, I agree that a BTU tax would be better, but that seems like a political killer to me.
In the “Great minds think alike department,” I notice that both Ezra and Kevin seem to be thinking along the same lines.
The first item on the agenda should be to thoroughly investigate and if necessary expel Rep. Jefferson and prove that the Democratic Party will be the party that fights corruption, not enables it.
The second should be to deny that idiot Rep. Rangel and significant position of power in the new Congress.
Bush blew America’s good will after 9/11 and Rangel is doing his best to perform a similar act of idiocy in destroying the Dems good will even before they take power.
What a shameful, shameful congressman and what a blight on the Democratic Party.