Zombie Blue Dogs
by digby
Unfortunately, they still roam the land searching for brains:
Rejecting a trade agreement with Asia, expanding entitlement programs that crowd out other priorities and a desire to relitigate the financial crisis are becoming dominant positions among Democrats. Although these subjects may make for good partisan talking points, they do not provide the building blocks for a positive and bold agenda to create jobs and improve the lives of Americans. …
[W]e need a philosophical shift in the Democratic Party, a new willingness to support programs that create pathways for nongovernmental and philanthropic innovation and investment to help solve the problems of society. We should embrace approaches, such as social impact bonds, that combine private-sector capital and expertise with public-interest goals to produce better government services. Such changes will require Democrats to leave our ideological comfort zone and move away from the idea that government, and government alone, is the answer to our problems. But instead of being used to voice an agenda that can bring the country together, the party microphone has been hijacked by people more interested in scoring points than in solving problems. They propose expanding Social Security rather than prioritizing serious efforts to preserve the program– even though it will be unable to provide full benefits as soon as 2032, the Congressional Budget Office has made clear. The only way a large-scale expansion could work is by allocating new revenue away from needed investments in the next generation or by shifting the financial burden to workers or our children.
Zzzzzz.
Howie explains who this fine fellow is:
John Delaney spent $2,370,556 in 2012 to buy himself a seat, the third most– after Suzan DelBene and Scott Peters– among the wealthy Democratic freshmen (all of whom immediately joined the extremely corrupt, pro-business/anti-family New Dems). Now a Maryland congressman in a safe blue seat, Delaney is often a fount of Republican ideas– like forbidding the EPA from protecting clean drinking water in streams and lakes and raising the retirement age for the working poor and forcing chained CPI down the throats of Social Security recipients. He was at it again yesterday– another op-ed in the Washington Post, this one to go on a deranged attack against the values and principles of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt that made the Democratic Party great.
Delaney is the perfect Democrat for Fox, always eager to blame progressives for everything, always eager to equate progressives with the extremists, Confederates and fascists that dominate the Republican Party. He’s an advocate of the “both sides are equally wrong” simplemindedness. “Washington,” he wrote, “is paralyzed by extreme political rhetoric that creates powerful sound bites but poor policy… With Washington already broken, the last thing we need is a left-wing version of the tea party. But I am worried about where some of the loudest voices in the room could take the Democratic Party.” Delaney is worried. Why doesn’t he hop the fence and join the GOP?
If any of you leftwing extremists happen to live in his district maybe you should think about running against him in a primary. If there were as many left wing extremists agitating to give undeserving senior citizens a few extra bucks so they don’t have to eat cat food as this guy thinks there are, there would already be one. This is a safe Democratic district. There’s no excuse for this.
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