Letter From Hillary Clinton Rec'd in Oklahoma

[hippywife]

I live in Oklahoma and today I received a letter from Hillary Clinton asking me to complete a survey and contribute to her 2006 re-election campaign.

I wrote on the survery form that no DLC member will get my money or support and put it back in the postage paid envelope for prompt return tomorrow morning.

[skooooo]

1. Hillary is DLC?

What does DLC stand for exactly? I know it's kind of the elite echeleon of the democratice party, but..

[hippywife]

2. Link

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ka.cfm?kaid=137

[flpoljunkie]

3. How the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) Does It by Robert Dreyfuss

http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V12/7/dreyfuss-r.html

Excerpt from the article:

A Business-Led Party

Freeing Democrats from being, well, Democrats has been the Democratic Leadership Council's mission since its founding 16 years ago by Al Gore, Chuck Robb, and a handful of other conservative, mostly southern Dems as a rump faction of disaffected elected officials and party activists. Producing and directing the DLC is Al From, its founder and CEO, who's been the leader, visionary, and energizing force behind the New Democrat movement since Day One. A veteran of the Carter White House and Capitol Hill, where he'd worked for Louisiana Representative Gillis Long and served as executive director of the House Democratic Caucus, From helped build the Committee on Party Effectiveness, a forerunner of the DLC, in the early 1980s. To From, a key rationale for establishing the DLC in those days was to protect the Democrats' eroding bastion in the South against mounting Republican gains, and indeed one of the DLC's chief projects in the 1980s was to create and promote the Super Tuesday primary across the South, aimed at enhancing the clout of southern Dems in selecting presidential candidates.

Privately funded and operating as an extraparty organization without official Democratic sanction, and calling themselves "New Democrats," the DLC sought nothing less than the miraculous: the transubstantiation of America's oldest political party. Though the DLC painted itself using the palette of the liberal left--as "an effort to revive the Democratic Party's progressive tradition," with New Democrats being the "trustees of the real tradition of the Democratic Party"--its mission was far more confrontational. With few resources, and taking heavy flak from the big guns of the Democratic left, the DLC proclaimed its intention, Mighty Mouse–style, to rescue the Democratic Party from the influence of 1960s-era activists and the AFL-CIO, to ease its identification with hot-button social issues, and, perhaps most centrally, to reinvent the party as one pledged to fiscal restraint, less government, and a probusiness, pro–free market outlook.

It's hard to argue that they haven't succeeded.

Today's is not your father's Democratic Party. Though the dwindling chorus of party progressives provides counterpoint, today's Democrats are proud to claim the mantle of budgetary moderation. They oppose President Bush's $2-trillion tax-cut plan not by arguing mainly for more spending on health, education, and welfare, but because it risks the new sacred cause of paying off the national debt. They are the party of increased military spending, the death penalty, the war on drugs, and partnership with religious faith. They are the party of Ending Welfare As We Know It, the party of The Era of Big Government Is Over.

more...

[AJH032]

9. "the new sacred cause of paying off the national debt"

And what exactly is wrong with that? Paying down the national debt makes it easier for lower and middle class Americans to live because prices go down as well as their own debt payments. Isn't that a good thing? Or is everything the DLC stands for inherently evil? Even the DNC's platform says that the Democratic party stands for balanced budgets.

[hippywife]

10. There are exceedingly more important

issues that are of greater priority. And the budget is always, always balanced on the backs of the poor.

[AJH032]

12. no it's not

Clinton balanced the budget by raising taxes only on the upper tax bracket and cutting some spending (mainly military). Balancing the budget, if anything, helps the poor. Case in point: poverty declined in the 90s as the deficit came down. Even if that's not a causational relationship (which I would also disagree with), it shows that balancing the budget certainly does not hurt the poor. Again, if anything, it helps.

[hippywife]

14. I think if you were a victim

of "welfare reform" you would heartily disagree.

[AJH032]

15. funny you should say that

an old friend of my mom's was a "victim" of welfare reform back in the late 90s. No, she wasn't kicked off. She was able to leave because she found a job to support herself and her son. Besides, welfare is a separate issue. Facts support what I said about the budget.

[hippywife]

16. Then she wasn't a victim.

If she was able to find a job to support herself and her son, she wasn't kicked off the welfare rolls. Many weren't that lucky. They were forced into taking low wage jobs with no resources for child care.

If facts support what you say about the budget, lets see them.

[AJH032]

17. Here you go

The deficit came down each and every year under President Clinton (and by 1998, there no longer was a deficit at all).

At the same time, within a balanced budget, Clinton cut taxes for millions of working Americans by expanding the earned income tax credit. This alone alleviated poverty. In his first five years in office, the poverty rate dropped by 2.4% (the fastest 5-year drop in over 30 years, btw). Also, poverty rates for African Americans and hispanics reached record lows under Clinton. The minimum wage went up under Clinton (even as inflation went down). 23 million jobs were created. Unemployment fell below 4%.. And with regards to Clinton's welfare reform, did you forget that Clinton actually vetoed two previous welfare reform bills that were far worse? Did you also know that in his welfare reform bill, Clinton increased training for workers and funding for child care? I'll concede to you that welfare reform of '96 wasn't a liberal idea, but make no mistake: Clinton's economic policies benefited the poor, and all of America.

[hippywife]

18. "This alone alleviated poverty."

:rofl:

Okay, that's all for me! I cannot help but cede this argument to such incredible research and documentation. :sarcasm:

[AJH032]

19. Fine

But it has been documented that the EITC brought about 4.3 million out of poverty in 1998. If you don't want to listen to facts, that's not really my concern.

[Gloria]

4. I've gotten the same thing, several times....in NM....

Frankly, after her husband's tap dance with Bush1 again, I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her, which isn't very far. She's very tiny in person...(met her in '92)

She was recently named as a policy advisor to the DLC....

[Totally Committed]

5. I'm with Gloria...

DLC, her move to the Right on the War and Choice, Bill buddy-buddy with the Bushes... I can no longer trust her.

TC

[hippywife]

6. Don't forget she was the one

who broke the log jam on Bush's EPA appointment, too.

[Totally Committed]

7. You're right...

Too many things just nagging at me about her... Her bizarre friendship with Newt Gingrich is another (forgot to put it in my other post...) I just do not want to get "taken" again. We do not need another Republican (or one who is one all but in name) in the White House again. We cannot afford it.

TC

[AJH032]

8. Deleted

see above

[hippywife]

11. Gee! I missed that!

It got deleted before I even had a chance to see it. What I miss??
}(

[AJH032]

13. same as above

I just replied to the wrong person, that's all.