Of course, they never really left it, but as the Democrats approach 2008 and as their confidence (entirely unfounded) in absolute victory grows, they are coming more and more out of the "centrist" closet:
John Edwards says if he's elected president, he'll institute a New Deal-like suite of programs to fight poverty and stem growing wealth disparity. To do it, he said, he'll ask many Americans to make sacrifices, like paying higher taxes.Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina, says the federal government should underwrite universal pre-kindergarten, create matching savings accounts for low-income people, mandate a minimum wage of $9.50 and provide a million new Section 8 housing vouchers for the poor. He also pledged to start a government-funded public higher education program called "College for Everyone."
"It is central to what I want to do as president to do something about economic inequality. I do not believe it is okay for the United States of America to have 37 million people living in poverty," he said in a meeting with Monitor reporters and editors this week. "And I think we need, desperately need, a president who will say that to America and call on Americans to show their character."
At every stop, Edwards said, he tells voters he'll ask them to sacrifice.
Of course, Edwards isn't asking that anyone sacrifice to have the kiddies in pre-kindergarten (and just what the heck is that, anyways? Some new way for yuppies to over pressure their kids?), or in college...and, of course, people at the lower end of the pay scale not only won't be asked to sacrifice (you know, like work hard and develope marketable skills which will make your labor more valuable), but will be given a pay hike to nearly $10 an hour (heck, Johnny, why not make the minimum wage $18 an hour? If making it $9.50 won't hurt the economy, why not go for broke, as it were?). This is what Democrats are really all about - "vote for us, we'll take care of all your needs, and only the Evil Rich (as opposed to the Good Rich...like Edwards, Kennedy, Rockefeller, etc., etc., etc...) will have to pay for it!".
Hillary is still just barely standing againt this public tide of leftism - you know she wants to come out with this (and, indeed, she has come out with some of it), but she also knows that fairy-tale spending like Edwards' proposals just won't sell when non-lefty Americans hear about them. All the other Democratic contenders are busily out-bidding each other in their attempted bribery of the American people (and the most absurd part about it - the Democrats are proposing to take money from Americans in order to have the funds to bribe Americans in order that these Americans will then vote Democrat...ah, liberalism!). Add this tax and spend nonsense to defeatism in the war, and I feel more confident about 2008 every day...and if by some chance the Democrats do win it all and then make a hash of things, we've already got some great prospects for 2012.
![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blogsforbush.com/nav-commenters.gif)
