The Party Of Responsibility

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thebl...

The Party Of Responsibility
Cenk Uygur
July 25, 2005

I’ve been reading a lot lately about what the Democratic Party should stand for. This is a question of framing and a question of principle. There are a great number of policies that I think the Democrats should support in domestic and foreign policy. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about a central idea that resonates with the American people.

I think this central idea should be - responsibility.

Personal responsibility, fiscal responsibility and international responsibilities.

Mind you, I’m a former Republican who left the party because they abandoned these principles. So, I’m not sure the Democrats have it in them, but if they could show in the long run that they do, they would not only gain me as a permanent member but a great majority of the population.

First, let’s get real. We all already know that the Democrats care. They want to do the right thing and take care of people. I knew this back when I was a Republican and almost all the Republicans would concede that point right now. The question is whether they know how to accomplish that goal. Are they too soft-hearted and soft-headed?

Are they too nice to be tough enough? Answer that question, and you can have yourself a permanent majority.

So, why have I been arguing in favor of the Democrats and against the Republicans for the last five years? I cared about fiscal responsibility - balanced budgets, constrained spending (yes, including the military), welfare reform and smaller government.

Do you know who gave me all those things? The answer is obvious - Bill Clinton. Did he work with a Republican Congress and some Republican governors in getting those balanced budgets, restricting the growth of the US government and in getting welfare reform? Yes. But should he also deserve a ton of credit for it? Absolutely.

President Clinton’s success became all the more apparent when juxtaposed with President George W. Bush’s gross failure on the same subjects. We have a record deficit, out of control government spending and a larger and more intrusive government than ever before. What happened to fiscal and personal responsibility?

All we hear now is excuses. There was a recession, September 11th, business cycles, yada, yada, yada. It’s your presidency now and you own it. You didn’t have to spend $198 billion in Iraq and still counting, you don’t have to keep buying nuclear missiles for our Trident submarines, you don’t have to spend $10 billion on a defense missile shield which isn’t going to work, you don’t have to give away $12 billion to the energy companies for “energy exploration” (read “oil drilling”), you don’t have to give Halliburton a $72 million bonus (yes, I said bonus), you don’t have to have billions of dollars in farm subsidies, etc., etc. Corporate welfare is still welfare. What happened to personal responsibility?

The Republicans have dropped this ball. The Democrats have one simple task - pick it up and run. The Party of Clinton should be out there forcefully arguing to go back to the balanced budgets we had in the years of President Clinton. They should be arguing forcefully for corporate welfare reform, just like Clinton reformed other forms of welfare.

I don’t know that they have it in them. Perhaps they’re scared of being called weak on defense if they argue against wasteful defense spending, like billions in new fighter jets that we might never use when almost no one else has an Air Force, let alone one that can begin to challenge us. I’m not saying they should argue against all defense spending — that would be crazy. I’m saying they should argue for spending responsibly on defense — that would be smart.

Let’s also get real on this, many of those multi-billion dollar defense contracts are a form of corporate welfare to the defense industry on weapons we can’t begin to imagine using. And meanwhile, the Humvees we use every day in Iraq are not properly armed. You have to ask yourself, why? The answer is, not enough people get rich off of up-armoring Humvees. Plenty of people get rich off of fancy nuclear submarines we almost never use.

Perhaps the Democrats are also scared of frightening off their corporate donors. A lot of people are of this opinion, but I’m not sold on this yet. Democrats have had corporate donors forever and have still argued for the lower class and middle class forever.

Ultimately, being responsible is not easy. It takes courage and discipline. If the Democrats pick up the mantle of responsibility in domestic matters, it will not be without a price, but it will be well worth the effort. Plus, it has the advantage of being the right thing to do.

On the foreign policy front, the responsible thing to do is to work with your allies and plan out your steps towards a logical goal. The irresponsible thing to do is to rush to war without a plan for what to do afterward, while leaving most of your allies behind.

People wonder why I was a Republican. Look at how brilliantly George H.W. Bush brought the world together for the first Persian Gulf War. Almost all of the bill was paid for by our allies in the region, our troops had the support of a true international coalition, and we accomplished the goal with minimal damage or post-war occupation. That’s how a responsible President carries out a necessary war.

People wonder why I now lean heavily towards the Democrats. President Clinton carried out the Kosovo War without a single casualty, secured the handover of Slobodan Milosevic, brought him to an international court of justice, stopped ethnic cleansing and completely achieved our objective. Not one casualty! That’s how a responsible President carries out a necessary war.

Do I have to even tell you what kind of a mess George W. Bush has made of Iraq? Our “coalition of the willing” is a joke and can be best be characterized as a “coalition of the dwindling.” Our troops have almost no back up and have taken the brunt of the casualties. We had no post war planning and suffered a tremendous insurgency as a result. The weapons depots were looted, the Baathists incentivized to rebel against us, even the Shiites we were helping started a rebellion against our troops. And we had no expectation that a Grand Ayatollah would become the most powerful person in the new Iraq, as any expert in the field could have told us. Should I keep going? All of this while we awaited the roses thrown at our feet.

This president does not understand the consequences of his decisions. He never has. When he did poorly in school, his father got him into a better school. When a war started, his father got him out of the war. When he didn’t take his physical in the National Guard, powerful people made sure he didn’t have to. When he did poorly in his businesses, his father’s friends started new businesses for him with new investments.

The rest of us learn the hard way that if you run a business into the ground, Texas and Saudi millionaires don’t materialize out of nowhere to give you millions more for a new business. When you don’t take your required physical in the Armed Forces, you get court-martialed. When you don’t do well in school, you don’t get a great job, like the owner of the Texas Rangers or President of the United States. And when you start war, your daddy won’t be able to bail you out of it if you didn’t properly prepare.

In this realm, too, the Republicans have dropped the ball of responsibility. The question is will the Democrats pick it up?

Will the Democrats demand that the President go after the man who actually attacked us on 9/11 - Osama bin Laden? Will the Democrats be strong enough to say they will not spend any more money in Iraq until the President hands over a real plan as to how he is going to get us out of the mess in Iraq with a semblance of victory? Will the Democrats be tough enough to tell the President his priorities in the “War on Terror” are completely wrong and demand that he re-organize them?

Giving this drunken sailor more money to spend only enables his dangerous habits. It allows him to stay the course, even if the course is headed straight for an iceberg. Being responsible isn’t easy, just ask George W. Bush’s dad.

The first Bush was a responsible president who raised taxes when he had to, even though it was going to cost him politically. He swallowed the bitter pill because it was the right thing to do for the country. That action, coupled with Bill Clinton’s and the Republican Congress’s later work, led to balanced budgets. President George H. W. Bush didn’t get re-elected but he did right by us.

But as responsible a president as George H.W. Bush was, he was, unfortunately, just as irresponsible a parent. Normally, this wouldn’t matter to the rest of us, except his son wound up becoming President. I’m sure Bush 41 must have cared for his son and that’s why he bailed him out of all of those messes, but he wasn’t tough enough to show him the consequences of his failures. And now we all pay the price.

Well, it’s high-time that the grownups got back in charge. Will the Democrats step up to plate and become the responsible adults that we need to take this country back?

If they care about dominating politically, and more importantly, if they care about doing the right thing, they will accept the challenge and become the new party of responsibility.