Great Article by President Clinton

So today Cwech alerted me to an article in the NY Times that President Clinton wrote on Welfare Reform. I read it and like most other things that Clinton has done I thought it was great.

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TEN years ago today I signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. By then I had long been committed to welfare reform. As a governor, I oversaw a workfare experiment in Arkansas in 1980 and represented the National Governors Association in working with Congress and the Reagan administration to draft the welfare reform bill enacted in 1988. Yet when I ran for president in 1992, our system still was not working for the taxpayers or for those it was intended to help. In my first State of the Union address, I promised to “end welfare as we know it,” to make welfare a second chance, not a way of life, exactly the change most welfare recipients wanted it to be. Most Democrats and Republicans wanted to pass welfare legislation shifting the emphasis from dependence to empowerment. Because I had already given 45 states waivers to institute their own reform plans, we had a good idea of what would work. Still, there were philosophical gaps to bridge. The Republicans wanted to require able-bodied people to work, but were opposed to continuing the federal guarantees of food and medical care to their children and to spending enough on education, training, transportation and child care to enable people to go to work in lower-wage jobs without hurting their children. On Aug. 22, 1996, after vetoing two earlier versions, I signed welfare reform into law. At the time, I was widely criticized by liberals who thought the work requirements too harsh and conservatives who thought the work incentives too generous. Three members of my administration ultimately resigned in protest. Thankfully, a majority of both Democrats and Republicans voted for the bill because they thought we shouldn't be satisfied with a system that had led to intergenerational dependency. The last 10 years have shown that we did in fact end welfare, as we knew it, creating a new beginning for millions of Americans. In the past decade, welfare rolls have dropped substantially, from 12.2 million in 1996 to 4.5 million today. At the same time, caseloads declined by 54 percent. Sixty percent of mothers who left welfare found work, far surpassing predictions of experts. Through the Welfare to Work Partnership, which my administration started to speed the transition to employment, more than 20,000 businesses hired 1.1 million former welfare recipients. Welfare reform has proved a great success, and I am grateful to the Democrats and Republicans who had the courage to work together to take bold action.The success of welfare reform was bolstered by other anti-poverty initiatives, including the doubling of the earned-income tax credit in 1993 for lower-income workers; the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, which included $3 billion to move long-term welfare recipients and low-income, noncustodial fathers into jobs; the Access to Jobs initiative, which helped communities create innovative transportation services to enable former welfare recipients and other low-income workers to get to their new jobs; and the welfare-to-work tax credit, which provided tax incentives to encourage businesses to hire long-term welfare recipients. I also signed into law the toughest child-support enforcement in history, doubling collections; an increase in the minimum wage in 1997; a doubling of federal financing for child care, helping parents look after 1.5 million children in 1998; and a near doubling of financing for Head Start programs. The results: child poverty dropped to 16.2 percent in 2000, the lowest rate since 1979, and in 2000, the percentage of Americans on welfare reached its lowest level in four decades. Overall, 100 times as many people moved out of poverty and into the middle class during our eight years as in the previous 12. Of course the booming economy helped, but the empowerment policies made a big difference.

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Clinton then went on to say that one of the main reason this passed was because of bipartisanship and that in order for congress to be successful today bipartisanship must exist.

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Regarding the politics of welfare reform, there is a great lesson to be learned, particularly in today’s hyper-partisan environment, where the Republican leadership forces bills through Congress without even a hint of bipartisanship. Simply put, welfare reform worked because we all worked together. The 1996 Welfare Act shows us how much we can achieve when both parties bring their best ideas to the negotiating table and focus on doing what is best for the country. The recent welfare reform amendments, largely Republican-only initiatives, cut back on states’ ability to devise their own programs. They also disallowed hours spent pursuing an education from counting against required weekly work hours. I doubt they will have the positive impact of the original legislation. We should address the inadequacies of the latest welfare reauthorization in a bipartisan manner, by giving states the flexibility to consider higher education as a category of “work,” and by doing more to help people get the education they need and the jobs they deserve. And perhaps even more than additional welfare reform, we need to raise the minimum wage, create more good jobs through a commitment to a clean energy future and enact tax and other policies to support families in work and child-rearing. Ten years ago, neither side got exactly what it had hoped for. While we compromised to reach an agreement, we never betrayed our principles and we passed a bill that worked and stood the test of time. This style of cooperative governing is anything but a sign of weakness. It is a measure of strength, deeply rooted in our Constitution and history, and essential to the better future that all Americans deserve, Republicans and Democrats alike.

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I am glad I read it, President really knows how to run the country well and the Democrats should use him as an elder spokesman it will really help us as a party.


Bill Clinton is awesome!

Go, Ford, Go!

So I am excited by the possibility of the Democrats taking back the Senate, House, or both this midterms and will be counting down the days till election days will anticipation. I think it will be easier to take back the Senate rather than the house seeing how we need to pick up 6 seats in the Senate and don’t really have any Democratic seats in danger while in the House we need to pick up 16 seats. (We need 218 and we have 202). My gut is telling me that we might get 10-12 but not 16. And seeing how my gut has been right on the last three presidential elections (not saying I supported Bush but I had a feeling he would win in 00 and 04, well I guess he didn’t really win in 2000 but that’s another diary) I got to go with it again. Now I would love to be wrong on this and see the Dems take back the House but I don’t think it will happen at this point. Now for the Senate we got 5 seats that look to be probable pickups: RI, PA, OH, MO, and MT. We then got 3 possible pickups in TN, NV, and VA. I think VA is going to be the hardest seat to pick up because Allen has so much more money raised than Webb =( but I think e got a good shot in TN and NV. Now I don’t know too much about the NV race except for that Jimmy Carter’s son is the Democrat running but the TN race has me excited.


I first saw Harold Ford when watching Crossfire some five years ago. I liked his charisma and way he talked about the issues. I thought he was a good guy to have in the party. I later learned that he was a centrist or conservative Democrat and learned his views on the following issues.

The Congressman who is running to replace retiring Bill Frist as Senator from Tennessee has voted to outlaw gay marriage and to repeal the estate tax, and wants to amend the Constitution to ban flag burning. He supports getting rid of the handgun ban in the nation's capital and says the Ten Commandments should be posted in courtrooms around his state. He favors school prayer, argues that more troops should have been sent to Iraq and wants to seal the border with Mexico. He likes to tell a story about the time he campaigned at a bar called the Little Rebel, which had a Confederate flag and a parking lot full of pickup trucks adorned with National Rifle Association bumper stickers. When he went inside, as he tells it, a woman at the bar greeted him with a hug and exclaimed, "Baby, we've been waiting to see you!"

Now as a moderate Democrat I do not agree with any of his views on the issues stated above but I think he is needed. TN is a pretty red state with Bush winning it in 200 with 14 percentage points. I think if a Democrat going to win there it needs to be a centrist one. As long as Ford is like Ben Nelson in the Senate and not like Joe Lieberman I think that will work fine. We are always going to have centrist Democrats in the party and as long as they are loyal to the party we should keep them in. Also Corker might have trouble getting out his Republican base and might count on support from the centrist Dems and independents to win one problem, Ford is a Centrist Democrat and if he can get the support of the liberals he will win. I hope that the liberals in TN come out for Ford because when there is a Democrat running and you don’t like them, vote against them in the primary but when it come to the general election vote for them. It’s like we said with Lamont we got to support the Democratic nominee. So I say once again Go, ford Go! I may disagree with you on a lot of issues but you are needed to win in TN and for a Democratic majority in the Senate. One last point I want to make is this I think Ford should be added to the wall of candidates we Kossacks support because he seems to fit the criteria of a Democrat who is in a competitive race in the House or Senate. Just a suggestion. Thanks for reading.

Principles of the Democratic Party

So I come to discover in my time here on Daily Kos that while a large majority of people here are liberals most don’t mind moderate and conservative Democrats coming on to Daily Kos and posting their views as long as they have an open mind and stick to the principles of the Democratic Party. Now some of you may be wondering what these principles are and so I thought I would post the ones I think are the principles of the Democratic Party and if anybody has any more they want to add we please do and we’ll discuss them.


1. Democrats believe that government is not the problem but part of the solution. We feel that government regulation can stop companies from being corrupt. They look out for people who land in trouble and they make sure their citizens are being taken care of. This could include bills like the Brady Bill or Universal Health Care.

2. Democrats look out for the poor and disadvantaged. Throughout history the Democratic Party has been the party of the average Joe, they look out for him/her and make sure that they have the basic necessities that they need to survive. That why they don’t want the estate tax to be repealed, the bankruptcy bill passed, and President’s Bush tax cuts to be passed it places too much of the burden on the disadvantaged. They should also be pro-union.

3. Democrats are anti-segregation; one can’t be a good Democrat and believe in discrimination whether that is in civil rights for minorities or allowing gay marriage for homosexuals. Yes we used to have a racist heritage but that is in the past. The Democratic Party of today is one for everybody; rich or poor, gay or straight.

4. Democrats have to be pro-environment. They should realize that fossil fuels are hurting the environment and are finite and so alternative sources of energy must be found. They must oppose drilling in ANWR and other protected areas and realize that global warming is not a myth, does exist and is a problem.
Now these I think are the four main principles of the Democratic Party and these are the principles that Democrats must stick to in order to be good Democrats. Now some of you may be wondering about Abortion and I give you this example: there was this Democrat who was pro-gay rights, pro-environment, pro-union. Now we all can agree that this is a good Democrat but he pro-choice or pro-life. If you guess pro-choice that is incorrect the correct answer is pro-life, the politician is the late, great Governor of PA Bob Casey. Now yes the Democratic Party should stand up for a woman’s right to chose but that no reason why we can’t make room in the party for people who are pr-life they can be great Democrats too.

Where’s the Party Loyalty?

So I was posting a comment on my friend/’s blog yesterday about how if any Democrat votes for the minimum wage increase bill that would not be too bright because, while I am all for increasing minimum wage, it would cut $268 billion over a ten year period to the estate tax. Before I went to bed yesterday I checked to see if there was any news and found out that the bill was passed 230-180, so there were 34 Democrats who voted for this bill.


I for one have defended Democrats who voted for the bankruptcy bill, the Patriotic Act, and CAFTA by saying that even thought I do not support those bills we cannot expect all Democrats to have 100% liberal voting records. However this vote has gone too far. This bill allows another tax cut for the rich while putting the burned on the poor and disadvantaged and the Democratic Party is the party of the poor and disadvantaged and for Democrats to turn to them and saw “screw you” is just wrong and sinful.

Now you may be asking yourself why I am so worked up over this issue and also asking yourself “ Hey SensibleDemocrat didn’t you used to support the estate tax? And I have to shamefully admit that that answer is yes. I used to think that no matter how much money you inherited that that money should come to you tax free as it had already been tax once. Let me just say I’ve seen the errors of my ways and moved on. I have learned that 99% of American families don’t pay the estate tax it only the wealthiest 1%. Also half of the revenue from the tax comes from just 2,900 super rich families. The revenue from the tax is at $ 1 Trillion over 10 years. Now that’s a lot of money that if lost could do the country a world of hurt that we do not need right now especially under the money management skills of the current president.

So if the Democrats are the party of the poor and disadvantaged then they should not support the repeal of the estate tax. It is not the right thing to do. I would like to point out that my representative Jay Inslee voted against this bill, which makes me happy. It seems that Inslee always votes the way I would on issues and I think he a great congressman. Anybody else have a representative like that?

I still believe in the system

During my freshman year of collge I was participating in a RA training class and we where playing a game in which someone read a statement and we had to one side of the room or another depending if we agreeded with the statement or not. There was one statement of: I still believe in the US political system. I moved towarrds the agreeded side and a friend of mine, came over as well. He then made an interesting statement that most of the people on our side were Political Science Majors. I noticed that that was true and we both agreeded that the reason a lot of people were political science majors were because we still had faith in the system. We talked to the other majors in the department and this seemed to be the general consensus.

Now I am not saying the system is perfect I know it has it flaws, some major but I still thinks it works overall. I think the problem now is President Bush and his "I am the only important person" attitude. I do think that once he is out of office we see a significant improvement in the system. One of my political science professors told us that the parties dominated in cycles and that we were in a Republican cycle. Clinton was like Ike the opposition in a cycle dominated by the other side. Bush is like LBJ an unpopular President unwilling to admit his war is wrong. The Republican cycle, my prof said, would soon be over and I think he right. Come 2008 I think the Democrats take power for a while.
Now this bring me to my next topic the two party system. I have been the president of my college's Democrats club since my sophomore year. We always have interesting discussions and I keep wondering why a group of liberals keeps electing a moderate as their leader. At elast it crushes the sterotype that liberals are intolerant of other views. Now we get along great until we get to a issue we disagree on and one of those issues is the two party system. I think it works and it great, they do not. I think the two party system being stability to the country and we do not ahve to worry about extreme fringe parties popping up or colaitions breaking up. The same political professor that told me of the cyclical nature of politics told me that 90% of Americans were satisifed with the two party system and that was because America is a nation of moderates and that the two parties used to be moderate-left and moderate-right parties, that was until the GOP moved far right, so Americans were happy with this system. Now even thought the two parties were moderate parties there still were major differences between the two. The biggest one being that one of them cared about the poor and disadvantaged and the other was all about the individual. He also mentioned that the reason that voter turnout wasnt that high was because there was voter apathy going on. I thought about that and I guess that true. Ever since I turned 18 in 2003 I voted every Fall for some election or inititiave. For me I don't get voter apathy as I am a political junkie but I can see how some people can. Also he mentioned that people are not voting because they are satisifed with the way things are going and if vote when they are not satisfied. One other thing he mentioned was making voting mandatory which I thought was silly as manatory voting seems to be an contradiction in terms. It doesn't seem very democratic.
I know most of you will disagree with this and I respect that. We all have our own opinions. Thanks for taking the time to read it and hear me out.

WA Supreme Court To Vote on Gay Marriage Tomorrow

So in the PI today there was an article on how the WA State Supreme Court will rule tomorrow on the issue of Gay Marriage and if it is legal. It should be on the website, WA SupremeCourt Website tomorrow at 8 AM. I hope it is allowed because the 14th Amendment guarentees equal rights for all citizens.

The state Supreme Court is set to announce tomorrow whether Washington will become the second state to let same-sex couples marry -- a controversial issue that's left people on both sides waiting more than a year for an answer.
In a case that some have called the court's most significant in years, justices could decide Washington's law that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman is unconstitutional, opening the door for same-sex couples to tie the knot.
But attorneys for the same-sex couples -- whose case was supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, Northwest Women's Law Center and Lambda Legal -- say the law discriminates against loving couples.
They argued that keeping same-sex couples from marrying makes it more difficult for them to raise their children, though at the same time it accomplishes nothing for the kids who are being raised by a mother and a father.
The case was an appeal from two lawsuits, one in King County and one in Thurston County, filed by 19 same-sex couples raising the momentous social question of who can marry.
Justices must decide the fate of state's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act. The law, passed by an overwhelming majority of lawmakers over Gov. Gary Locke's veto, defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Superior Court judges in both counties struck down the law banning same-sex marriage as unconstitutional in 2004.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/...

Bill Clinton: Great American, Great President

So I was surfing on Daily Kos the other day and I came across a dairy on how Bill Clinton was not a progressive. My first thought was well yeah isn't that known? But according to this dairy it was not. See as a moderate Democrat I see Bill Clinton as my political idol, who I see as the ultimate moderate Democrat. I not too big on seeing Democrats bashing on Clinton, I think it bad enough the right does it, but we have freedom of speech in this country so if you want to go for it, that's you call. But to me Clinton was a great president, top me in terms on all the Democratic President he ranks 5th behind FDR, Truman, Johnson, and Kennedy. I only really disagreed with a handful of his policies and in this diary I go into his policies and why I admire him so.

1. NAFTA So let me start right off by saying that I support free trade. I think free trade encourages the world to depend on one another and make it less likely for them to go to war. I not saying they won't go to war all at, but I think it less likely. So I was a support of NAFTA when it was signed and I continue to support it now for the most part. I do think we need to do something to add workers protection but don't blame Clinton for this problem, blame the PRI who was in power at this time. In 1994 when NAFTA was negotiated and signed by the 3 parties the United States pushed for some worker protections that the PRI did not want included (such as a minimum wage increase). Clinton didn't agree with this but didn't want the deal to die so he agreed to this. Bad move? Maybe, but hindsight 20/20. Clinton has said he regrets this part of NAFTA. But if you got anger at this still please direct it towards the PRI, as it was their idea.
2. Welfare ReformThe welfare reform bill retained the federal guarantee of medical and food aid, increased federal child-care assistance by 40% to $14 billion, had tougher child-supportment enforcement, and allowed states the ability to convert monthly welfare payments into wage subsidies as an incentive for employers to hire welfare recipients. It ended the federal guarantee of a fixed monthly benefit to welfare recipients and have a five year limit on welfare benefit. It was not a perfect bill because it cut food stamps on low-income legal immigrants but every bill has its flaws. This was a good bill because it gave welfare recipients a nudge to get off the program so they did not depend on it forever.
3. The Brady Bill and CrimeIn 2001 it was estimated that the Brady Bill had prevented 611,000 criminals from getting guns that pretty successful. Also Clinton put 100,000 more cops on the streets and crime went down every year in his presidency. Also he signed the Assault Weapons Ban, which was a very good idea.
4. Some of his other accomplishmentsReducing the federal deficit, Americorps, School-to-Work Program, A cease-fire in Northern Ireland, A Peace Agreement between Israel and Palestine, 22 million new jobs, and increased minimum wage.
5. Telecommunications ActOk, this was a bad idea, but hey what president is perfect?
6. DOMAAlso a bad idea but I heard this a defensive move to stop the momentum on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
7. Other thoughts about ClintonBill Clinton gave the party a victory when it really needed one. He was the first two-term president in a long time, which was great for the party. The reason that the Democrats candidates struggled before Clinton was not due to them being too liberal (they were actually somewhat moderate) but the fact that they didn't respond to negative campaigning about them, and so that really hurt them. Clinton has a rapid response team set up to deal with negative ads and this pushed them out of the way so the real issues of the day could be discussed. Al Gore lost in 2000 because he distanced himself from Clinton, and that hart him. If he didn't he would have picked up more votes and won with a convincing manner so the Supreme Court didn't have a chance to appoint Bush in 2000. In 2004 the Democrats realized that and every debate was a contest of who could be the most like Clinton. Don't blame Clinton for the Democrats current woes. I blame the leaders in congress who seem to don't have the spine to stand up to GWB. They have seemed to lost their message and the American people are not happy about that. In 2004 Kerry made the same mistake that previous Democrats candidates made, he respond to negative campaigning about him, he didn't have a clear message and he had all the charisma of a table. Bill Clinton is the elder statesman of this party, he a strong charismatic leader who isn't afraid to stand up for what he believes in.
8. One final thought even though Bill Clinton is great I won't be supporting Hillary Clinton in 2008. (Hey I'm a poet and I didn't know it!). That is if she evens decides to run. I want a strong moderate as my nominee and so my top choice seems to be Warner, I could even go with Feingold I just wished he had some executive experience. But Hillary will divide the party and that's not what we need.