It's time for Democrats to make demands of their own.

[kentuck]

It's time the wealthiest 1% pay their fair share of taxes. The Republicans have been on a crusade for years to cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy. There is a reason we have such huge deficits and its not spending on social programs alone.

Yes, we will compromise on the Affordable Care Act. For years the insurance companies have screwed the American people with unjustified increases in premiums and millions of sick Americans cannot afford to go to a doctor. We will trade the ACA for a single payer system.

Yes, we will cut the defense budget in half and withdraw most of our troops from around the world.

Also, we will take the cap off Social Security and make it good for at least the next hundred years.

There are our demands.

Republicans compromise on nothing and keep asking for more and more.

[Skink]

1. and a pony

[Enthusiast]

25. Yes.

Don't forget the pony.

[JDPriestly]

26. Why not? The Republicans want to repeal the ACA. Why shouldn't we each ask for a pony?

I don't want a pony, but some might.

The demands in the OP are all within the domain of government action. They are conceivable programs. Some of them should be enacted -- like raising the cap on Social Security. Explain to me why some poor guy making minimum wage should pay 7.5 or more percent of his entire paycheck for his own social net but also for those of others while someone making $400,000 only has to pay a tiny percentage of his check to pay for his social net.

You never know which one of them will, at the age of 65, most need Social Security. You never know which one of them will, before his time, die and leave a family that needs Social Security.

So, tax all the money for Social Security. Life is unpredictable. We would all pay a lower percentage of our income if every earned penny including capital gains was assessed for our Social Security.

[Blanks]

32. The ACA wouldn't increase the deficit at all...

If they raised the cap.

If they're serious in their claim that its about the deficit.

[Half-Century Man]

42. A pony or 5 cheesecakes

not just any cheesecakes either, not some Jello mix No Bakes in Aldi's crusts, top end bakeries only.

[Buddha_of_Wisdom]

2. A surtax of anyone earning over 10 million would work.

[JEB]

3. Still not too late to recapture the ill gotten obscene profits of the war profiteers.

At one time it was considered unpatriotic to profit in excess during a time of was. Nowadays it is business as usual. Seems like the Democratic Party is still slumbering with a few members yelling as loud as possible to wake the fuck up.

[Coyotl]

34. Three decades of tax cuts for the rich and corporations

[C_U_L8R]

4. Exactly. Hey GOP, Negotiate this !

It's about time.

[ffr]

5. That's my thinking too.

They want demands met. We want demands met. We control 2/3 of the government. We should get more than our fair share.

Phuk Republicans and they're stupid weak arguments!

[grahamhgreen]

6. Agreed. It's called leading, instead of being reactive.

[Avalux]

7. No. NO negotiating.

If Obama and Dems get sucked into the crazy game and start playing it, they'll lose any control they currently have.

[adieu]

8. Replacing Obamacare/ACA

with single payer would be a great negotiating option. I'm fully behind something like that.

[JDPriestly]

27. (This thread is meant as humor.) I think.

[Jim Lane]

36. I don't think it's humor. It's a plausible tactic.

With Congress divided, each party has goals it can't enact because it can't get them through the other chamber. Demanding that the other chamber acquiesce, as the price of averting or ending a shutdown, is unreasonable.

The Republican position is, "Here's our list of unreasonable demands. The Democrats should negotiate and we'll probably settle for getting only some of our unreasonable demands."

One Democratic counter, as per the OP, would be, "OK, here's our list of unreasonable demands, that we want tied to a CR."

That might help highlight why the Republicans are so totally in the wrong. I fear that they'll persuade some low-information voters with this line about "Dems won't negotiate" and "We're ready to compromise." The clean CR is the compromise.

[joshcryer]

39. Exactly! The Republicans would never vote for those things!

But they'd sit across the table and "entertain" the thought as they forced us to entertain their own positions.

Fuck, some Democrats wouldn't vote for those things!

[dotymed]

9. I wish that

we could become the party of FDR again...

[AtomicKitten]

10. Restore funding from sequestration levels.

The "clean" CR is actually a concession.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

30. Exactly. Even in the CR, Dems get little to nothing. Either way it goes, ReThugs win!

Dems can't escape culpability for what happen in 2010 no matter what excuses we come up with.

[Cryptoad]

11. no negotiations

make GOP pass a concurrent budget Resolution!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

12. Reinstatement of the fairness doctrine and breaking up the media monopolies.

[Festivito]

43. Trading lives for lives. How many would die in a year more of current health care?

Fairness doctrine.
Media breakup.
Increases in unemployment result in more holidays or fewer working hours per week. Reversible, albeit mitigated by the next item:
Disparity of Income taxation for non-coveted jobs.

VERSUS

The needless deaths of about 45,000 American lives cut short simply for lack of basic health care.

[JHB]

13. Here's a demand: "Republicans: Your caucus or your country. Pick one."

[kentuck]

16. Your Party or your Country??

It's time to ask that question, perhaps?

[JHB]

19. That too. What are the rules if some "moderates" bolt the party?

Could that force Boehner to lose his speakership?

[kentuck]

20. I don't think Boehner will be the Speaker much longer...

He has been the ultimate screw-up.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

31. We don't need them to answer this question, as we already know the answer. :(

[liberal_at_heart]

14. single payer health care, full funding for K-12 education and universities, and a living wage.

[blue14u]

15. Get money out of

politics... Campaign reform is the only way imo..


Oh, and term limits!!

[liberal_at_heart]

17. campaign finance reform! Absolutely!

[blue14u]

18. It should be at the top of

every news paper and media site we have.. I see this as the only sure way to get things back to normal...

[liberal_at_heart]

21. I agree. We will never make any head way on any other issues until we get campaign finance reform.

[blue14u]

37. Thats the bottom line..

In my opinion, there is no other way to end this BS!!!

em!!!! lol

[Lobo27]

23. I hope the likes of Cenk Uygur's WolfPac can affect that.

They have started many things in different state houses. Cenk believes it has to be done at the state level. DC is to corrupt. He needs 34-37 states.

[blue14u]

40. It can be done and

I too have read this # of 34-37..

We have just got to make our minds up that IT IS the most effective

way to end this BS we have now..

THE ONLY WAY!!!

of the possibilities if we put our efforts and minds together..

I see the problem as, we are continually blasted every week with

another catastrophe, so much so that we can not focus on the real issue of this ideal!!

They certainly know we want this, and are frightened beyond belief it could happen

if we try!

[Faryn Balyncd]

22. That is the only way to save America from the RW

[progressoid]

24. Yer damn skippy!

[on point]

28. Way past time. These positions represent real leadership for the people

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

29. What's so fucked up about this CR? Well, two things...

1. The CR itself represents more than a compromise. In it, ReThugs get 80% of what they want. So that in itself is fucked up in terms do the Dems getting little or nothing.

2. Even more fucked up is the fact that the Dems are being held up over a CR!! Not an Appropriations Bill!! A fucking CR!! Congress hasn't passed a budget bill in nearly 4 years. Before anyone blames Obama and the Dems, I work for the federal government, and my agency and others have prepared budget requests now for the past 5 years that Obama has been president. We shou,d be discussing the FY14 budget at the very least but we're not. We're still talking about a goddamn CR!!

What is it now? 7 straight CR's?? I've lost count!!

Now, about those demands, I do hope the OP is in jest because I see no avenue for the Dems to make such demands. We don't have the votes in the House. And even when we did, it gets tied up in the Senate by the ReThugs and cowardly Dems.

It's fun to pontificate about us making such demands, but if there is no reasonable way for those demands to come to fruition, I don't see how we win.

The whole thing is fucked up!!!

[pacalo]

33. K&R.

[TeamPooka]

35. Word

[joshcryer]

38. No negotiation!

To come to the table and negotiate is to recognize the Republican's relevance. They aren't relevant. There is no negotiation with their views!

[Uncle Joe]

41. Kicked and recommended for reasonable compromise.

Thanks for the thread, kentuck.