Time to tie the President's hands: A Social Security Protection Pledge and

[denem]

Medicare Protection Pledge.

Time to get a clue. If Republicans can commit to lower taxes, surely it is not beyond reason that Democratic candidates can say to their voters, I WILL MOT let them cut the Security Security program, the entitlement you have already paid for, I WILL PROTECT Medicare. I will demand that Social Security be taken out of the wheeling and dealing, out of general budget. I WILL STAND for Freedom from Fear - You must NEVER FEAR that Social Security and Medicare, the proud institutions we all rely on, will be crippled or taken away. Never again.

Unlike G Norquist,s nonsense, this does not tie TOTAL Spending or Taxation.
It Protects, two proud Democratic Institutions that
ordinary Americans rely on the most.
Is that too much to ask?

Social Security and Medicare are not on the negotiating table.
If the President can't make that commitment,
is this too much to ask Democratic candidates
or for that matter Republican candidates,
to protect Social Security and Medicare?

[Tarheel_Dem]

1. You mean like Norquist has tied the hands of the Republicans? No thanks.

:hi:

[denem]

3. Norquist's pledge is the wrong pledge. The 1% pledge.

Time to commitment, not to some TOTAL level of spending or taxation, but to the institutions that matter most.

[Inuca]

22. Not according to him, to those

who sign it and the many who agree with it. There are no absolute truths, especially when you want to phrase them in just a few simple words. And that's why pledges, any kind of pledge, are a bad idea.

[msongs]

7. no leadership skills + no comittment to democratic values, is that better? nt

[Tarheel_Dem]

11. Don't you have a building to blow up or something?

:shrug:

[Inuca]

19. My first thought as well n/t

[RZM]

2. I have to agree with the first poster

Leave the pledges to Norquist and co. With all of the hostility toward that you could never get Democrats to agree to anything similar anyway.

[denem]

4. "You could never get Democrats to agree"?

How about We The People ... ?

[RZM]

6. All I'm saying is that they would never go for an ironclad pledge like that

The president least of all. This pledge would be for politicians, right? Not average people who don't have the power to cut benefits. With the negative attitude Democrats have toward the Norquist pledge, there's no way they would go for one on their side.

[denem]

14. So basically, Democrats can't take a stand on anything.

EVERYTHING is up for grabs, on the table?

Always?

[Tarheel_Dem]

21. They should stand on the Constitution, not some arbitrary pledge pulled out of someone's ass.

No matter which side of the political spectrum they fall on. What's so hard to understand about that? I hear that OWS may challenge the constitutionality of "Elected" officials signing what is essentially a loyalty oath to Grover Norquist. It's unreasonable, it's unpatriotic, and a good constitutional lawyer might make them regret ever having signed in the first place, or at least embarrass the hell out of them.

[jwirr]

24. So at the convention they agree to the platform of the party. Isn't that

a pledge? Here in MN we attend caucuses at which we vote on the platform with the understanding that at the convention this platform will be worked out and voted on as the basis for our parties goals. How is that different? Or at least it should be seen as no different. I think if you go back to 2008 the platform was very liberal and look what we got. Not liberal.

I am rethinking my position here. If they will not follow the platform the party voted on then what good is a pledge?

What I want is a promise from Democrats that we will not destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. How we get that promise I do not know. Half of them seem ready to throw these three programs over the cliff.

[jaxx]

Interesting it's all on the president.

Pledges are for pubs. No thanks!

[Desertrose]

5. Good luck with that.....

It would be nice but somehow, I just don't see that happening with the current bunch.

[closeupready]

8. I agree. K&R

nt

[woo me with science]

9. A pledge is meaningless. What is important is commitment to the safety nets

and a moral compass. This used be a given for a Democrat, before the corporations and the Third Way corrupted the party.

To return to Democratic Party values, you need a candidate who is not beholden to Wall Street.

[MADem]

10. Why not "tie the hands" of the people who actually MAKE law.

Congress.

Not the guy who signs the finished documents.

See, Congress represents "We The People." We need to insist that they represent us and craft laws to our liking.

Crabbing at King Barack over the shitty legislation that OUR REPRESENTATIVES send to him is a bit, well, 'after-the-fact.'

Priorities, people--priorities!

[denem]

13. You can ask you candidate - why wont

you sign up - Why?

[MADem]

20. My candidate is Elizabeth Warren. I know where she stands.

She's on the "We, The People" team.

Plenty of members of Congress aren't, though--and that's where the ire should be focused.

[sabrina 1]

12. I thought it was part of the Party's platform to protect

what is the very cornerstone of the Democracitic Party. When someone runs as a Democrat, are they not already committed to working for the People?

It's sad to see any Democrat willing to adapt the Republican platform and claim, falsely, that the Social Safety Nets had anything whatsoever to do with the collapse of this economy, and to try to use them to make the people pay for the Corruption of Wall Street.

Any Democrat who does that, imho, is NOT a democrat. There are good Democrats who appear to be marginalized by the party lately, who do still remember why they are democrats. They have put forward economic plans, but have been ignored mostly by the party leadership. And then there's Bernie Sanders.

To have to ask them for a pledge or to even think about it, shows how far the Party has strayed from the people's needs.

[alc]

15. only if you can guarantee 60 senators and majority house forever

Like it or not Congress is going to be split pretty closely along party lines. Bipartisanship and compromise are needed. There will need to be changes related to the debt ceiling, and health insurance reform, and taxes, and all sorts of other things. Digging in your heels on one issue will only hurt unless it's part of a larger strategy.

[denem]

16. No, not in Social Security's Case - you need 60 votes to CUT

the program.

[sabrina 1]

25. Hands off SS! It had nothing to do with the debt, the deficit or

the corruption that collapsed this economy. Attempting to tie it to any of this will not work.

Cut the Military budget, in fact slash it and find all the missing money at the Pentagon, end the Bush tax cuts, CREATE JOBS and stop cutting jobs from the public sector.

Raise SS benefits, the money is there, that will help stimulate the economy and those people earned it.

But don't even try to connect these programs to the current criminal corruption that collapsed this economy. People are way too smart to fall this anymore.

This is simply an attempt to put even more public money into private hands.

Start arresting and prosecuting those responsible, and go after the trillions they disappeared.

But forget touching the people's money unless they want to lose their jobs in the next election.

[Kahuna]

17. Really? Then you'd better be willing to work your butt off to get

the president and a major majority in congress election. Think you can do YOUR part?

[Admiral Loinpresser]

18. I'm all for it.

Before Obama, it was *assumed* a Democratic president would take that stance. Now we have to demand it. Pathetic.

[jwirr]

23. Since many have lost trust in congress this is a good idea. Who would

they give this pledge to and would it be all Democratic candidates who are asked to pledge? How do we get this done? More info please.