We want voters to know that our 2006 Congressional candidates will be better advocates for ordinary people, but Democrats have been quiet while the Right spun this kind of advocacy however they wanted. They've chosen to spin it as an advocacy for big-government giveaways for the poor and a desire to stifle free market.
And while Republican corruption surfaces and poll numbers plummet, I'm still not hearing a message that explains, in simple terms, why Democratic ideals are the cure for the culture of corruption. This is the message I want to hear from Democratic candidates, because it spins all the rhetoric back to the truth.
One of the primary purposes of Congress is to decide what goods and services we-the-people are going to purchase with our tax revenues. For the past decade we've elected Congressmen based on every issue in the world except their ability to be Smart Shoppers.
Being a Smart Shopper in congress isn't about stifling the free market. The very essence of the free market is that you have buyers and sellers who meet up and come to an agreement on price. The buyers' role is to get lowest price possible for the products they need. Smart buyers don't want the sellers to determine what they need, and they don't want to set the price at whatever's most pleasing to the seller. Smart Shoppers make capitalism work, whether they're American consumers who look at advertising with a critical eye, or Congressmen who decide that $500 is too much to spend for a hammer.
Republicans tend to mush a lot of good ideas and bad ideas together into their pro-business rhetoric. They open their moutns and out comes "Deregulation," "Private sector," "Free-enterprise," yadda yadda... to the point that none of it makes sense. It's supposed to be economics, not alchemy. If these people want to run businesses, then great. They can get out into the business world and see if that rhetoric produces profits. However, what they want to do is run the government, and the government has to wear a lot of different hats when it comes to the free-enterprise system:
- Government is sometimes an impartial referee, issuing currency, enforcing contract law, protecting the environment, and making sure businesses don't cheat their investors, sell contaminated food, etc. When government wears the Fair Referee hat, then yes, it does have to be very careful about balancing the needs of producers and consumers.
- Sometimes government is a seller in the marketplace. When it sells the right to drill, mine, harvest trees, etc, on public land, it's representing our collective public interest. Those are our resources, and they shouldn't be given away for a song just to benefit a few businesses or to create a handful of local jobs. If taxpayers invest in research that discovers a new antibiotic or vaccine, taxpayers should get a good return on their investment. It shouldn't be given away to a single pharmecutical to have them turn around and charge patients a fortune for it.
- Likewise, when the government puts on its shopping hat, it should choose products and services wisely, and try to get a good value for the taxpayer. If Congressmen base their shopping decisions on whoever is giving them the biggest campaign contribution or kickback, then they aren't doing their job right. If they're choosing the "private sector" solution to every problem for the express purpose of making sure some entrepreneur makes a bundle, they aren't doing their job right. (Medicare Part D(isaster), anyone?) You wouldn't go to a used car lot, hand the salesman a blank check and tell him that you'll take whichever car he wants to give you. Why let Congressmen do the same thing with your tax dollars?
Yes, there is a lot that this message leaves out. We want people who voted Republican in 2004 to either vote for a Democrat in 2006 or stay at home. If a Congressional candidate gets up in their grill and tells them that they're responsible for the all the BushCo lawlessness and corruption, the deaths of uncounted Iraqi women and children, and the fact that we're careening toward fascism, they're going to shut down. They'll label that candidate an angry leftie and they'll vote for their "I'm a family values Christian" Republican incumbent. Being angry is our (the blogosphere's) job. We want our candidates to be calm and supremely confident that everything will sort itself out once the Smart Shoppers and the Fair Referees are in charge.
On a slightly different topic, do you all remember the stories that would circulate about military aircraft being outfitted with ridiculously expensive coffee makers and toilet seats? They died down after Bill Clinton did something about them, but now, with all the culture of corruption scandals we're seeing government back off of the Smart Shopper idea that formed the basis of acquisition reform. The abuses are back, but we haven't gotten those stories circulating again. Everyone talked about the "$500 for a hammer" stories, but you never hear the same guys talking about $9,000,000,000.00 unaccounted for in Iraq. For some reason, those kinds of stories seem to me to be very important. They get imbedded into the public's way of thinking about government. Think of the impact the fabricated Stella Awards letter on the issue of tort reform. Why can't we whip up one of those chain letters with examples of corporate giveaways? We could even, you know, use true examples.