The intelligent reform is to extend Medicare to all. This is what LBJ had in mind when he started with Medicare for seniors. That was supposed to be the “camel’s nose under the tent flap” approach. Too bad the Dems never had the cojones to follow through.

FDR saved our economy and introduced government activism in that sphere (it was revolutionary and reviled by the conservatives of his day).

LBJ was more government activism (Liberalism in all it’s glory) and some of it worked well.

Bobby Kennedy began to think of more systemic changes and was killed.

Jimmy Carter worked around the edges and deregulated trucking, airlines and telecommunications while continuing the fight against unemployment.

A long time passes…..

Bill Clinton tries health care reform (we think) and then settles for fiscal responsibility and pay-go and paying down the debt. This is a big hit.

Who is the next person and what is the next step in this trend of Democrats working on economics?

I think Republicans have spent decades and billions of dollars to stop us, destroy the minimum wage, social security, unions and other pieces of the economics puzzle. Who in today’s crop of candidates is the obvious successor to LBJ, Carter & Clinton?

In light of all the problems which piled up during Repub administrations (and to some extent during Clinton’s time) it seems to me we need a Progressive candidate who can take on a lot of big issues.

Has either Obama or Clinton offered anything significant? No.

The candidate is John Edwards.

That’s how far right wing we are as a country (in comparison to Europe): my Spanish friend insists that our Democrats would be their conservative party.

There is really only one party in America that governs — the Democrats.

The rest of the time, when Republicans are in charge, nothing gets done and they rape & pillage as much as they like. Of course, when they destroy enough the public decides they’d better put Dems back in charge to fix things.

The big question is why our odd-ball Republican party is where it is on the political map. Mostly I think it’s because they can justify, from that position of small government, corporate malfeasance. They call it free enterprise and entrepreneurship (funny it’s a French word for what they do).

I’m recalling this was the beginning of “the vast rightwing conspiracy” against the Clintons. The healthcare plan was anathema to all those who believe that we and our government can do nothing good together for everyone, that the only way to live is rich-eat-non-rich. They were very angry and stayed that way and when they gained power— well, you know all about that.

The GOPers have anti-policy bull’s eyes painted on them the size of Cheney’s ego and they’re hesitating and prancing as if they were the size of Bush’s brain. The Dems should fire those “Democratic” consultants – who, like stock brokers and bookies, win whether their candidates win or lose. Maybe then they’ll start thinking again.

No wonder I’m not a billiionaire.

Hate to tell you, but neither am I.

‘Passes us’ is the wrong way to set the comparison. It would make sense only if we were going to engage in a long WWII conflict with Europe, where the GDP matters (or at least used to). The fact is that the standard of living in northern Europe has been close if not superior to that of America for at least a quarter century. You don’t see this as Americans because houses and cars are smaller, and consumer products are more expensive. But quality of life — the life we actually live — is better. On that metric, which is the only one that matters, they ‘passed us’ a long time ago.

I used Google’s advanced search feature, limited retrieved items to FDL, and searched your handle and “progressive news”. Then I used Firefox’s “Find in this page” function to zero in on your post. I made a career out of doing stuff like this long before the Internet.

No wonder I’m not a billiionaire. Say, do you crack NSA stuff? I got a few questions I’d like to have answered. :~)