An abundance agenda would include, perhaps as the key element, cheap, abundant and reliable energy. The elite nomenclature that dominates the Democratic Party, and dominates our national life for that matter, are resolutely opposed to cheap, abundant and reliable energy. Not for themselves of course, (Obama’s beautiful, multi million dollar home on Martha’s Vineyard, has a multi thousand gallon LPG storage tank to power his standby generator. No blackouts for him!) No, it’s we peons that need to learn energy on demand 24/7 is not for the likes of us.
It’s going to take a lot more than better messaging before I ever vote for a a Democrat again.
Infrastructure, housing, clean energy, sounds great, except that Americans are no longer hired to do that sort of work.
The last few years I've let all employees go, work by myself, but a construction site always has many other workers. Carpenters, plumbers, excavation, concrete etc. I speak Spanish all day, which is fun, I like languages, and sometimes we talk about the cost of a coyote or how hard it is to cross, or how messed up the drug cartels are, because most people on a construction site are here working illegally. This is not supposition. I know.
Not to dis the guys working. Great guys. Bright, honest, hard working, quick to pick up new skills. But it's real hard to hire the working class when the working class has been put out of work.
I do not think Democrats can make it easier to build stuff in America. To do what you suggest requires stripping power from various levels of government, which means reducing government payrolls. Public sector unions don't like losing jobs, the bureaucrats in government don't like losing jobs AND losing the power to appoint people, and politicians hate getting blamed by public sector unions and government bureaucrats for breaking their rice bowls. This is why Democrats love to allocate lots of public spending on building stuff and solving problems, and why decades and tens of billion of dollars later, California has less than a half mile of a high speed rail line and record high homelessness. Democrats in power love problems, because power means patronage.
I had to upgrade to paid just so I could comment, as I've been wanting to make the same comment to every Ruy post for the past year. He is essentially asking the Democrats to adopt the Trump agenda. Wouldn't it just be easier to vote for Trump?
I certainly agree. But the probability that today's democrat party will embrace that agenda is zero. Given a binary option on the ballot, there is only one choice.
An abundance agenda would include, perhaps as the key element, cheap, abundant and reliable energy. The elite nomenclature that dominates the Democratic Party, and dominates our national life for that matter, are resolutely opposed to cheap, abundant and reliable energy. Not for themselves of course, (Obama’s beautiful, multi million dollar home on Martha’s Vineyard, has a multi thousand gallon LPG storage tank to power his standby generator. No blackouts for him!) No, it’s we peons that need to learn energy on demand 24/7 is not for the likes of us.
It’s going to take a lot more than better messaging before I ever vote for a a Democrat again.
Infrastructure, housing, clean energy, sounds great, except that Americans are no longer hired to do that sort of work.
The last few years I've let all employees go, work by myself, but a construction site always has many other workers. Carpenters, plumbers, excavation, concrete etc. I speak Spanish all day, which is fun, I like languages, and sometimes we talk about the cost of a coyote or how hard it is to cross, or how messed up the drug cartels are, because most people on a construction site are here working illegally. This is not supposition. I know.
Not to dis the guys working. Great guys. Bright, honest, hard working, quick to pick up new skills. But it's real hard to hire the working class when the working class has been put out of work.
I do not think Democrats can make it easier to build stuff in America. To do what you suggest requires stripping power from various levels of government, which means reducing government payrolls. Public sector unions don't like losing jobs, the bureaucrats in government don't like losing jobs AND losing the power to appoint people, and politicians hate getting blamed by public sector unions and government bureaucrats for breaking their rice bowls. This is why Democrats love to allocate lots of public spending on building stuff and solving problems, and why decades and tens of billion of dollars later, California has less than a half mile of a high speed rail line and record high homelessness. Democrats in power love problems, because power means patronage.
I had to upgrade to paid just so I could comment, as I've been wanting to make the same comment to every Ruy post for the past year. He is essentially asking the Democrats to adopt the Trump agenda. Wouldn't it just be easier to vote for Trump?
Thanks, Bob. It’s possible to be pro-worker, pro-family, and pro-America without supporting the former president. The TLP way!
I certainly agree. But the probability that today's democrat party will embrace that agenda is zero. Given a binary option on the ballot, there is only one choice.
Your party has abandoned you.
"Finish the job?? Does this make much sense when voters think the job you’ve been doing is so bad?"
That's the old joke: "My doctor is so good, if you're at Death's door, he'll definitely pull you through!"