[Vision2020] Walt Minnick

[Kenneth Marcy]

On Thursday 27 August 2009 06:52:52 Rosemary wrote:
> Good Morning Ken,

Good Day Rose:

> I cheerfully stand by the remarks I made last night.

Well, that's great! No waffling for breakfast or flip-flopping of mystery meat 
for lunch here!

> A cursory review of the history of Dixiecrats and Boll Weevils reveals that 
> jackass is a kindly description - and as card-carrying Blue Dog he is, in  
> fact, like it or not, an heir of that peculiar ideology.

I think more than one person in the room last night may not have been as well 
read as you may be on the kindliness of the word jackass as an adjective for 
blue dog preferences.

> You apparently are comfortable with the Rep. Minnick's voting record - I'm  
> not. He is, in his own words a Democrat by default.
<snip>

Well, the fact of the matter is that I am not, personally, particularly 
comfortable with the policies Congressman Minnick is proposing. But that's 
hardly news. No one should be comfortable with the economic realities this 
country faces.

Considering the nation's ever-more-debt-ridden financial position, likely 
economic events in the next few months (the results of the stimulus spending 
begin to kick in, and interest rates rise a bit), and the likely responses of 
major US overseas creditors for more fiscal responsibility from the US 
Congress, the nation must control the stability of the dollar as the world 
economy's reserve currency. Maintaining this stability will be accomplished 
through reducing the rate of growth of federal indebtedness, and raising 
revenues for the purpose of meeting the rising interest payments our national 
debt will require as interest rates rise. Concurrently, shifts in the mixture 
of, and the rates of, federal expenditures will be necessary to better 
stimulate the economy, to improve the social returns on our tax investments, 
and to maintain the confidence of our foreign creditors in the stability of 
our economic management. Their confidence is critical to our federal 
liquidity, and thus to what will be a slow, and I hope, steady, economic 
recovery.

As most of the people at the 1912 Center last night, I prefer a single payor 
federal health care system because it makes fiscal, administrative, and 
practical sense. However, the national political realities at the moment are 
such that the best of the systemic alternatives, the single payor model, will 
not be approved any time really soon. So, those of us who prefer that system 
are going to have to find ways to minimize the ongoing damages from the 
current system by modifying it toward improvement. That course of action is 
what I understand Congressman Minnick to favor, even though it will be more 
costly, more time consuming, and more generally unsatisfactory than trying to 
go to a preferable, but politically unfeasible, alternative.

> Mr. Minnick will be a one term Charlie.  He has lost liberal Democratic
> support, the Republicans will run a sane (unlike Bill Sali) candidate
> against him and that will be that.  And that political reality slap
> couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

You may be correct in this assessment. However, as Starfleet Academy Cadet 
James Tiberius Kirk figured out, there are, sometimes, ways to defeat an exam 
that is designed to fail all of its examinees. The challenge for Idaho 
Democrats, whether liberal or practical, is to realize that electing a Blue 
Dog Democrat is preferable to electing another of the usual Idaho 
Republicans, and to work together to find ways to accomplish that goal. Like 
the young cadet Kirk, we must find ways to turn the election exam to our 
benefit, and carry out strategies and tactics to accomplish that end. Kirk 
passed his exam only on his third try. Democrats should not give up too soon.


Ken