FDR's letter: Franklin D. Roosevelt Letter to the Democratic Convention July 18, 1940 Members of the Convention: In the century in which we live, the Democratic Party has received the support of the electorate only when the party, with absolute clarity, has been the champion of progressive and liberal policies and principles of government. The party has failed consistently when through political trading and chicanery it has fallen into the control of those interests, personal and financial, which think in terms of dollars instead of in terms of human values. The Republican Party has made its nominations this year at the dictation of those who, we all know, always place money ahead of human progress. The Democratic Convention, as appears clear from the events of today, is divided on this fundamental issue. Until the Democratic Party through this convention makes overwhelmingly clear its stand in favor of social progress and liberalism, and shakes off all the shackles of control fastened upon it by the forces of conservatism, reaction, and appeasement, it will not continue its march of victory. It is without question that certain political influences pledged to reaction in domestic affairs and to appeasement in foreign affairs have been busily engaged behind the scenes in the promotion of discord since this Convention convened. Under these circumstances, I cannot, in all honor, and will not, merely for political expediency, go along with the cheap bargaining and political maneuvering which have brought about party dissension in this convention. It is best not to straddle ideals. In these days of danger when democracy must be more than vigilant, there can be no connivance with the kind of politics which has internally weakened nations abroad before the enemy has struck from without. It is best for America to have the fight out here and now. I wish to give the Democratic Party the opportunity to make its historic decision clearly and without equivocation. The party must go wholly one way or wholly the other. It cannot face in both directions at the same time. By declining the honor of the nomination for the presidency, I can restore that opportunity to the convention. I so do.
I'm a little frightened by the dedication, as it seems we are drifting toward becoming a police state. And too, I believe reform of our justice system should be well up on the list of priorities. I'm very bothered by our having more people incarcerated than any other country, having for-profit prisons and a criminal justice system funded by fines. . Something is very wrong. I don't want the military and police to be top commitments, I want to see long term plans that would reduce our military expenditure to approximately half what it is today -- it would still be per capita much more than any other nation -- I want to greatly increase the educational requirements for new police officers, their pay to be approximately doubled, and the number of police ultimately, through attrition, cut approximately in half. I want public education and halving of class size in the early years to be the top commitment, and then after that bringing the cost of and access to healthcare in line with that in other developed countries. I have high up on my priority list, repeal of citizens united, and revamping of congressional districting to prevent, so far as possible, gerrymandering. I have immigration concerns far down on my list. So I'm quite out of step, apparently, with mainstream America. I have radical ideas about the mechanism for achieving tax reform, so that's a topic for another day.
Democrats are worthless. If the government doesn't get the taxes from the rich and corporations, the government is coming after YOU to make up the difference.
Typical. More bullshit. The Quiet Audacity of the Democratic ‘Better Deal’ An alphabet soup of new agencies could shake up federal oversight. By David Dayen The Democrats continue to roll out their agenda, and I’m noticing a pattern. Want to lower the cost of prescription drugs? They’ve got a “price gouging” enforcer, the director of a new agency dedicated to investigating drug manufacturers that jack up the cost on their products. How about breaking concentrated corporate power across all fields? They’ve got a consumer-competition advocate who would recommend investigation of monopolistic industries to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission. How about trade, a policy ripped away from liberals by Donald Trump? Democrats have you covered there too, with a new “American Jobs Security Council” that can veto foreign purchases of stateside companies on economic grounds, and an independent trade prosecutor that would challenge unfair trade practices outside of the World Trade Organization framework. Now, these aren’t the only proposals in the Better Deal. But they stand out, particularly because the new suggested positions duplicate existing structures within the federal government. The FTC (and, to a lesser extent, the Food and Drug Administration) is supposed to monitor drug prices, as well as other monopolies. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) votes on foreign mergers. And the US trade representative handles trade disputes. Of course, building new agencies with targeted missions was a hallmark of the New Deal. And like under FDR, these Better Deal agencies are an admission that the current framework is fatally corrupted, unresponsive to public needs. The FTC has stood relatively mute amid massive consolidation in virtually every industry. There hasn’t been a major case to break up a monopoly since the Microsoft suit in the late 1990s. Drug-price spikes are also occurring without much resistance, at least not from policymakers. CFIUS is a coalition of cabinet members that only screens foreign investment for national-security implications; though the secretaries of Commerce and Labor sit on the committee and the White House’s chief economists participate, there’s no economic screen. What’s really going on is that Democrats are trying to recapture the magic of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the popular brainchild of Elizabeth Warren. That, too, was an agency that took over mostly existing capabilities; the FTC and the Federal Reserve had consumer-protection responsibility in financial dealings. But they were indifferent to the job because it wasn’t their sole mission. CFPB reordered these priorities under one roof with a singular mission—protect consumers. And it’s worked. In fact, CFPB was really the only major new agency of the Obama era. And its history serves as an example that the culture of an agency matters in its effectiveness. Early stories about CFPB always highlighted this—how the examiners often came from outside agencies and the feel was more akin to a startup. Eventually the revolving door came spinning there as well, but for the most part the agency has maintained its mission. The question is whether this is endlessly replicable, and whether it’s good practice to pile on new agencies on top of the old. And there’s another problem here: Changing the structure of the federal government is the kind of policy rollout best associated with a presidential campaign, not a midterm election. Even if Democrats were able to get these new agencies authorized, Donald Trump would be filling the seats until at least 2021. Democrats are asking for the reins of power, but making promises that at least in part would be restrained by the limits of that power in the near term. Some might see cynicism in this approach. Democrats call for support in 2018 with an agenda that would require support in 2020. With the fragmented nature of our system, that’s somewhat inevitable, but it sure makes it easier to live up to your midterm campaign promises when they can’t be lived up to. View our current issue Subscribe today and Save up to $129. It’s worth noting that several Better Deal policies break with that trend. Democrats want Medicare to be able to negotiate drug prices (something they’ve promised before, then gave up on during the Affordable Care Act debate). They have a $1 trillion infrastructure bill and a plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2024. The competition policy proposal would change federal merger guidelines to reflect the broad range of harms caused by monopolies. On trade, Democrats want to penalize federal contractors who outsource jobs, add Buy America provisions to every project funded by taxpayers, and punish currency manipulation. But as much as it’s a cop-out in the short term, the call for new Better Deal agencies recognizes a problem. New laws have to be carried out by an old bureaucracy. And the current one doesn’t work for the people anymore. It serves special interests, and its top officers think more about career advancement than the public good. On trade and competition and drug prices, regardless of which party has done the appointing lately, the public has gotten shafted. Is that a result of who was doing the picking, or agency culture that is rigid to change? Admitting we need to start over reflects a reformist tendency that gave us the alphabet-soup agencies after the Depression. It’s an indictment of the predecessors, even on the Democratic side, who were unable and unwilling to alter the system. And it’s a warning shot to the expected bevy of 2020 candidates that they cannot think small about the task at hand: that they must reengineer instead of tinker. The Better Deal isn’t entirely about building a new government atop the old one. But that tendency stands out, and, while it’s something of a dodge, it’s also as quietly radical as anything we’ve seen recently from a major political party. https://www.thenation.com/article/the-quiet-audacity-of-the-democratic-better-deal/