In The New Democratic America Priorities Are:

[ThomWV]

First: Public, truly public, mass transportation on a national scale. High speed trains right into the hearts of cities with ability to move hundreds of thousands in hours. Look to Tokyo for a model and let it grow along side of out molded interstates.

Second: National communications and we have the vehicle in place right now in Public Radio. Public Radio should be able to become the emergency broadcast system in a heartbeat and it needs to be structured, funded, and equipped so that it, not the military, is the linkage from any place in the country to any others.

Finally, get our military spending in check. Make our Military budget just half of the combined total of the rest of the world and both 1 and 2 become easily funded.

Finally - Get us out of Iraq NOW

[Poppyseedman]

1. Not to rain on your parade

but, if mass transit was as easy as that, it would have been done a long time ago

Mass transportation on a national scale would be cost prohibitive even with massive military cuts to fund it.

[Cleita]

4. And do you have any studies to prove that?

I question naysayers because I find like with the universal health care issue, they always come up with the prohibitive costs and it turns out when you actually look at the facts of how it functions, it actually ends up costing far less that the privatized for profit system we have. Also, everyone gets health care not just those who can afford it. I believe national transportation would probably end up being more cost effective in the long run as well.

[Warren DeMontague]

2. How about take the money we've been blowing on the M/I complex & Drug war

and plow it into: Infrastructure, Infrastructure, Infrastructure.

Not to mention human networks and health care.

[Cleita]

3. I've been thinking for awhile that transportation should be free.

This way it could be made more efficient because you don't have to rely on collecting fares to meet your cost of doing operations. I think efficient and safe public transportation would get a lot of cars off the road, and it would get people to jobs who can't afford to travel where they need to go to where the work is.

I think big corporations and anyone who hires household help should be taxed to pay for it, because they are the ones who benefit from people being able to get to work and to where they need to go for shopping and business.

My two cents.

[flaminbats]

5. picking another fight with the DLC?

"Democrats ought to insist on a major expansion of the military, by as many as 100,000 troops. Some of these troops should be channeled into the post-conflict and nation-building specialties that we have been chronically short of in Iraq: linguists, special forces, psychological operations, civil affairs, and economic reconstruction."

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253472&kaid=124&subid=307

You mean we shouldn't be adding another 100,000 troops just for nation-building and occupying Iraq? :cry: The DLC is insisting that building up the military will give Democrats support for repealing Bush's taxcuts. Why not retake Congress, then those taxcuts will phase out without any legislation required?!

Calling for an additional 100,000 troops will only take money which can be used for deficit reduction, improving transportation, and funding for relief efforts in New Orleans..assuming the taxcuts are not renewed. Your idea for a national mass transit system would win countless votes, especially as gas prices and lines at gas stations continue growing. Healthcare reform is a no-brainer, a national healthcare system would have worked wonders for those effected by national disasters. With such a system in place..we could have mobilized doctors, nurses, and drug companies to assist in New Orleans long before death and dysentery became widespread.

Voters know what they want, but will our party unite behind a platform that gives voters a real choice in 2006?