What winning the future might look like...

[jpgray]

...if our party cared nothing for annoying the most powerful and influential donors.

Pick a fight with the banks.

A more popular proposal would be hard to find. These institutions guttered the economy, engaged in truly monumental fraud, and are generally steeped in the most lazy and venal stripe of pure greed imaginable. A massive DOJ investigation culminating in a Pecora-style commission would not only be perfect political theater, but it would expose the rottenness we all know is there and will be less painful the sooner and more thoroughly it is addressed.

Pick a fight with the drug and insurance companies.

These are the people that will destroy Medicare and are -the- major driver of future deficits. Free marketeers opposing drug re-importation? Insurers and pharmaceutical companies terrified of public competition and negotiation? There are so many stark examples of these industries defrauding the public at large, and their allies frequently tie themselves into ridiculous knots to defend the indefensible. Above all there is the absurdity of spending more than anyone else for care that is mediocre by any standard. If you want to address the deficit, these two industries are where you make a big and popular dent.

Pick a fight with the wealthy.

If we are to raise revenue, the place to look is where the wealth of an entire generation of growth has gone. The rich-poor gap, the massive redistribution of wealth, the precipitous fall of the top marginal tax rates--these should amount to our Carthago delenda est in every public appearance. Even if we fail to raise the taxes, we should not fail to tell the public that it is no group of illegal immigrants, terrorists or Chinese that have absconded with their wage increases--it is the wealthy that have done so.

Spin off the good ideas of the stimulus and jobs bills, and make them big.

It's hard to imagine a cheaper time for the government to borrow and spend than now. State relief, massive (say ten times the proposed $60 billion) infrastructure programs, rail modernization, green energy--there is really no time like the present for these initiatives. Rather than lump them together with a gooey center of tax cuts and credits out of the Chamber of Commerce press releases, we should make each a simple standalone bill, push them, and see where they go.

Realize that no matter what is proposed, it will be demonized as radical socialism that will never pass.

A Heritage foundation, Romney-approved health care plan. Stimulus and jobs bills made up by half with tax cuts, credits, etc. These are not the sort of policies you would expect from crypto-Marxists, but it doesn't matter. What did matter in 2010 is that Obama cut taxes, but a majority believed he raised them. If we can't get credit for being conservative, we should earn the charge of being socialist.

Yeah, this is wholly impractical and would be opposed by just about everybody on both sides of the aisle. It would also be ridiculously hard to fill a campaign war chest by doing favors for people that don't, and execrating people that do, donate to political campaigns.

[Quantess]

1. We can dream...

[Quantess]

2. kick