Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Atrios' List And Me

Atrios has list of "consensus issues" among liberal bloggers. James Joyner attacks it from the perspective of potential voters.

Me? I'm going to go with the strictly personal. Okay, the fact is that I got accused of being a "lefty" blogger Sunday and I am feeling feisty. I'm going to use this list to disabuse at least a portion of that notion. For now, my comments will be limited to little more than agree or disagree. I will elaborate on each later. My positions in bold.

The List

  • Undo the bankruptcy bill enacted by this administration. Agree
  • Repeal the estate tax repeal. Strongly disagree
  • Increase the minimum wage and index it to the CPI. Disagree
  • Universal health care (obviously the devil is in the details on this one). Agree somewhat
  • Increase CAFE standards. Some other environment-related regulation. Agree somewhat
  • Pro-reproductive rights, getting rid of abstinence-only education, improving education about and access to contraception including the morning after pill, and supporting choice. On the last one there's probably some disagreement around the edges (parental notification, for example), but otherwise. Agree
  • Simplify and increase the progressivity of the tax code. Absolutely disagree
  • Kill faith-based funding. Certainly kill federal funding of anything that engages in religious discrimination. Strongly Agree
  • Reduce corporate giveaways. Agree
  • Have Medicare run the Medicare drug plan. Somewhat agree
  • Force companies to stop underfunding their pensions. Change corporate bankruptcy law to put workers and retirees at the head of the line with respect to their pensions. Absolutely disagree
  • Leave the states alone on issues like medical marijuana. Generally move towards "more decriminalization" of drugs, though the details complicated there too. Abolutely agree
  • Paper ballots. Agree somewhat. Both systems should be improved.
  • Improve access to daycare and other pro-family policies. Obiously details matter. Agree only if tied to job retention.
  • Raise the cap on wages covered by FICA taxes. Absolutely disagree.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why disagree on companies underfunding pensions? Is it because you don't think companies should be "forced" by the government to manage themselves? Or do you think all retirement planning and saving should be the responsibility of the individual employee?

griftdrift said...

Yes and Yes.

Actually I think cooperative efforts between employers and employees are the best option. But the fact is there are plenty of individual planning options available now. this is not the 50s and no one stays at the same place for 30 years any more.

Anonymous said...

Sure, but if you're a company, and you are running a pension, shouldn't it be funded? I don't believe atrios is saying "force companies to provide pensions, and force them to fund it"

It's similar to the "regulation" that if a company takes out money from a paycheck to deposit into your 401k, then they actually have to deposit it.

What am I missing?

griftdrift said...

You may be right. I may have misunderstood. If atrios is truly saying guarantee employee contributions and move them to the head of the line in a bankruptcy event, then we could certainly have a discussion.

Several of his points are unclear. Like the tax thing. He says, simplify and be more progressive.

Like James Joyner, I would respond, pick one.