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Democrats As Not-So-Secret Santas

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Given a steady stream of gift-wrapped White House concessions to opponents of health reform, most recently and notably to Connecticut's former Democrat turned flip-flopping pariah of a corrupted U.S. Senator, Joe Lieberman, it's worth imagining what else this Democratic administration and Congress can accomplish in their still emerging role as not-so-secret Santa for the Republican Party and Corporate America.

Given the fraud and solvency problems plaguing Medicare, why not go ahead and privatize it, auction its administration off to private, for-profit insurers like the ones that have spent an average of 81 cents of every premium dollar on medical care, compared to the 97-plus cents of every dollar that the government now allocates to actual benefits for Medicare recipients?

Sure, old folks and disabled people will have to learn to do less with less, but isn't that a sacrifice worth making to ensure that for-profit health insurers and their Congressional pals can relax and enjoy some extra profits this holiday season, instead of spending yet more time and money spinning their way into the hearts and minds of scared seniors?

While they're at it, the Democrats might as well bring a smile and a tear to X-President George W. Bush's visage - and to those poor, beleaguered Wall Street tycoons too - by going ahead and privatizing Social Security - while at the same time giving the elderly the gift of the excitement they so need late in life by having them invest much of their monthly checks in the thrill-a-minute roller coaster ride that is the stock market.

And why not take advantage of those crazy Copenhagen Climate Talks by abandoning any pretense of fully cooperating with all those foreigners, or of getting the United States Senate to support all those anti-business, earth and life-saving carbon dioxide emissions standards. Instead, the Democratic powers that be can give a gift that keeps on giving, granting polluters the right to keep on polluting, while rewarding key Senators, Coal/Oil/Nuclear Industry executives, and Global Warming Debunkers with prestigious appointments to various Blue Ribbon panels and commissions tasked with formulating a uniquely American, "alternative" solution to the supposed climate crisis that has so many other national governments in an uproar.

While all that gift giving can make a President and his political party in power pretty doggone tired, maybe, if the Democrats extended their season of giving right through Easter, maybe the Democrats could offer a few more springtime surprises. Like taking the Employee Free Choice Act that the American Labor Movement hopes can help return the country to the prosperity it had when unions held more sway back in the day, and transforming it into a gift to the American business community - perhaps by turning it into an Employer Fee Choice Act that lets the Chamber Of Commerce determine what price American workers have to pay to have half the rights afforded workers in most other industrialized nations in the world.

Who knows, the Dems might get on the kind generous, concessionary roll that sees them enact sweeping Immigration reform by Mayday, the kind that makes a small but vocal segment of U.S. citizens and media attention grabbing extremist groups grateful and happy - by denying immigrants basic legal and human rights, and by denying them the opportunity to achieve their version of the American Dream, here in America.

Before the Democrats are finally forced back to whatever their political version is of the frozen tundra of the North Pole - the way Santa does when he's done giving out all his gifts - maybe they can also look overseas and find a way to fulfill the sugarplum fairy dreams of the modern-day public/private military-industrial complex by finding rationales for still further extended involvement timelines and expanded resource commitments in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

One never knows.

For all that is clear at this moment is that this is indeed the season of giving - giving in if not giving up - for the national Democratic Party.

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Daniel Tilson was born and raised in New York City, a graduate of Stuyvesant High School, and New York University's Film and Television School, with a double major in Film/TV Production & Broadcast Journalism. Tilson established his own first (more...)
 
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