Ford proposes KIDS accounts

Booker Rising http://www.bookerrising.blogspot.com reports that Congressman Harold E. Ford, Jr. (D-TN) has an innovative idea for increasing the national savings rate and opportunities for our nation's children. Ford, a member of the conservative Blue Dog Democratic Coalition, has proposed legislation that would establish a $500 savings account for every child born in the U.S.
America's savings rate has reached a record low with only $1.80 set aside for a rainy day out of every one thousand dollars in earnings. The proposal has wide support across the ideological spectrum as a means of lifting low income Americans out of poverty. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil is a strong supporter of the plan. The White House has failed to show interest in the proposal. Democrats should support the KIDS account plan as it will encourage savings and help to empower low income Americans.

Democrats need a new direction

Joe Gandelman has a great column on The Moderate Voice about the direction of the Democratic Party. I agree that the Democrats cannot continue to go on without a change in course. The Democratic Party must appeal to the center. Democrats need to be strong on national defense and security. As a Democrat, I am tired of seeing my party lose elections because it is dominated by single issue activists with a hard-line environmentalist, civil libertarian, abortion rights or gay rights agenda. At some point, you have to connect with rank and file working class Democrats and mainstream America. Democrats are otherwise doomed to a permanent minority status.

http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1124510546.shtml

Building a populist Democratic majority

Michael Lind, a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, has an excellent column at http://www.tpmcafe.com/ which explains how to build a Democratic majority in America. Lind points out that America is predominately center right on social issues and center left on economic issues. While the Democratic Party has pursued upscale voters that are socially liberal and economically conservative, a large number of working and middle class populist voters have been lost to the Republican Party.Lind writes: "The United States has a right-of-center majority with respect to social issues and a a left-of-center majority with respect to economic issues. The stability of this popular consensus recently has been illustrated by the nearly simultaneous popular rejection of gay marriage and Social Security privatization. Social liberals are too far to the left of most Americans on social issues; economic conservatives are too far to the right of most Americans on economic issues."To paint a clear picture of the working and middle class voters that could be reclaimed by the Democratic Party, Lind goes on to define what he means by socially conservative and economic populists. "By liberal and conservative I mean center-left and center-right, not far-left and far-right. An economic liberal supports welfare-state capitalism, not far-left democratic socialism. A social conservative is a moderate traditionalist with qualms about abortion and gay marriage, not a far-right Christian fundamentalist who thinks that Satan controls the UN and that every unimplanted embryo is a child."The full article is available at http://tinyurl.com/cs4wm