Democratic Priorities that scare me... Options

[Hartmann]

I'm interested in seeing what the Democrats do in power but the following stuff scares the crap out of me.

1. Military: Force an immediate drawdown of troops in Iraq and conduct oversight hearings on missteps on the war. Democrats renewed their call for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign.
   
   Definitely not a good idea.
   
   
2. Transportation: Consolidate air traffic control facilities. Allow more foreign control of airlines. Limit the number of Transportation Security Administration airport screeners to 45,000. More oversight hearings on the Federal Aviation Administration.
   
   What?! Foreign control of airlines?! I can't wait to fly "Al-Qaeda Air"!!!
   
   
3. Minimum wage. Pass legislation to raise the minimum wage from the current $5.15 an hour to $7.25
   
   This has been covered before, a basic economics course would help immensely.

Things I am glad to see happening:

1. Veterans affairs: Increase oversight with detailed budget accountings. More funding for veterans' health care, including additional mental health counseling for vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. Energy and environment: Increase incentives for biodiesel, ethanol and other alternative fuels as well as wind, solar, geothermal and other sources of alternative energy. Renegotiate oil and gas leases that waived royalty payments to the government. Impose a national cap on industrial carbon dioxide emissions. Resist Bush's efforts to open more public lands to oil exploration (iffy on the last part).
3. Intelligence: Increase attention given to emerging terrorist threats in Africa and Southeast Asia and devote more resources to North Korea and Iran. More oversight of terrorism and government surveillance.

I am on the fence about some of their healthcare stuff, taxes, and agriculture plans.

[impala454]

I'm sorry to say this, but honestly I couldn't really give a rats ass who's in office. All any of the politicians care about is keeping themselves in office. Nobody ever has the balls to do what they really want to do because they don't want to upset the herd. Democrat, Republican, Independent, it doesn't matter. Sure my gas might go up 30%, but I don't care, I pay it and move on. Shit my cable and cell phone bills have gone up more than my gas costs.

It just seems to me our elections have a much more prominent effect on the rest of the world rather than our own nation.

The issues discussed here, how much is it really going to effect your daily life? For some, maybe it will, but for me... well to list the major issues discussed here:

1. Withdraw troops- ok... withdraw them, don't withdraw them... doesn't really matter to me.

2. Foreign Control of Airlines- not sure what all this means, but as long as I can fly somewhere and back without any problem, I don't really care.

3. Minimum Wage- Doesn't really matter to me what the burger flippers make. And if a company is big enough to have thousands of minimum wage workers, they make enough money to cover it. I doubt it'd really have much impact on me, so I really don't care.

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1. Veterans- blah blah... I respect em, greatful that they fought for our country, etc, but could really care less about any of their issues. mental health on returning from war? ok... well when you take a job where you're trained to kill people for a living, you'll probably see some pretty messed up shit at one point or another. either way, doesn't really matter to me.

2. Energy and environment- biodiesel, ethanol. again don't really care. my truck can run on E85 but I hear it sucks. I'd probably try it, but it's not any big deal to me. incentives for solar/wind energy might be interesting, but it's the government so it probably wouldn't ever be any incentives worth a shit. and carbon dioxide emissions? or do you mean monoxide? either way... doesn't really effect me so I don't care. I recycle cans & plastic bottles (erin got me doing it when she rented a room for me), but I only really do it bc it means less trips to the damn dumpster. either way, the issue doesn't strike me think some politician will change the world with it.

3. intelligence- check up on terrorists more... ok.. cool. i'm sure this is on any politician's list of todos. i don't really care much on this either. i mean yeah i dont want to be attacked, but what kind of glorious difference is some bill or politician going to make that "puts up the terrorist shield" and makes us invicible?

sorry to make such a long post and seem so pessimistic, I just don't really see elections as all that meaningful. They talk on the news about all this big change and what they're gonna do. gimme a break. nothing ever changes for us that much.