Democrats

I was at the annual Democratic fundraiser dinner a couple of weeks ago, and ended up sitting next to Tom DiNapoli, the New York State Comptroller, who is responsible for all things fiscal in the State. He was a featured speaker, and his remarks included this:

There may be some satisfaction in the knowledge that the rate of home foreclosures has declined, but I don't think that helps the family which has lost their house and don't know where they're going to go next. We may celebrate a downturn in the unemployment rate, but that always makes me think about the worker who is still looking, still jobless, and losing hope.

I think that this kind of wraps up an important reason why I'm a Democrat. There's a approach to economic policy that assumes that a certain level of 'collateral damage' is acceptable for the good of the majority. This leads to policies which enrich many, but leave way too many others less well-off than they had been. Too often, those who get left behind are those who are already poor and powerless.

This isn't my idea of American democracy. We need to work on reducing the economic damage across the county, state and country, of course, but we also have a duty to address the needs of our neighbors, who are real people, whose lives reflect the economic damage done far away from our homes and theirs. And when things get better, we need to remember that 'better' is always relative. If you look, you'll find folks who aren't following the rest of us into 'better.'

I think American democracy is about everyone, every last citizen, with noone left out. I'm not sure that either party does that really, really, well, but over the forty or fifty years I've been following politics and government, the Democrats seem to have been trying harder.