Sicker and Tireder

Reading Paul Glastris take on Democratic tactics against Nader, I noted Glastris' desire to fight the political fight based on the issues. I thought I'd take a moment to clarify my take on the issues.

• Economy This seems obvious to me. For most folks, the past four years have not been good. Clearly the economy was headed downhill when Clinton left office, and 9/11 did nothing to help the economy. However, it is four years post Clinton and three years post 9/11. What is the direction of the economy? Well, I think if you are in a position where corporate upswings make a measurable difference in your earning power, then you are pretty happy. White collar types who are in a position to really benefit from corporate profit expansion are doing pretty good. Of course, these guys are vice-presidents of companies and so on, and they make up a small subset of the populace at large. For folks who are struggling to pay for college, struggling to set aside savings for retirement, struggling to get beyond a check to check existence, this has not been a recovery. Jobs that were once considered upper middle class (by that I mean jobs that make somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000) seem to be evaporating. I'd like to back that up with statistics, but honestly, I cannot find anything that measures it - this is a feeling, based in no small part on my wife's experiences job hunting and my experiences, as well as the experiences of other people in the same range of income. Our out of pocket healthcare costs are rising rapidly, the copays for a doctor visit are going from $10 to $30 over the space of about five years. The price of milk, perhaps the ultimate staple in a family with young kids, has risen to four dollars a gallon. Gasoline to drive ourselves to work and our kids to school has reached $1.75 a gallon for regular unleaded (like any of us can afford high test). The job market is squeezing and squeezing - sure there are plenty of jobs out there, but for the most part, they require me to take a pay cut of at least 10% to 15%. There's also the small fact that companies are hesitant to offer jobs that represent pay cuts to people. They believe that these people will bolt as soon as they can get a better gig - and probably they are right. Oh no, I think for almost anyone making under $100K/year, this economy has gone from bad to worse. For these people, there simply is no recovery happening. This is a strong negative for the president



• Foreign Policy Okay, this is clearly a very tetchy issue, one on which reasonable people can disagree. For myself, I think the foreign policy is a set of nested objectives. The first and most crucial is this: make America safe from foreign enemies. Second, secure the resources external to America that are required for economic growth. This, however, must only be done in such a way as to not compromise objective one. Third, promote humanitarian and democratic ideals. This, however, must not compromise objectives one and two. So . . . how has Team Bush done? Overall, I think America is safer from alQaeda now than it was on 9/11, and perhaps even when he came to office. The work that has been done to disrupt the financial networks and the elimination of the Taliban has been a good thing. However, I think that the overall terrorist threat has increased. We have engendered so much ill will with our Iraqi adventure that I'd be surprised if there were not more anti-American terrorists now than prior to Bush. So are we safer from terrorism in general? No. Are we safer from North Korea? No. Are we safer from Iran? No.