We (and This Includes You, Democrats) Have Blown a Huge Hole in the Safety Net

[jwirr]

18. I have been involved with welfare assistance programs since 1966 when I was a divorced single

mother with three children one being very sick. It did not change much at all and I did a lot of lobbying. One of the organizations I used in lobbying was Bread for the World.

One of the programs I was trying to change was the food stamp program when it still had "fake" money for you to spend which made it too easy to sell if you wanted cash. I also talked about some other problems. I wrote to them asking for help in getting this changed. And then I learned something. They wrote a personal letter back saying that they understood what was happening in the things I described in my letter. Then they told me why they did not even try to touch the issues. Even back then (mid 70s) IF they had opened the can of worms to fix the problems the enemies of the program (rethugs) would have destroyed it completely. And not too many years later along comes newtie and just about did destroy one of the safety net programs.

What I learned is that sometimes when you are trying to fix the program you have too many enemies and will lose the whole thing. It is exactly what they are trying to do with ACA in their 50 repeal votes. We would be crazy to open the door for them to do more damage by putting up a bill that allows them to do that through amendments etc..

Yes, Democrats often fail to protect or correct vital programs but better that than to put them on the floor to be destroyed by the people we know are out to repeal all of them and at the moment those enemies are the majority in the House. In fact while we had a majority at the beginning of President Obama's first term it was very small and we have seen exactly how deadly the enemy can be with their parliamentary tricks.

We cannot risk losing more of the safety net without the votes to protect it by deliberately placing it into a vulnerable position ourselves.

I am praying that we get a majority in both houses these last two years of President Obama's last term and then if the Democrats to not act then we need to throw the bums out. We need to get the vote out and take control for at least the next 2 years. IMO we need to get the majority in both the House and Senate while we have a Democrat in the WH because we need to stop several things from happening: end the obstruction of voters, keep the US Supreme Court for getting any more conservative and protect what is left of the safety net.