(OC, CA) Daily Pilot: Democrat charges uphill

[question everything]

Modified December 2, 2005

Democrat charges uphill

Steve Young says if district's 109,000 Democrats vote Tuesday, 'they're not irrelevant.'

By Alicia Robinson, Daily Pilot

(snip)

Registered Democrats are far outnumbered by Republicans in the district, so Young's campaign may look like an uphill battle. But that may not be a huge liability, since few voters of any stripe -- less than 23% -- cast ballots in the primary, and even fewer are expected to vote Tuesday.

(snip)

Another target of Young's campaign is the middle class, which he cautions is disappearing as America loses jobs with living wages. "We've lost 12 million manufacturing jobs in the last 10 years, and these are what I call family jobs -- jobs where a worker can have a spouse and have a car and have children," he said. What remain are jobs at Wal-Mart and Blockbuster Video, for example -- jobs Young calls anti-family because they don't offer workers enough pay or benefits to ever get ahead. His answer is a five-point economic plan that includes creating a business-friendly environment, encouraging education and training for workers and cutting wasteful federal spending.

To trim the federal budget, Young suggests rescinding the $260 billion transportation bill and putting the money instead into rebuilding infrastructure in areas at risk from natural disasters, such as levees in the Sacramento delta that could be damaged in an earthquake.

He'd also cut the billions fueling the Iraq war by bringing in the Arab League -- an organization that in 1989 helped end a lengthy civil war in Lebanon -- to negotiate a peace plan so the U.S. could withdraw its troops.

Finally, Young suggests money to shrink the deficit could come from a much-maligned but untapped source: immigrants. He proposes having people pay the U.S. government instead of smugglers to come across the border, so they could be registered and fingerprinted. Once here, immigrants would pay a fee every six months to renew their legal status. He projects the plan could raise $90 billion in six months. He'd also crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants. But in spite of his detailed plan, Young doesn't believe illegal immigration is the massive, immediate problem some politicians make it out to be.

(snip)

http://www.dailypilot.com/politics/story/31546p-46097c.html

(forgot the link, sorry)