The road to social justice for every American is a long, circuitous one.  Over the years, those who have chosen to travel down that road, despite the  roadblocks put up by many Republican politicians, have given us many things that we take for granted today.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt fought tirelessly to give America Social Security which helps scores of Americans retire with dignity and lets many more know that a severe disability isn't a one way ticket to starvation.  Lyndon Baines Johnson used his political prowess to shepherd Medicare through Congress and the Senate, giving seniors and the disabled a healthcare safety net  that should be given to everybody.

Social Security and Medicare as rights are both measures of our evolution as a society, much as the elimination of debtors' prisons and the passing of child labor laws were for earlier generations.  There was a common thread that ran through all of those steps that brought America forward.  That thread was the strong Republican opposition that each of those Democratically supported  socio-economic advances elicited.  What turned those dreams into reality was that politicians like FDR and LBJ had the will, integrity and political courage to take a stand and fight for them!  Voters weren't shy about letting FDR and LBJ know that they wanted Social Security and Medicare.

Today's Democrats seem to forget that their party is the party of FDR and LBJ, a party that has helped us evolve as a society.  Many of today's Democratic electeds seem to prefer to pay homage to Ronald Reagan, the father of trickle down economics, something that has lined the pockets of the rich and emptied ours. They would rather compromise with (sell out to) the Republicans  than fight for programs that protect our interests.  In short, the real Democrats of the past wouldn't call them Democrats.

Programs like Social Security and Medicare have withstood the test of time, the bush tax cuts have only been around since around 2001 and have helped put us in the fiscal mess we're in today.   I become disheartened when President Obama and other Democrats call making  cuts to Social Security and Medicare or raising the eligibility age in exchange for eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the rich a "Grand Bargain."  That's hardly what I would call a "Grand Bargain", in reality, it's a fool's bargain!

Has the Democratic party become the party of maybe?  Visit my Listen Here! page to find out.