A letter to the Democrats

To the Democrats who were recently elected, you have been given 2 years to prove to America that you can lead this nation, and solve some of the problems we face. We expect intense oversight of the Executive Branch to prevent the abuses that went unchecked with the Republican rubber stamp Congress.

It’s past time to look at the contracting processes for both the Iraq war and the Hurricane Katrina Relief efforts. There has been rampant abuse, which has been left unchecked for far too long. The cronyism was sickening.

It’s time to re-evaluate the use of private companies like Bechtel, Haliburton, KBR, and others, to provide vital services to our nations military. While the common wisdom says that private companies can do it cheaper and faster, the Bush Administration’s experiment has proven this a failure, and prone to abuse.

Its way past time to find out where the billions of dollars of taxpayer money that disappeared in Iraq has gone. We need a strong and independent auditor to look into the entire mess over there.

It’s time to find out the true extent of the Administration’s spying on Americans. I would bet that there are other more serious violations of the constitutional rights of Americans going on which are still secret. Like the Total Information Awareness program, which is likely still around despite the termination of it’s funding by Congress.

Lets clarify the limits of executive powers and put an end to Presidential signing statements forever.

It’s time to look at revoking the current authorization for the use of military force, which has been severely misused, and replace it with a more limited, but better targeted authorization.

It’s time to do something about the corporate media and the consolidation of media ownership in the United States. Let’s break up and diversify the media again. Lets bring back the fairness doctrine, equal time, and establish a requirement for the media to report the news accurately and fairly, without the spin that currently goes on.

You have already discussed raising the minimum wage so I will not go into that one. I would like to see a yearly minimum wage increase which is automatically given, unless it’s voted down by Congress. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Let’s limit congressional pay raises to increases in the minimum wage.

Lets find a way to discourage companies from moving jobs off shore. I suggest requiring any company which does business in America to operate all their facilities under American laws even when they are located in other countries except in cases where the local laws of exceed the requirements of American law then their local laws would take precedence. That means at a minimum fair wages, benefits, safety standards, labor practices, and oversight.

Lets actually get in New Orleans and help those who are still displaced to return home. Lets unlock the public housing projects that have been closed by the city even though they were not damaged in the flooding which hit the city.

Let’s bring back some reality in copyright law. It’s easier today to get a return from copyrights than it was back in the 1700’s. Then it might have taken months just for shipping. Today we can ship anywhere in the world in a few days. So lets return to a 14 year copyright term after which I would recommend allowing companies to keep extending the copyright by paying a minimal yearly fee up to the current maximum term. If the fee isn’t paid then the work returns to the public domain. This would free up tens of thousands of orphaned works.

Oh, I could keep going for a month but you have enough to chew on for now. Prove yourself to us Democrats, especially if you want America to support a Democrat for president in 2008.