Not all Democrats are Socialists... but are all Socialists Democrats?

From SocialistAlternative.org

Where's Our Bailout? -A Socialist Stimulus Plan

At a February 26 press conference, President Obama said: "There are times when you can decorate your home and there are times when you have to fix its foundation. Today we are fixing the foundation."

Do the president’s policies amount to “fixing the foundation” of our economy?

The $787 billion stimulus package includes spending on infrastructure projects, schools, aid to states facing massive budget deficits, extending unemployment relief, and more. Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget includes a 7.5% increase for Health and Human Services; 34.6% increase for the Environmental Protection Agency; 18.5% increase for Housing and Urban Development; and a 12.8% increase for Education.

Many workers and young people undoubtedly will view these policies as a relief and a departure from eight years of the disastrous Bush Administration.

The Nation magazine calls the budget proposal “an audacious plan to transform America.” Financial Times Columnist Clive Crook calls Obama’s proposals “a liberal’s dream of a new New Deal.”

The stimulus package and Obama’s budget do represent a real shift in approach from the free-market fundamentalism that has dominated policy since the 1980s, which reached extreme heights under Bush. Obama’s policies will likely ease some of the suffering – and the anger – created by the collapse of the capitalist economy.

But all is not roses and cherries among the impatient and over anxious socialists eager to go from zero to communism in 100 days...

Why is the Obama Administration so hesitant to redistribute the wealth and restimulate demand?
While free-market fundamentalism is now widely discredited in Washington, Democratic Party leaders remain fundamentally beholden to big business, which funds their careers and party institutions.
They refuse to take measures that would truly stop the economic decline because that would necessitate a drastic redistribution of wealth and economic power to working-class people.

The Socialists are cheering for the accomplishments of "the One" but trying not to blow his cover.

We need a socialist program to end the economic crisis and safeguard workers’ living standards, and a fighting strategy to make this program a reality.

A genuine public works program employing tens of millions under union wages and conditions. No hand-outs to private contractors, now a major recipient of stimulus money, who skim off fat profits at the expense of workers’ wages and benefits.

No more layoffs! Take failing industries into public ownership under the democratic control of representatives of the workers and the broader community, and retool them towards socially necessary and green production.

$12.50/hr minimum wage or $500/week minimum income.

No foreclosures or evictions! There are too many empty homes and too many homeless! Renters or homeowners should be allowed to live in their homes at affordable rents or mortgages.

Pass the Employee Free Choice Act to empower union organizing. This will make it easier for workers to use their collective power to fight back against cuts in pay and benefits.

A single-payer universal healthcare system. No more profiteering off of our healthcare!
Free quality education from pre-school through college.

How do they propose to pay for all this free stuff?

• End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bring all the troops home now!
  
• Slash the military budget, which will go up 24% to $689 billion in 2012 under Obama.
  
• Use the money saved to plug state and local budget deficits, stop cuts in education and social services, and stop layoffs of public workers.
  
• Nationalize the banks under democratic control by elected representatives of small depositors, pension funds, bank workers, and the wider public.
  
• Massive increase in taxes on the rich.
  
• Draw up a national economic plan on the basis of human need and not profit, to be run by democratically elected councils of workers and consumers.

Gee... where could anyone have gotten the idea that Obama and Democrats have gone socialist?
-red