His subject line was "Democrats Are A Disaster", and it was basically a forward of a campaign ad for Nader/Gonzalez 08 talking about how Dems are the corporate party and the same as Republicans, etc.
Now, to be fair, I *do* agree that the economic difference between Republicans and Democrats has been shrinking (since 1980) for various reasons, and that the Dems of today are not nearly as progressive (or tough for that matter) as they should be, especially the DLC Dems who do seem to be watered down Republicans WRT economic issues. I completely understand the frustration with these Dems, but it's laughable to suggest they are no better than Republicans on a number of issues.
At any rate, my libertarian friend (who doesn't like Republicans either) finished his email with something like "at least McCain will let us keep more of our money instead of wasting it on stupid government programs".
Here was my response:
Actually, McCain’s economic plan could cost us BIG:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6tYzJDGv1c&eurl (work-safe and short)
People seem to think they’ll lose money with a Democrat in office, when in fact this is not true for several reasons:
1)-The economy does better under Democrats-
http://boom2bust.com/2007/12/12/is-a-republican-preside... /
2)-As I pointed out last time, just 3 Republican presidents are responsible for over 70% of our national debt. This debt combined with Republican driven “free trade” deals (which has led to massive trade deficits) have helped to kill the value of the dollar. Of course DLC Dem Bill Clinton signed NAFTA and GATT, but both Obama and Hillary at least *claim* they want to reform it unlike McCain. At any rate, the dollar has fallen about 40% since Bush took office. Great, so he let us keep a little more tax money, but think about how much less your money is worth overall. Also, in 2005 we paid 1 billion dollars of interest on the debt Reagan created alone. The more debt we have on our National Credit Card, the more money we waste every year making interest payments on programs that don't benefit us, assuming they ever did.
3)-Republican presidents slash taxes and allow our infrastructure to crumble. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, “In its latest report card, the civil engineering society gave the nation's infrastructure a "D." Just like medical care, if you don’t practice preventative medicine and only practice emergency care (like when a bridge collapses in MN), it ends up costing tax payers FAR MORE money.
4)-The price of oil has tripled and the cost of gas has more than doubled. While it’s true that worldwide demand has increased, it’s quite clear that the Iraq War was the primary driver of this dramatic increase for us (there are some amazing graphs that illustrate the timeline). So we can look forward to our “economic stimulus check” in the mail. My suggestion is that you cash it at your local gas station, because the increased cost of energy will more than cancel out any little check you get.
5)-Republicans “deregulate” industries and we foot the bill. This happened in the 80’s with the Savings and Loan debacle when the taxpayers bailed them out. Now here we are again after laizzes faire capitalism failed (note: controlled capitalism kicks ass, but unregulated capitalism kicks *our* ass), and this time the economy is tanking in part because of the Sub Prime Mortgage Crisis. 30 billion dollars of tax payer money will go to bail out Bear Stearns while average Joe sub prime may lose his house.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iInrW_-GESw&eurl (again, work-safe and short) At any rate, how is bailing out Big Business with tax payer money considered to be a “free market” principle?
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