You need to know about the book Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President. It’s the radical progressive movement’s (RPM’s) how-to manual for running the country. The 665-page tome is disturbing. Here are some key points to ruin your day.
First, the self-importance of the contributors is nauseating. Just imagine the 70 of them pondering all the new ways government can improve the world. The only reality behind their dreamed-up organizational charts is your money floating their ideas.
John Podesta introduces the book. He is president and founder of the ultra-progressive Center for American Progress, was head of the Obama presidential transition team, and was Bill Clinton’s chief of staff. One of his bright ideas is the creation of an Office of Social Entrepreneurship, which would invest in non-profit programs in areas such as health care and housing. A multimillion-dollar prize would be awarded for a solution to a particular, defined challenge. Whatever that may be is anybody’s guess. And a prize—are you kidding me?
In his section, “Progressive Patriotism,” Mark Green writes about universal voter enrollment, which would add 50 million voters literally overnight. Is it fair to assume he’s including inmates and illegal aliens in this group? He talks about the FCC making affordable Internet a right and creating a White House Office of Democracy or, I quote, a “democracy czar”—“czar” being a job description introduced by the RPM.
All the issues the RPM holds near and dear are in the book. There are job-killing minimum-wage laws, the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act, universal health care, and thousands of new college scholarships or entitlements—particularly offensive to parents who sacrifice to pay for their children’s education.
Of course let’s not forget “universal pre-K” for four-year-olds, a scheme designed by the RPM to cut poverty by putting the government at the head of the household. Just a thought here: how about individual responsibility and parental involvement (by two parents)? It’s called a family.
The RPM’s solutions to our international security problems are a Woodrow Wilson dream come true: more diplomacy and more international organizations like the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.
The fight against global warming is everywhere in the book. Former green jobs czar Van Jones gets a chapter for the clean-tech revolution, with social justice at its core.
Bill Clinton’s endorsement of the book reads, “Mark Green and Michele Jolin look to 2009 as the beginning of an era of renewal and progressive governance in America.” I wonder if Clinton knew Hillary was out of the race when he wrote that? The RPM didn’t care, as long as their ideas were priorities for whoever won the White House.