Take this job and ship it
In the Monday morning edition of the Washington Post, about North Dakota Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan's call for populism in his new book .
Birnbaum gives a of Byron Dorgan's book:
He blames many of the nation's woes on the avarice of largemultinational companies -- a tack that few politicians, dependent oncampaign contributions, are willing to take these days. He also basheslobbyists, which is for him a somewhat hollow declaration. His wife,Kimberly Olson Dorgan, is the chief lobbyist for the American Councilof Life Insurers.
Dorgan heaps particular scorn on pharmaceuticaland oil companies. He accuses drugmakers, for instance, of bending thecountry's laws in ways that hurt consumers and bloat their bottomlines. In response, he would repeal laws that bar the government fromnegotiating with pharmaceutical companies for lower prices and thatprohibit the importation of less-expensive prescription drugs fromcountries such as Canada.
These are not the freshest of ideas, particularly coming from aliberal Democrat. But Dorgan delivers them with real sting. He claims,for example, that Tommy G. Thompson, then-secretary of the Departmentof Health and Human Services, told him privately that Dorgan was"right" to favor allowing prescription drugs to cross into this country-- a position at odds with that of Thompson's boss at the time,President Bush.
Dorgan also sounds what has become a majorrallying cry for the political left -- a full-throated assault on thenation's largest retailer. "Wal-Mart," he writes, "is the poster childfor what has gone so terribly wrong in this global economy." Hecomplains that the company "trades American jobs for cheap foreignlabor" and "pushes wages down here in the United States."
With poverty up, the number uninsured up and median wages down, the Democratic Party has a lot to learn from this book.
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