{"id":7571,"date":"2010-10-30T13:46:30","date_gmt":"2010-10-30T17:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=7571"},"modified":"2010-10-30T13:46:30","modified_gmt":"2010-10-30T17:46:30","slug":"retiring-democratic-rep-details-where-dems-went-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/7571\/retiring-democratic-rep-details-where-dems-went-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Retiring Democratic Rep. Details Where Dems Went Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In an interview with the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u2019s John Fund, retiring Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052702303284604575582320752384384.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop\" target=\"_blank\">shares some thoughtful insights<\/a> about what went wrong for Democrats the last two years.\u00a0 From appallingly bad advice from so-called strategists (e.g. \u201cvoters don\u2019t care about deficits\u201d) to an \u201cauthoritarian\u201d leadership that demanded blind loyalty from members, Baird\u2019s interview could be read as a warning to the incoming Republican majority.\u00a0 Common sense in rules and policy is a non-partisan winner.<\/p>\n<p>Most revealing are the ideas Baird has for <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052702303284604575582320752384384.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop\" target=\"_blank\">tackling entitlements<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In his new book, &#8220;Character, Politics and Responsibility,&#8221; Mr. Baird argues that in order to afford caring for the needy, liberals will have to challenge &#8220;unsustainable entitlements.&#8221; &#8220;I would eliminate the concept of entitlements and move to needs-based social insurance,&#8221; he says. &#8220;The key is to both promote personal responsibility while lowering expenditures by not promising or giving money or other benefits to those who don&#8217;t need it.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Too bad Baird won\u2019t be around to make that case inside Congress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an interview with the Wall Street Journal\u2019s John Fund, retiring Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) shares some thoughtful insights about what went wrong for Democrats the last two years.\u00a0 From appallingly bad advice from so-called strategists (e.g. \u201cvoters don\u2019t care about deficits\u201d) to an \u201cauthoritarian\u201d leadership that demanded blind loyalty from members, Baird\u2019s interview could [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[782,2017,70,84,59,95,1530,35],"class_list":["post-7571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2010-midterm-elections","tag-brian-baird","tag-budget","tag-congress","tag-deficit","tag-entitlements","tag-john-fund","tag-obamacare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7571"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7575,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7571\/revisions\/7575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}