It is amazing to me that people can list all the bad stuff the Bush people have pulled and not mention the tax cuts.

Since 2000, the Bush administration, with the help of every Republican in Congress, has gutted the American tax system to aid the richest one percent of us. If they get their way, (zero taxation on capital gains, dividends and inheritence), the richest people in America will not have to pay federal taxes unless they volunteer to do so.

The tax cuts drive everything this administration does. Why else did we go into Iraq with half the troops the Army experts wanted?

The economic class basis of the Republican agenda should be the number one issue in this and every election, but apparently most voters are just too dumb to catch on.

I have a modest proposal for the new Democratic leadership in Congress.

After being abused for six years (actually 12), Democrats should make Republicans pay for civil treatment.

I suggest picking out three or four Republican congressmen--probably committee chairmen in the last six years--who acted in a particularly outrageous fashion

toward Democrats and insisting on their resignations. Democrats could even offer to not field a candidate in special elections to replace the offenders, so the seats would stay in Republican hands.

If the resignations occured, Republicans could be allowed to attend conferences and, maybe, to read legislation before it hit the floor. If the resignations were not forthcoming, Democrats could treat Republicans exactly as they have been treated.

I would prefer the second outcome.

Prior to 1964, white southerners were among the most economically progressive voters in the country. The New Deal had kept them alive through the Depression and brought the area into the modern era with programs like TVA. Democrats lost the South over race, and it has stayed lost.

The secret of Republican success in the South goes back to 1877 (Southern electors bolted and put Hayes in the White House in exchange for an end to Reconstruction and some railroads)and the beginning of the Jim Crow era. The secret that the economic elite has managed to keep (whether they were conservative Southern Democrats who voted with Republicans in Congress or actual Republicans) is that the economic interests of middle class and lower middle class white southerners is much closer to the economic intersts of blacks than to the intersts of the white elite. It has worked since 1877. (Republicans have also played the religious bigotry of the area beautifully.)

As a practical matter, Democrats cannot write off the South (by the way, in Arkansas this year, we had a Democratic sweep top to bottom), but Southerners are natural Democrats if they can see past the racist and religious smoke screens. What the new Democratic majorities in Congress have to do is to show people how the Republicans have screwed 'em. I think white southern voters can be turned from the dark side.

Also by the way, I agree completely with several other writers that Harold Ford, Jr.'s lose was a good thing. That was the only race in the country in which I wanted the Democrat to lose.

As a pratical matter, the Democratic Party cannot write off the South. It is just too much of a handicap to start every national election with a whole region in the other guys' column. Also let me note that here in Arkansas, we just had a Democratic sweep, top to bottom.

The real problem for the Democratic Party and the Country as a whole is how to get voters focused back on economic issues that really matter and off the scams that pass for political issues with people who cannot understand the tax system.

The South has the lowest percentage of voters in the Country who benefit from Republican economic policies. Democrats need to be more candid about economic justice. The Republican Party is an economic class based party that represents the richest people in the Country, and

Democrats need to stand up and say so.

Southern voters have a great capacity for voting their anger. We just need to get it directed at the right target.

I keep wanting to ask this learned group: How in God's name do you talk about the Bush presidency and not point out how far he got in gutting the tax system for the benefit of the richest people in the country. That is worse than the Iraq blunder; it was done on purpose, with malice aforethought.

When this country looks life Brazil, I want people to remember who destroyed it.

These short sighted complaints about criminal behavior fail to appreciate the theory of the unitary executive that has guided the Bush administration. The Germans called it _Das Fuhrerprinzip_. Four justices of the current Supreme Court seem to find the idea completely acceptable.

If the President proposes expanding the military after trying to make it "leaner and meaner" (and cheaper) for six years, we have to question his intentions. Given that Democrats have just taken over Congress, I suspect he may propose an expensive expansion in anticipation of it being turned down. Then he can blame Democrats for the failure in Iraq. Carl Rove is alive and well, just less visible.

"Democrats betrayed our troops and our country by not providing the forces required for victory." I can hear it now.

This may seem farfetched, but there are clearly a lot voters in this country dumb enough to fall for it. How else are you going to shift the blame for the worst self-inflicted wound in American history? And trust me, in the next two years, Republicans are going to be much more concerned with shifting blame than with success.