The Democrats' 'New Direction'

Ahead of the November elections, the Democrats have released their latest platform, A New Direction.

I read the bullet points on their site and thought it was a good start:

Democrats offer a New Direction, putting the common good of all Americans first for a change and will:

Make Health Care More Affordable: Fix the prescription drug program by putting people ahead of drug companies and HMO’s, eliminating wasteful subsidies, negotiating lower drug prices and ensuring the program works for all seniors; invest in stem cell and other medical research.

Lower Gas Prices and Achieve Energy Independence: Crack down on price gouging; eliminate billions in subsidies for oil and gas companies and use the savings to provide consumer relief and develop American alternatives, including biofuels; promote energy efficient technology.

Help Working Families: Raise the minimum wage; repeal tax giveaways that encourage companies to move jobs overseas.

Cut College Costs: Make college tuition deductible from taxes; expand Pell grants and slash student loan costs.

Ensure Dignified Retirement: Prevent the privatization of Social Security; expand savings incentives; and ensure pension fairness.

Require Fiscal Responsibility: Restore the budget discipline of the 1990s that helped eliminate deficits and spur record economic growth.

Then, when I followed the link to read more, I discovered that these bullet points are the entire plan.

Now, they definitely cover some of the pressing issues of concern to Americans but I have to wonder why they stopped there. Perhaps they only wanted to include the bare minimum so that it could fit on those doorknob fliers (that look like big 'do not disturb' signs) that Howard Dean showed Jon Stewart on the Daily Show recently (which Stewart correctly laughed about).

This is a plan?

Come on, Democrats.

If you seriously want to take back control of congress in the fall, you're going to have to come up with something better than this.