We’ve been called bleeding heart liberals - and worse, at times- but traditionally Jews have adhered to the Democratic Party because of their attachment to the party’s social liberalism. According to The Jewish Week, a * national survey of Jewish-American voters found that 58 percent of Jews called themselves Democrats compared to 22 per cent who considered themselves independents and 15 percent as Republicans. Further, this attachment is based on an ideological and philosophical affinity between Jewish Americans and the Democratic Party, built during the New Deal and the Great Society.

It has been under the watch of Democratic leaders that great social programs, programs which exist until today, have been enacted. Last year we celebrated the 68th anniversary of the Social Security Act, although the present administration suggests gambling with the money of retirees and the needy disabled.

President Roosevelt proposed the Social Security Act and ensured that it was signed into law. The system of Social Security hasn’t changed since Roosevelt. Collected money is put into a trust fund and the funds are invested into secure, interest bearing treasury bonds, where they earn interest until retirement. Today, 91 percent of retirement-aged individuals collect Social Security. Sixty four percent depend on it for more than half their income. In 2002, for example, over 50 million people collected Social Security. If the money for Social Security is invested in the stock market as this administration has suggested, Social Security will be subject to the volatility of the stock market and could deprive our citizens of the funds they have worked so hard to put aside. We have a successful system – the experts predict that it will be solvent for more than 30 years into our future – and if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

By the 1960’s many workers were no longer covered by health insurance when their employment ended. The non-working poor also had no health insurance coverage. Under the concept of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, Congress amended the Social Security Act to activate Medicare(Title 18), a federally funded program to provide healthcare services to the elderly. Also, in 1967, a federal and state partnership program called Medicaid (Title 19), was enacted to provide healthcare services to the poor. A major consumer concern about the program today is insufficient coverage for prescription medications. Another consumer concern is the number – more than 40 million people – not eligible for Medicaid.

The passage of landmark civil rights legislation is Johnson’s most enduring legacy. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 reaffirmed the right to vote and banned discrimination in the provision of public services and in federally funded projects. The 1965 Voting Rights Act gave the Justice Department power to regulate registration laws in the South and to insure that state election laws did not restrict ballot access.

Incidentally, in order to pass this Legislation, Johnson had to go head to head with some Southern Democrats who didn’t want Civil

Rights Legislation to be enacted. Nonetheless, he did what he believed was important for the minority groups in this country. Conversely, in the year 2000 election, the voting rights of many Southern Blacks were trampled on by supporters of Bush who prevented them from registering by whatever means, fair or foul.

Less than a year ago, Bush promised Americans that he would provide seniors with a drug discount card that would save them 10-25% off the cost of all drugs, but as the program launches next week, experts have concluded that the cards don’t guarantee seniors any savings at all and instead of admitting this, the President used millions in taxpayer money to promote the cards through television ads, ads that government regulators later said were misleading.

We were told that there was insufficient money to cover all of the elderly and disabled health care needs but we are able to spend 225 billion dollars on a war that had nothing to do with terrorism – in fact, our interference in Iraq has probably escalated terrorism throughout the world with America as the target.

Yes, we Democrats are tarred with the label “Bleeding hearts” and if being one means that we care more about the elderly and the disabled, and the children, and the working poor, and the minorities in our country, then so be it. The neocons who are part of the Christian right claim to have been given directives from God for their actions, and their God must be very different from our God. I could never imagine that our God would tell us to take from the above groups and give to Pfizer, and Halliburton and Clear Channel, among others.