Plan

It's common knowledge that low-income people, blue-collar unions, teachers, and radical environmentalists have major influence with the Democrat Party because they all strongly tend to vote for Democrats.

If Democrats can somehow "create" more low-income people (without those people becoming aware they are being manipulated) and then throw a few bones their way, and can throw a few bones to blue-collar unions and teachers, and can implement programs designed to appease radical environmentalists, Democrats could widen and firm up significant parts of their base.

Now, radical environmentalists believe (or so they say anyway) the world is overpopulated. They'd like to see a lower number of people. Since many Americans don't react too well to being badgered about how they should limit themselves to having only (say) 2.3 children, another way to achieve a lower average family size is to make children expensive, is to make living expensive. If one can drive up the real prices of necessities---e.g., food, heating/cooling, transportation, health care, education---people would probably have smaller families because they couldn't afford larger ones.

Also, if you could manipulate the public into thinking the price increases were necessary to save the environment or some such thing, they may not hold those increases against you even though those increases were "helping" to create more low-income people (who, let us recall, tend to vote for Democrats).

So, for example, if the cost of a college education rises much faster than inflation because student loans are readily available to one and all practically regardless of qualifications (coincidentally benefitting teachers, who, let us recall, tend to vote for Democrats), hey, such is life. And if some students eventually have trouble paying off the loans (which they probably shouldn't have received in the first place because their chances of success in college---based on their dismal performances in dumbed-down high schools---were slim), the Democrats stand ready to offer relief of one kind or another.

And if some people have a hard time affording a car because the purchase price is artificially high due to excessive government mandates (e.g., air bags and other expensive "for our own good" devices), they might resort to public transportation (coincidentally benefiting certain unions, who, let us recall, tend to vote for Democrats---the tricky part here is to try to keep the auto workers unions from becoming aware they may lose jobs because of this ploy).

And if the price of gasoline is artificially high due to myriad government regulations on refineries and a government-induced shortage of oil due to arbitrary limitations on oil-drilling, that also might drive more people to public transportation. (Besides benefiting certain unions, this ploy has the added advantage of appealing to environmental extremists.)

And if you can drive up health care costs via government mandates and lawsuits (trial lawyers, big-time contributors to the Democrat Party, love to file lawsuits), you can also "help" to create more low-income people plus create a lack-of-affordable-health-care crisis (for which you can conveniently ride to the rescue).

And if you drive up the cost of food (e.g., corn, milk) by mandating the use of such things like ethanol (which would coincidentally also increase transportation costs since we get less mileage from ethanol than gasoline), that would also "help" to create more low-income people and drive people to public transportation.

Once you've created all these low-income, struggling people, you can then come to their aid with government programs. Currently, for qualified low-income people there are programs for subsidized telephone service, heating/cooling, health care, housing, food, etc., as well as subsidized public transportation for everybody (with reduced fares for the disabled and elderly).

A suspicious person might wonder if all this stuff was happening according to some esoteric grand plan to grow the Democrat Party. But let's not get too carried away (said with tongue firmly in cheek).

Republicans, however, might want to start stressing the various ways Democrats are "helping" to push more people into poverty. We are not hearing anywhere near enough about that. One has to wonder why.