What a Difference a Year Makes!

I’ve followed with interest some of the recent blog entries from RJ Eskow, Donnie Fowler, Jamal Simmons and others on the need for Democrats to have a positive agenda and set of ideas of their own and not just count on public dissatisfaction with Bush-Cheney-Miers-DeLay-Frist-Rove-Libby-Abramoff-Etc.-Etc.-Etc. to swing us into power.

That’s true politically – but its true on a higher level as well. Politics ultimately isn’t just about winning elections but about leading America to a better place. Democrats need ideas not only to change who’s in power, but to change the course of America’s future. The sad truth is that when it comes to one of the biggest questions America faces – how to make our economy work for working people in a globalized Information Age – neither party has any real answers. We need to change that in a hurry.

I spent a year and a half in 2003 and 2004 working on the Kerry campaign, but I have a confession: for me the saddest day of the fall of 2004 wasn’t that first Tuesday in November. The saddest day was October 13, 2004 – one year ago yesterday.

It was the third and final Presidential debate at Arizona State University in Tempe. Early in the evening, Bob Schieffer asked the candidates a question: “What do you say to someone in this country who has lost his job to someone overseas who's being paid a fraction of what that job paid here in the United States?”

President Bush said he would tell that worker, “Here's some help for you to go get an education. Here's some help for you to go to a community college. We've expanded trade adjustment assistance. We want to help pay for you to gain the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century.”

It took Senator Kerry a while to get around to his answer but he did. He said “I don't want American workers subsidizing the loss of their own job. And when I'm president, we're going to shut that loophole in a nanosecond and we're going to use that money to lower corporate tax rates in America for all corporations, 5 percent. And we're going to have a manufacturing jobs credit and a job hiring credit so we actually help people be able to hire here.”

I sat there watching the debate and realized again what I had known for years: that in this moment of enormous transformations in the American economy both parties were completely lost.

Don’t get me wrong. We do need to do much more to invest in workers’ skills and help them retrain for new jobs. We do need to stop subsidizing outsourcing and encourage the creation of new jobs in America. (Full disclosure: I was part of the Kerry campaign when we put together that plan). But these are band-aids and stop-gaps. Neither party has been putting forward ideas big enough to meet the challenge of completely rethinking the way we approach the economy in an age of globalization and rapid technological change. And neither party has been saying anything that actually rings true to that worker in Bob Schieffer’s question – that is a real answer to someone who has seen the old rules of an old economy rewritten in a new economy and a new century.

That’s where Since Sliced Bread comes in. Andy Stern has already written eloquently on this project. But for those of you haven’t participated yet, I’d urge you to check it out. Since Sliced Bread is a chance to not just carp and complain but to put your ideas out there and see what Americans think – more than 1800 Americans have already contributed some amazing and creative insights. Read through them. Offer your own. The next economic agenda can’t come just from industry lobbyists or the same-old “experts.” We need people from outside of Washington to think outside the box. We need an agenda to end economic policies that work from the top-down and to formulate them we need to work from the bottom-up.

We are at a moment crying out for huge new transformative notions. That’s what leaders in both parties – like Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson – offered a century ago, the last time the economy was being reshaped top to bottom. They had different takes, but they each responded to the big questions of what was happening to the country. Think about how rapidly our economy is changing – and then think about what we need to do to respond.