A Debate Worthy of a Great Nation in Trouble
Lipstick on pigs, sex ed for pre-K, earmarks gone wild -- this presidential campaign is descending to a bridge to nowhere. We cannot let that happen again. This country is up against it: The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Gilded Age inequality, Iraq and Afghanistan, catastrophic climate change, the lawless presidency and more. The next president will face stark challenges that cannot be ignored. We need a debate worthy of a great nation in trouble. And the only way that will happen is if citizens insist on it.
Today in the New York Times, the Institute for America's Future begins a series of "op ads" designed to highlight critical crises this country must address -- and to enlist others in challenging the media and campaigns to address them. For the first of these op eds, go here. We should all join in this effort. Challenge the gotcha journalism, the politics of diversion, lies and posturing -- and demand that this presidential campaign get down to the real questions the next president must face. (Full disclosure: I co-direct the Institute, although I post here in my individual capacity.)
For example: How do we make this economy work for most Americans?
Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- the metastasizing financial cancer now threatens global recession or worse. How and whether to bail out the banks, how to avoid a severe downturn should be at the center of our debate.
But for the next president, the financial mess shouldn't obscure this economy's deeper problems. Underneath the current crisis is a stark reality: even when it is doing well, this economy hasn't been working for most Americans. In the last seven years, for example, when the economy was growing, when Treasury Secretary Paulson was hailing the "strongest world economy I've seen in my business lifetime," when President Bush and Senator McCain were declaring -- McCain as recent as yesterday -- that the "fundamentals of the economy are strong," working and middle income families did not share in the benefits.
From 2000-2007, corporate profits were up, productivity was up, but incomes did not keep up with prices. For the first time since the Census Bureau started publishing the records in the 1940s, the typical family actually lost ground over the seven years of "recovery." And the costs of basics -- health care, housing, gas and home heating, college tuitions -- soared. Poverty spread. More Americans went without health care. Savings were consumed. More added debt, tapping into their home's equity, providing the kindling for the mortgage inferno. And that's when the economy was "good." (For detailed analysis see EPI's new Stateof Working America) No wonder the Rockefeller/Time Magazine poll released in July revealed that fully half of Americans no longer believe the American dream is attainable by working hard and playing by the rules. Something is fundamentally wrong.
And it isn't like the weather. It isn't an act of God. Some blame "technological change," but America's middle class was built on the technological revolutions of the post-World War II period; technological change may expand the pie; it doesn't determine who gets what slice. Others blame globalization. It's true that the US strategy in the global economy has given corporations a club in negotiations with workers. We lost one in seven manufacturing jobs over the past seven years. But service jobs that don't compete in the global economy haven't fared well either. Others say the workers are at fault, for they lack the education they need. But as the Wall Street Journal reported last week, even incomes for college graduates also didn't keep up over the cycle.
The fact is that the very few captured the benefits of growth. The 15,000 richest families -- one one-hundredth of American households -- captured fully one quarter of all the growth of national income. The vast majority of households lost ground. (See Scott Lilly's analysis here)
This hollowing out of the American middle class is rather a direct expression of policies designed to benefit wealth at the expense of work, to empower CEOs and weaken workers, to privilege Wall Street over Main Street.
Over the last 30 years, conservatives and their ideas dominated Washington. Both parties joined in. Under Reagan and Clinton, banks were deregulated and a casino financial system grew in the shadows. Global trade deals protected property rights, not worker rights. Taxes were lowered on the wealth and raised on work. With the crushing of the PATCO air comptrollers strike, Reagan declared open season on unions. The minimum wage was frozen for a decade, lowering the floor. Companies under pressure from speculators and global competitors began shredding the promises once made to workers -- cutting health care, abandoning pensions, ignoring rules on hours and overtime. Undocumented workers were easily exploited. Even Microsoft, the most profitable monopoly of the time, resorted to using permatemps -- permanent temporary workers -- to avoid paying folks full-time benefits. Under Bush, this all came to a head.
What's needed is a fundamental change of direction. Instead of trickle down growth, we should be driving the economy from the bottom up. Instead of focusing on freeing up capital and executives, we should be empowering workers. The IAF ad suggests three fundamental reforms that reflect a growing consensus among progressive economists.
First, empower workers to organize. Unions help workers gain a fair share of the profits they help generate, and help to enforce agreements on hours, conditions and treatment. Since companies now systematically squelch organizing efforts, pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow workers to choose how to organize -- either through by getting a majority to sign membership cards or by holding an election, and mandate negotiation of a first contract.
Second, forge a public social contract to replace the private one that the companies are now shredding. Mandate companies to provide basic health care, contribution to a public pension, paid vacation and sick days, a decent minimum wage, pegged to inflation. These mandates can be phased in over time; mom and pop stores can be exempted. The point is to enforce -- as other industrial countries do -- basic minimums in law so that companies can't compete on the low road, by driving wages and conditions into the ditch.
Third, make full employment the stated goal of our economic policies -- both the fiscal and trade policies of the administration and Congress and the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve, with the government acting as an employer of last resort to keep employment levels up. Over the last 30 years, market fundamentalists -- reflecting the priorities of Wall Street's investors -- have made inflation the priority, not full employment. But wages rose across the board only -- as in the last years of the Clinton administration -- when the economy neared full employment. When jobs are plentiful, workers can negotiate a better deal from their employers because they are better able to abandon a bad deal.
The Presidential Debate
How do the presidential candidates stack up on this agenda? McCain declares himself a "foot soldier in the Reagan revolution," embracing the basic mantra of market fundamentalists -- lower taxes (particularly for the wealthy and the corporations), less regulation, less domestic spending. He is skeptical of unions, and has voted repeatedly against raising the minimum wage, much less extending a public social contract to workers. He wants to unravel employer based health care, not mandate it. His basic promise is to shake up government, make it less wasteful, reduce taxes for companies and the affluent, and get out of the way. In this election, he is the proud representative of the course we've been on.
Obama, due in part to the contested Democratic primary race, has put forth a bolder agenda. He pledges to support the Employee Free Choice Act, and to reverse Bush's anti-union executive orders. He hasn't called for a new public social contract, but favors raising the minimum wage, and pledges health care for all. He's said little about running a full employment economy, much less about government as an employer of last resort. But he does call for a public investment bank, and large public investments in new energy and conservation, in modernizing our infrastructure and in investing in education and training.
The Debate We Deserve
Presidential campaigns aren't policy seminars. Candidates need to inspire voters, define themselves and their opponents. Insult, invective, lies and distortions have been part of American elections from the beginning.
But Americans also deserve a debate that exposes the choices each candidate would make on the fundamental questions facing the country. Why not make this a feature of the TV debates, rather than rehashing old distortions or trying to gin up personal conflicts? What if a debate stated with this question:
Most Americans saw little of the benefits of the last years of economic growth. Wages didn't keep up. Poverty spread. More people went without health care. And that's when the economy was growing. Both of you claim to be candidates of change. What fundamental changes would you make to insure that this economy works for working people?
Wouldn't that be a more interesting question than whether Sarah Palin was for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it?
A debate worthy of a great nation in trouble. That's not too much too ask. Nor too much to demand.
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What can we do? You are correct in all you say Mr. Bosarge. But until we get honest, I mean REAL honest, things will only get worse. The people of America have no recourse. Those in power need to "out" the system. Problem is, the system serves them well. Mention the Federal Reserve, and you don't get posted. The international bankers run the show. We need truth and reconciliation. We can't build back up our country on lies. We can't pretend that the problem is not the problem. The powers that be even blame us!! It doesn't matter who is in office, they are puppets to the same people, term after term. They divide us along party lines, race, religion, gender, you name it, they exploit it. What is going on is sinister, diabolical, deliberate, and until those responsible are outed, things will only get worse. It's the plan. Tin hatters are correct.
As an Obama supporter, I can hardly wait for the debates. My only fear is that they will descend into ridiculous "lipstick" issues and the like that will only distract from real substantive topics that desperately need discussion and debate.
The time for foo foo has ended. It's now time for the real deal.
Your three points, organize workers, a public contract, and full employment are pure Marxism. That stifles growth and investment. It prevents a vibrant economy. What we need is less government and incentives for people to invest here in the US. The only way that will happen is if the investors can expect to make money on their investment.
In the past 30 years almost every heavily unionized industry in the US has declined. Part was bad management. Part was the inability to invest in modernization to keep up with foreign competition.
Thats the reason we are in this crisis now. The people up top trying to please their investors, and forgetting about the people under them.
The economy is just like politics, trickle up, not trickle down.
The problem is everyone wants the government to bail them out and know with the current liberal attitude of government that the government will. They think "I make $32,000 a year. I want a $220,000 house. I'll buy it. When i can't make the payments the government will bail me out." The lender thinks "I will loan him $220,000 and stick the government and Fannie Mae with trying to collect." If the lender knew he would have to collect the money he would never make the loan.
The problem is the government is getting stuck with all the risk and the investors are getting all of the rewards. Get the government out of our lives. Make people and companies face and fix their mistakes. We will be a stronger country with less government.
What fairytale do you live in? Our financial system is collapsing; the American families are losing income, jobs, and their securities; big business being socialized while families are tossed to wolves; the world in financial crisis...w
So the answer is become a Communist?
What we need is to build a society that works for everyone and the planet upon which we live. Not the same old ideological drivel that works only for the rich. What we need is to solve problems, not to blindly impose the same old nonsense that unfettered capitalism is always good and government always bad. It may be true for the rich, although I doubt it, but it certainly is false for everyone else.
With the U.S. economy in severe turmoil . . . where the hell is Bush?
I know he's unpopular and only has a few more months in office, but the American people should see his face out in front, explaining why he authorized the expenditure of $85 billion of our money to bail out AIG and what it will mean to the American taxpayer.
Again, I know he's not popular right now, but he should at least try to execute the duties he's responsible for.
"Where the hell is Bush," perhaps reading, "My Pet Goat."
Considering he is clueless, I'm syre he doesn't want to advertise just how clueless he really is. That MA he has is doing him a lot of good. The interesting thing is he's run this country just like all of his failed businesses. Do you think Poppy Bush and the Saudis will bail him out again ...No, I didn't think so, we are on our own!
This was raised in an interview I had heard with a wall street executive who said that right now Paulson is running the country. Through spit and glue, propping it up with taxpayer money, he is trying to hold this market together during the elections. Come January, when the new president takes over it is all going to collapse. Scary thought but possibly true.
Well, the most advanced Russian ships left port several days ago on their way to Venezuela for the imminent wargames that are scheduled off the Venezuelan coastline.
Perhaps nobody'll notice that the market is propped up... and held together with Scotch tape... because we'll all stand behind OUR President as another war starts... (don't pay attention to the economy, folks...)
Where the hell is the Senate and Congress? They are all out trying to get reelected instead of doing their jobs.
Most Americans saw little of the benefits of the last years of economic growth. Wages didn't keep up. Poverty spread. More people went without health care. And that's when the economy was growing. Both of you claim to be candidates of change. What fundamental changes would you make to insure that this economy works for working people?
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So, how do we get this question asked at the 9/26 Presidential Debate and the 10/02 Vice Presidential Debate.
I totally agree with this article. We, as voters, deserve to know when the rest of America (99.9%) of us get the tiniest of slices from that huge pie.
I believe that events will force debate at least on economic issues. The disastrous financial situation, and, gross inequity between rich/poor, declining middle class, 47m people lack healthcare, declining education, deteriorating infrastructure, broken government, a presidency out of control...
These events are all to familiar to millions to voters: McCain/Obama can try to sling mud using trite nonsense to make hay but in the end, the person who provides reasonable solutions and allies citizen concerns about t he future will be president. This election is unlike any that we've had except in the memories of anyone but our oldest citizens. Rovian tactics won't work; yet, Obama must stay focused on the issues all the while matching McCain/Palin mudpie for mudpie. In the end, McCain has no real solutions because his campaign is based on "I want to be president because it's my turn and I deserve it" not because he has any leadership capabilities or solutions.
Let's start a pool on 'What minute into the debates before JM plays the POW card?"
I'll go with 8 minutes.
Within 5 minutes of John McCain getting his first question.
He will apply it to every question.
The stagflation, double-digit interest rates and high unemployment of the Carter years were far worse than anything we're facing now. I find it interesting people keeping bringing up the Depression but can't remember back to the late 70s.
Sorry, I don't agree with you. Granted, in the '70's we had the OPEC embargo which pushed everything to the brink. Carter tried to deal with that and was blown off as a crank and Ronnie made a secret deal with the Iranians for arms if they kept our people until he (Ronnie) was elected..
You reap what you sow. That is what we are doing now, reaping the "benefits" of deregulation. As Ronnie said when running for his second term "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?" If you are part of those 15,000 families in the USA you resoundingly are, if you are middle class you are lucky if you can still consider yourself middle class.
Actually, being individually responsible not expecting help from others as repubs like to refer, I had significant earnings on my savings during the Carter years. Without Carter I would probably be scrambling financially right now. Times were much better then than they are now. It is all up to you, as an individual, in every circumstance unless your government steals your ability to do so.
Sadly, I think you are preaching to the choir Robert.
How do we get to the public who actually accepts McCain's ads without a thought?
How do we get to those who will vote against their own interests time and time again?
Catholics by in large will not vote democratic because of the ABORTION issue.
Fundamentalists for a whole other list of issues, including the dreaded "gay agenda."
Or Southerners or Michiganders who simply will not vote for a black man.
These are the people we must reach!
__________
I wrote this a while ago...
THE GAY AGENDA
IS...
The gay agenda is an agenda to accept all people for who and what they are without judgment. It is committed to loving and accepting people as they are because of the belief that we have all been created beautifully wonderfully and perfectly by our creator. We are committed to being family by being an extended family to many whose own families have thrown them out unto the streets. We are strong we are committed and we are united in this effort to be the loving creatures we were made to be! We chose love over hate, we chose truth over living a lie, we choose to be understanding over intolerance, we choose to be caring because we know pain, we chose peace because we are lovers and not fighters and we choose God whomever whatever he or she they or it may be because we wish to be blessed.
Abortion issue again dividing Catholic votes
Struggle on how to apply beliefs in politics reaches swing cities
By David D. Kirkpatrick
updated 12:01 a.m. PT, Wed., Sept. 17, 2008
Once a reliable Democratic voting bloc, Catholics have emerged as a pivotal swing vote in recent presidential races. Evenly divided in a New York Times-CBS News poll over the summer, Catholics make up about a quarter of the national electorate and about a third in the pivotal battleground states of Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania . "Whoever wins the Catholic vote will generally win our state and, most of the time, the nation," said G. Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa."
more: http://www
This is so sad, the religious right does not think Catholics are saved.The Catholics would rather place a man who wants to dismantle some of the basic parts of the constitution in power so the government can go after the current groups to hate, ship em of to prison & torture.
Do you really think they won't go after Catholics and Jews and Blacks? Why Do I think McCain could do this if elected? Because the next president will probably appoint 3 to 4 supreme court judges. If the court becomes all republican and supports that dismantling then the democracy becomes hollowed out with simulated elections. Because without habeas corpus, dissenters can be called "treasonous" as (Bush & McHoover have done) and sent to Gulags.
With a packed supreme court, not only will roe vs wade be overturned but voter disenfranchisement will increase and then become law like before the civil rights movement. Why do you think they are pulling out all the plugs to defeat Obama. Its not about the WH, it's about taking over as theocratic and white Dictatorship that pretends to be a democracy.
The pendulum MUST swing back or this country is down the tubes. The American Empire, based upon the greatest governmental foundation - the Constitution - the world has ever seen, will choke to death in its own excesses of greed, self-interest, partisanship, apathy, ignorance, religious superstition, and lack of education.
The polls that show an incompetent John McCain and an unqualified Sarah Palin, promising to continue the last 8 years of utter foreign and domestic disaster, running neck and neck with an enlightened Barack Obama and a seasoned Joe Biden, representing change in form and substance, are nothing less than frightening.
25%-30% of the population can be counted on to vote for the Democratic ticket.
25% - 30% of the population can be written off as hopeless right wing, Christian and/or neocon cool aid drinkers.
That leaves a huge muddled middle of "independents", who range from truly careful and attentive middle of the roaders to dithering dimwits who shift with the latest soundbite of the news cycle.
There is hope, however, in the fact that Obama continues to break fundraising records month after month, the latest in reaction against the cynical Palin VP nomination.
This time, we really are at a crossroads in American history, and our futures, our children's, and their children's, are truly at stake.
Fantastic op-ed in NYT on McSame's healthcare plan. Please pass around.
http://www
This is what the media should be covering..
What we should insist upon is that public servants & speakers be wired to a lie detector and the results transmitted on the big screen tv's everytime they open their mouths in public.
What we should insist upon is a new gov't agency: The Department of Facts or Fictions. In addition to the above mentioned lie detector testing during any public forum in which a 'liartician' will speak it will have special agents, called FoFF's (Fact or Fiction Finders). The FoFF's responsibilities will be many, from speech reviews to arrest powers for blatant lies... which is actually perjury to the public... punishable by a mandatory 5 yr min. sentence per offense.
Time to start treating political liars like the criminal perjurors they are. Once convicted these heinous felons will of course no longer be a threat to our self-governing republic because felons can't vote or run for office!
This is unfortunate because Senator Obama is a dynamic leader, with the people and vision to achieve real fiscal responsibility, develop intelligent foreign policy, re-build our military and restore an executive branch that supports and defends our badly battered Constitution of the United States. Unfortunately, the "Campaign for Change" is about to be steamrolled by my party's skillful use of emotional misinformation honed to a level unmatched since the Nazi propaganda machine of 1930's. So, if you want your candidate to win, quit sitting on the sidelines, stop talking about issues amongst yourselves and stand up and fight for what you know is right!
Our country cannot take another four minutes, let alone another four years of the same old failed model of leadership and fiscal irresponsibility. Take America back! Contact your local Campaign for Change office and get involved now!
Greg King
A Morrison Republican
He should have chosen Hillary as VP, plain and simple.
She was never in the running. Get over it.
...Senator Obama is a dynamic leader...
He is a charismatic speaker, I'll give him that. When I ask people why they are supporting Obama I don't get anything about issues, just that he supports change. No one has yet been able to tell me what change. I would expect a leader to communicate their goals effectively.
To busy attacking McCain I guess.
Are you a 30 second sound-biter?
Go to his website and you will have your answer.
I am looking forward to the first Presidential debate. Will it be marshmallow fluff, or a "Tim Russert" ANSWER THE QUESTION.
The American people are furious the campaign(s) have deteriorated to nothing but "bitch slapping and cat fights" and than the Nominees stand and have the gall to say - we should run better campaigns, while then immediately coming out with an ad showing their competitor stealing cookies from a child. We, the people are tired, disgusted and overwhelming apathetic.
We are "ripe for the pickings" and I am afraid only a few of us are seriously concerned about it..
I blame the media as much as the GOP. Of course, they've worked hand in glove to create this kind of scenario
Rather than inspire the people, my party berates and belittles our opponents to the point that the American people are completely bamboozled into thinking the opposing candidate is somehow less of an American. Although I know the staunchest of my fellow Republicans will dismiss my outrage as traitorous rhetoric or simply the ranting of a misguided soul, I say to my fellow Republicans: it is we that are causing the deep divides in this country. It is we who are polarizing America in our attempt to vilify and turn public opinion against other good Americans who are just as patriotic, just as religious, just as family-oriented and just as concerned for their country as ourselves.
If you thing the Republicans are polarizing America you must be listening to a different campaign than the one currently happening in America.
Really listen to the comments from both parties. Try to find a speech from Obama where he doesn't pit his audience against big business or the "rich". Every speech has one of two themes; you against business or haves against have nots. Sounds pretty divisive to me. I don't hear those things from the McCain campaign.
On the issue of mudslinging, there is way too much from both sides.
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