By far the top quality I look for in a potential president is competence, followed, surprisingly distantly, by how much I agree with them. Followed yet more distantly by whether or not I trust them, and eventually by how much I like them. Which is a roundabout way of saying I’m still in Hillary’s soulless, depressing camp.
Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.
Topics: How the Reagan Revolution influenced the American Left; the US airstrike on a hospital in Kunduz Afghanistan; Perkins Loans end. People: Bill, Kelley, Nate. Produced: October 11th, 2015.
Episode 146 (54 min):
AFD 146
– Generational Politics: How the Reagan Revolution influenced the American Left
– The US blew up a hospital in Afghanistan. What now?
– Why was the Perkins Loan program allowed to expire?
– AFD: “Getting trapped in Reagan’s ideological framing”
– France24: “Aid workers killed in US air strike on Afghan hospital”
– AFD by Kelley: “Perkins Loan program expires after 57 year run”
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Ronald Reagan campaigning with Nancy Reagan in Columbia, South Carolina. Oct 10, 1980. (Credit: Reagan Presidential Library)
“Getting trapped in Reagan’s ideological framing” is a theme you can probably expect me to continue to expand upon soon, but I wanted to quote some key passages from an excellent article from July by economist George R. Tyler (formerly of the U.S. Treasury Department), to help set the stage for my future arguments on this point:
…a host of proposals to address wage stagnation and the ensuing economic malaise of middle- and working-class Americans.
Few quibble with the problem, and a host of constructive solutions have surfaced…
Good ideas all, but they share a common framework provided by Reaganomics in which returns to labor are ultimately dictated by market forces. […]
Government wage subsidies, educational enhancements, daycare and the other economic menu offerings shuffle income from taxpayers and employers to the middle class. Yet […] the salad bar contains no market disruptors, the essential ingredient to restoring middle class prosperity.
The reforms are offered within the conceptual framework provided by Reaganomics that eschews market disruptors.
[…]
American middle-class prosperity is being held hostage by Reaganomics. Only when reforms offered by Democrats move beyond that conceptual framework by linking wages to productivity can its prospects brighten.
Various specifics come up in Tyler’s article (and many of his other articles) with regard to wages, of course.
But the bigger picture point here is a good one that many Democrats should do well to take a harder look at: Are we on the left no longer seriously pushing big and transformative ideas because we’re still trapped inside an ideological box (or Overton Window) framed by the rhetoric and views of Ronald Reagan and his legion of devotees now in government?
Even many dedicated progressive policymakers, policy developers, and policy activists are perhaps still too constrained in what they imagine in possible and are reluctant to push back — and to push the American people to see government as possible solution and partner, not as the source of all ills like the Reagan Revolution insisted.
Again, more on this down the line, but I want to get the ball rolling with the quotes above.
There are many ways that the very wealthy already benefit financially from U.S. government policies (which is frustrating to me), but opposing zero-tuition public colleges because rich kids might get to go to public colleges for free seems like a strange position.
Clinton hits Sanders on his tuition free college plan: "I am not in favor of making college free for Donald Trump’s kids."
— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) October 5, 2015
What are the odds that Hillary Clinton’s implied scenario of a flood of ultra-wealthy students will suddenly decide to enroll in public universities because the tuition is free now? Won’t they overwhelmingly just continue to go to elite schools where tuition is still charged? (Just like how they tend to go to private school for K-12 even though it is freely available to them in public form.)
And, as a side note about her overall plan (means-testing plus work-study), why should the poorest kids who’ve probably had to struggle the hardest to get to college also then have to work on the side to qualify for tuition coverage under her plan? Why don’t we just make it so everyone, regardless of means, has the right to go to college for free without working in addition to concentrating on their studies — and let the chips fall where they may? Why do we have to make these policies so complicated for no apparent reason? Just offer them to everyone and whoever takes it, takes it. It’s not that expensive.
I’ve been a bit concerned of late that the Democratic Party isn’t offering much of a vision to compete with the Republican misery machine. What little has been offered is just that – little. It doesn’t go big. It doesn’t present principles and then offer big ideas to fulfill those principles. So, here are some ideas:
– Everyone fed. Everyone clothed. Everyone housed. Everyone educated. Everyone healthy or being treated. Everyone employed if they can work.
– A Constitution that allows the people to govern themselves. A Government that lifts up its people and does not oppress them.
These are not radical ideas. These are basic ideas. These are not optional ideas. These are necessary ideas. When I say everyone, I mean everyone. This isn’t just an “economics” platform. This is an equal rights platform.
We have to restore our government and restore our vision if we’re going to have communities and a country that meet our founding promises. We can only accomplish big things if we’re willing to imagine that accomplishing big things is possible – and then try.
The American Dream is a popular rhetorical allusion for politicians, as I explored in my research book. But the American Dream is only possible when our leaders are willing to dream big too – to dream up new ideas to help keep and make the Dream real. Every era in American history when there has been opportunity for an entire generation to advance, big creative policies have led the way.
We need bolder leadership for the post-Soviet age and the Internet-access age than we have had so far, particularly since those turning points are themselves decades old.
I don’t want our vision to be constrained by achievements we made 50 or 80 or 100 years ago. I want us to come up with – and then implement – ideas they’ll be talking about 100 years from now.
“We Can Do Better”
“Big government, for the few or the many?”
Abstract from: “I Accept Your Nomination: American Dream Rhetoric in Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speeches, 1932-2008”
47% of companies use credit checks as part of their hiring process for some positions. 1 in 7 people believe that poor credit scores kept them from being hired.
Senator Elizabeth Warren hopes to change that. Warren (D-MA) and Representative Steven Cohen (D-TN) have introduced a bill to prevent employers from running credit scores on potential hires. The duo believe that not only are credit scores frequently inaccurate, but they are also blatantly prejudicial, giving an advantage to wealthy applicants whose savings were able to buoy them during difficult times.
The use of credit scores in hiring is troublesome for a number of reasons. Primarily, as Demos Senior Policy Analyst Amy Traub reports studies on the matter have “found no correlation between personal credit and propensity to commit theft or any other ‘counterproductive workplace behaviors.” So, while this process is fruitless for learning about prospective hire’s ability to do the job well, it does allow employers to discriminate on the basis of wealth.
Warren explains:
“This is about basic fairness — let people compete on the merits, not on whether they already have enough money to pay all their bills.”
Ten states have already banned the use of credit scores in hiring, most recently Nevada. Warren and Cohen hope to make the ban federal. The bill that Warren introduced in the Senate, the Equal Employment for All Act, is cosponsored by six other Democratic Senators and supported by more than 40 organizations.
Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.
Topics: Are Blairites and Clintonites right about the center-left? What lessons can be learned from the 1820s and 1830s in US politics? Understanding the Trump bankruptcies better. People: Bill, Nate. Produced: September 6th, 2015.
Episode 142 (51 min):
AFD 142
– Corbyn and Sanders: Are centrist Blairites and Clintonites right about the left?
– US history: What lessons can be learned from the 1820s and 1830s in US politics?
– Trump bankruptcies: Not as negative as widely suggested? We compare and contrast.
– AFD: “The Only Way is Blair”
– AFD: “When The Party’s Over: The 1820s in US Politics”
– AFD: “Op-Ed | Trump’s Bankruptcies in Perspective”
RSS Feed: Arsenal for Democracy Feedburner
iTunes Store Link: “Arsenal for Democracy by Bill Humphrey”
And don’t forget to check out The Digitized Ramblings of an 8-Bit Animal, the video game blog of our announcer, Justin.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
