The milestone of a new year always gets me thinking about both the past and future, and a new decade being upon us makes me do so even more, so I have been thinking a lot about where we were as a country 10 years ago. In January of 2000, things were looking pretty good in comparison to what we are seeing today, and it is pretty stunning how much the landscape has changed. Back then, we had turned a steep deficit earlier in the decade into a large surplus that appeared to be going as far as the eye could see; our country's economy had emerged out of a tough recession in the George HW Bush years into an economy that was producing net new jobs at an average pace of about 3,000,000 a year over the previous several years; poverty rates had been heading down; wage rates for middle class workers had been heading up at the best rate since the 1960s. In terms of foreign affairs, we were at a peace, and the respect we had from other countries was at a high water mark.
Overall, the '90s had been a relatively good decade in American history. There were, however, some seeds that had been planted that would lead to terribly destructive consequences several years down the road. Currency and trade policies were leading to the steady decline in American manufacturing. The telecommunications bill passed in 1996 would lead to a concentration of ownership in media that would be harmful to our democracy. And by far the worst, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, combined with other financial deregulatory measures before and since, would create more damage to our economy than anything other than the Great Depression itself. When George W Bush came into office, these forces of destruction accelerated, and the result is right in front of us.
Only ten years later, it is stunning to see how dramatically different the facts on the ground are today in comparison. It is amazing how much damage can be done to a country as big as this one by a few legislative changes and one stunningly bad President stumbling around for 8 years. Big federal budget surpluses turned into massively big deficits. Instead of 22 million net new jobs in the 8 years before, a net negative new jobs in Bush's 8 years, with bone crunching additional job losses caused by the financial crisis in the first 6 months of Obama's term. Poverty and hunger went way up. Middle class wages and incomes were stagnant. In stark contrast to the 1990s, this last decade has been a wasteland for most of America's workers, with only the biggest players in the financial industry, defense and homeland security contractors, and the highest income earners having been the beneficiaries of the last decade's economic trends.
So much damage has been done to this economy, it is hard to imagine us climbing out of this hole for quite a while, but the question in front of us today is this: can we plant the seeds for a stronger future in the midst of this bad economy in the same fashion that some of the seeds of our economic destruction today were planted in those good years of the 1990s? That should be the defining mission of Democrats and progressives in these challenging days. We should be doing everything possible to help get the economy back on track in the short run, but should keep a strong focus on what will plant those seeds for the future. The bad news, of course, is that the new Republican House has no interest whatsoever in planting those seeds. The good news is that, while it has been easy to miss because Democrats have been so bad about telling people what they have accomplished, there have actually been some strong things done in the last two years that will pay dividends far into the future, including:
1. The investments made in infrastructure through the stimulus and other appropriations, including both traditional kinds like roads and bridges and schools, and more high tech infrastructure like moving toward universal broadband, will pay off for the next 50 years. There should have been more spent on this, far more since this country's infrastructure deficit is huge, but every dollar invested in this is a good thing.
2. Investments in energy conservation through the stimulus and the work that various government agencies are doing will be paying off in many different ways for decades to come, and investment in other kinds of renewable energy will be hugely beneficial as well. Again, there needs to be much more, but what has been done so far is a good start.
3. Making sure women have equal rights when it comes to ensuring they get equal pay through the Lily Ledbetter Act will help a lot of women get better wages.
4. While health care reform will not contain costs as much as it should have because of lacking a public option and the ability to negotiate with drug companies, there are a variety of things done both in health care reform and in addition to it that will help our economy over the long run. More children will get health care coverage, allowing more of them to lead normal productive lives as adults; more preventative care for all our citizens will decrease long term costs and lead to healthier workforces for American companies; more poor people will get care when they need it through Medicaid, keeping many of them from developing long term chronic conditions; tobacco will finally be regulated, meaning less people will get addicted to cigarettes; stem cell research will very likely lead to major breakthroughs that will save money and improve Americans' health overall; insurance companies will have to spend at least 80% of their revenues on actual health care claims, forcing them to keep both their administrative expenses and their out-of-control profit margins down. Most importantly of all, with more health care security available to all our citizens, people won't be locked into jobs they hate for the sake of the health coverage, potentially fostering major amounts of new small businesses and innovation in the American economy.
5. As with the investments made through the stimulus and the changes made through health reform, the financial reform bill passed in 2010 and the credit card reform bill passed in 2009 didn't go nearly far enough, but the positive steps they did take are important. An independent Consumer Financial Products Bureau, along with the credit card reform measures, have the potential to seriously re-structure middle class debt issues in a very positive way. New rules and disclosure on trading are going to be very helpful. Regulating swipe fees on debit cards will be a quick injection of an extra $15 billion a year into the Main Street economy. Auditing the Fed will give us new tools to understand how the banks and the Fed are cutting deals to help Wall St bankers at the expense of everyone else. As with everything else when new legislation passes, how good the regulators are will go a long way in determining how much these new measures actually help middle class and poor families, but the fact that we have finally started the process of tightening regulations on the financial industry after decades of bi-partisan deregulation is important.
The seeds that have been planted in the last two years are not enough to rebuild the forest fire worth of destruction wreaked in recent years. Progressive activists will have to keep working to both keep these seeds from being eaten by Republican and corporate lobbyist animals (to keep torturing the metaphor), and to plant more desperately needed seeds. And the next two years, we will need Obama to use the powers of the executive branch to make more progress even though Republicans in Congress will stop most good legislative initiatives. Most important to our country's hopes for the future, we will need to do what every other major economic power on earth already does, which is to have a well constructed strategy for helping the promising new job producing industries of the future, grow and flourish. We need more money for infrastructure, we need more money for green jobs, we need more programs like the swipe fee regulations that take money out of finance and put it into the Main Street economy- but most of all we need an effective strategy. If we can plant those seeds for the future today, our trajectory over the next 10 years is going to look a lot better than it does after the greed and destruction of the last 10.
Hello Open Left. I'm reposting this diary to see if anyone responds to it since the message is ever more relevant since the WH is not interested in supporting the most popular element of reform now that reconciliation is on the table; the public option. Yes it would be stronger and robust if the house hadn't rid it of Medicare reimbursement rates, but it's a platform to build on because it has federal administration with the access to care and low cost bringing down the deficit with it.
As you can see it hardly received any attention at all. I put a lot of work in when I decide to write a diary and posting early in the morning doesn't always work either. So I mainly just write comments now and they get more notice.
The Senate bill as it is won't pass the House(Many people need to get over this and accept it) and no one can get mad at the House because they have constituents as well. everything in the 2008 Democratic campaign platform all around regarding HCR was surrendered, not compromised. Compromise is a two way street and the House Progressive Caucus deserves something in order to deliver for their constituents.
Bipartisanship with no principle is surrender not bipartisanship. I should of named it that, but here's my diary on this important subject and in depth review of what went behind the Civil Rights Act of 1964 relating to today and today's flawed surrender; the correct name for this type of bipartisanship.
Without further ado I re-post this. I hope you read and enjoy it.
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Hello all. Right now I am going to finish up a series I wrote during the Primary (and I was in Primary mode so remember that when looking back) titles Partisanship Never Was the Problem and in most cases where something big had to be passed, this rang true as I outlined with FDR and the New Deal and Truman and his Fair Deal even though only one provision of that passed; it was the fight that Truman brought to put civil rights and UHC on the map building on what FDR created regarding the Civil Rights division in the Justice Department and FDR adopting his cousin's and father of the Progressive Era's platforms, who actually had the first UHC proposal.
The Arkansas Progress Team began organizing three months ago to bring new leadership, ideas, and membership to the Arkansas Young Democrats by focusing on progressive offline and online grassroots organizing. Their three main goals are to increase membership (check this one already), increase fund raising, and increase awareness on the issues important to Young Democrats. On Saturday, April 18th, over 200 Young Democrats turned out to vote at the State Capitol Building and delivered the Arkansas Progress Team a victory.
Left to Right: Eric Bell (Sec/Treas), Jonathan Spinks (Committeeman), and Chris Burks (President)
It's hard to overstate the transformative moment that we're in as a nation and, particularly, as progressives. In just a few years, we've gone from the high point of conservative power to a stunning rejection of conservative federal leadership and the historic election of a progressive African-American president.
But the electoral sea change is just part of the extraordinary national moment. The financial meltdown and slide toward deep recession have crystallized Americans' anger over deteriorating economic security, stagnant mobility, growing inequality, and policies of isolation instead of connection. Americans are ready for a new social compact and a transformed relationship between the people and our government. They are calling for a new era of big ideas and different values than we've seen over most of the past three decades.
The electorate has shown an unprecedented willingness to overcome racial and ethnic barriers to take on daunting shared challenges. Young people, people of color, and low-income people turned out to register and vote in unprecedented numbers that bode well for a far more participatory and egalitarian democracy going forward.
Even before this year's remarkable events, opinion research showed a historic, progressive shift in Americans' views on issues that (not coincidentally) were barely mentioned in the election. Perhaps most striking is the shift on criminal justice and problems of addiction, where the U.S. public has moved broadly to support rehabilitation and treatment over incarceration and retribution, as well as assistance and integration for people emerging from prison.
But an unprecedented opportunity for progressive values and ideas is not the same as victory for a progressive social and policy vision. The stark challenges of rising inequality, faltering security, and broken systems of health care, immigration, and criminal justice are the same on November 5 as they were on November 4. What's changed is only the chance for transformative change.
History shows that progressives could easily blow this opportunity, just as conservatives blew their transformative moments after the 1994 elections and the attacks of September 11, 2001. A few principles can help progressives move from opportunity to realization in ways that profoundly benefit our country.
The campaign schedule has been pretty intense over the last week and will continue to be so until the BIG day on Tuesday, November 4th. I want to congratulate everyone for putting so much effort into this year's election, not just for an individual campaign, but for the entire Democratic ticket. I've seen people in every community throughout the 5th district working to make sure the message is getting out.
I want to remind everyone it is important that we finish strong. Don't take anything for granted, ignore the polls and work like the polls show our candidates 5 points down. Remember, while all indications show Barack Obama will be our next president, if we believe the polls, Al Gore would be concluding his second term or we would be working to re-elect President John Kerry right now.
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