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Progressives shouldn't party just yet
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, Nov 15, 2006Philadelphia Daily News
November 16, 2006
TWO DAYS AFTER the election, the New York
Times published the news that "Victorious Democrats Vow Cooperative
Approach on Taxes and the Economy." Well... bollocks.
My friends and family keep asking me if I'm excited, celebrating, partying up a storm. I'm not.
Everyone
assumes that inclusionist economic policies stand a chance of
implementation in the next Congress. Well, maybe some of those ideas.
But is it a new day for equitable economic policy? I think not... not
just yet.
Of course it's good news that so many of the
president's worst ideas are now buried deep and going nowhere. Plans to
further reduce taxes on the wealthy (by eliminating the estate tax) and
kill the universal retirement system (by privatizing Social Security)
are not likely to move in the 110th Congress.
But I know we
aren't likely to see true progress on economic fairness and inclusion
just because both houses have new leadership.
Why not? It's our own fault.
We
progressives haven't given Congress a clear signal for years about what
we really want. Instead, the message on economic and social policy from
the think-tank and advocacy crowd has been: "Get the best deal you
can!" and "Take the crumbs, if that's all you can get from your seat at
the table."
Even more important, we in the liberal policy
world have in no way prepared the public to demand or support steps to
improve our national economy by increasing economic and social
mobility. We've barely touched on the need to strengthen the 30 percent
of the labor market that is made up of jobs paying less than $10 an
hour. Fact is, we hardly ever focus our advocacy and media work on the
damage to our economy stemming from the large and growing percentage of
jobs no one could call "decent work."
And until voters demand equitable economic policy, we should not expect members of Congress to take the lead.
We
can expect incremental changes, like the very belated minimum-wage hike
on the "to-do" list of our Madam Speaker-Elect. But, will Congress take
the next logical step adopted by many successful state initiative
campaigns: ensuring that wages increase automatically with the cost of
living?
Will Congress pursue some of the new ideas developing
at the state and local level to strengthen economic mobility by making
bad jobs into better jobs? Will we see policy movement toward the
delinking of health coverage from employment, like steps taken in a few
states and one locality (San Francisco, natch)?
How about
ensuring that all employees are offered a limited number of paid sick
days as one city (yeah, yeah - San Francisco again) did on Nov. 8?
Will Congress take action to clarify that employees are free to organize and negotiate for better jobs?
And
sure, it's not necessarily wrong for incoming leadership to signal a
desire to cooperate with the administration and other conservatives.
That's all the voters are ready to accept at this point. But it's our
job to start demanding better policy in the future.
We've
already heard "progressives" advising the new leadership to "resist the
impulse to pursue big ambitions." This might be the right political
advice for today, but it is also strong evidence that another kind of
institution is required - one that has the freedom to focus on
long-term goals and a mission specific to policy outcomes, uncolored by
campaign goals.
It's no good thinking that we can hold our
fire now and turn to the bigger stuff in 2008, when many hope that
progressives will still be surfing the wave of voter discontent with
conservatives. We have to start sharing our most ambitious goals now,
if we want them to be adopted by future candidates, members of Congress
and presidential administrations.
The thing about the new
Congress is not so much what its members choose to do, as what we share
with them about our expectations. If our stated goals are limited, then
the outcomes will be small-bore and we shouldn't be disappointed.
It's not about them - it's about what we want.
Since 1968, the Center for Community Change has strengthened the leadership, voice and power of low-income communities nationwide to confront the vital issues of today and build the social movements of tomorrow.
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