Back to the Future - My Grandchildrens' America in 2040

What America will be like for my grandchildren, in 2040, if the conservatives have their way over the rest of this decade.

In the year 2040 my three grandchildren will be 34, 32, and 30.  They may be married with children of their own.  Of course if they are it will be to spouses of the opposite gender since same sex marriage will be illegal.  

What type of education will they have had? What schooling will their children be able to look forward to.  They had best find a way to make good salaries as their children may have to go to the expensive private schools that will dominate education in America. Public schools renamed Poor Schools will be only for those with no income and will be classes of 40 or more with low paid part time teachers.  My grandchildren may have managed to get into college, if their parents could afford it, or they were brilliant enough to win scholarships, since student loans were no longer available, that program having been abolished in 2020.

As for jobs, what vocations my grandchildren pursue I can’t predict; if they pursue what we called in my day middle class blue collar or white collar jobs they will be paid low wages (the federal minimum wage being repealed in 2018); and even those jobs will be hard to come by with the increased outsourcing due to tax loopholes for multinational corporations. They will be on their own when it comes to getting raises or seeking family leave time since collective bargaining was outlawed for public employees in 2017 and it soon became a relic of the past for private sector workers.

My daughters will be 63 and 61 and since social security was privatized around 2015 they can’t look forward to much in the way of retirement income since when the market collapsed in 2019 they lost everything in their privatized voluntary pension plan. And expensive health care will be a challenge with the abolition of medicare in 2025. So my grandchildren will have to take care of their parents while they also try to finance some sort of education for their children and make ends meet for themselves.

There won’t be much in the way of trips and leisure for the kids since the national park system was privatized and now has become resorts for the rich, and with gas at $10 a gallon they can’t afford to drive there anyway.

Some may say this allegory is all an exaggeration.  Not really.  The conservatives today make no bones about their desire to repeal and abolish the progressive programs of the past 200 years. America in 2040, if the extreme right has its way, will, except for modern technological changes, be very similar to America in 1840.  It really will be going Back to the Future.  You can almost say we’ve been there and seen the future - it didn’t work for the great masses of Americans in 1840 and it won’t work for them in 2040. 

But if one looks at the entire history of man it tells us that my great grandchildren just entering adulthood  in 2040 will renew the progressive march and reclaim the American middle class dream and get this country moving again. Woodrow Wilson said that once in every 25 years the American people would rise up for reform. So maybe in 2036 my grandchildrens’ generation will rise to that challenge.

Perhaps they’ll find my papers and read about the programs I espoused when serving in the New York State Assembly and in Pennsylvania Democratic party politics.  Perhaps they’ll find that quote from Abraham Lincoln that once guided the GOP “the legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but can not do at all or can not so well do for themselves”.    My grandchildren and their children after them may relearn the lessons of our past that the American people together are on an unstoppable march for progress and human dignity and that as Ma Joad said in The Grapes of Wrath – they survive, they just keep coming because they’re the people.

3-13-2011       

Some Thoughts on Four Varied Subjects

           

            INFRASTRUCTURE -

                        If todays Republicans were in charge in the 1860's the federal government wouldn’t have helped finance the transcontinental railroad and it wouldn’t have been completed.  Had they been in charge in the 1950's Eisenhower’s interstate highway system wouldn’t have been built.  Their approach is that each state should build what it wants, though none now can afford to build anything.  The Republican Party was founded by men like Lincoln who believed in the American System of Henry Clay in which the federal government built national infrastructure.  The problem with todays right wingers is that they only know the history they want to think happened and that it happened in the way they wanted it to.

            POLITICAL CORRECTNESS -- CIVIL DISCOURSE

                        This media pushed hype for “civil discourse” seems to be becoming a one way street in which the right wing can say what it wants, e.g. Beck and Limbaugh, and if a liberal commentator or candidate spells out the truth, e.g. calling fascist 1930's-like tactics what they are namely fascist Nazi like-tactics they get blasted.  Right  wing candidates can demonize liberal candidates, but evidently according to the liberal media liberal candidates are supposed to turn the other cheek.

            PUBLIC FINANCING OF CAMPAIGNS

                        Until Americans wake up and support public financing of election campaigns we will at best have a government dominated by incumbents (whose newsletters and staff amount to public financing of their campaigns) and at worst what we see today -- a government whose politics is controlled by the wealthy moneyed interests of billionaires and multinational corporations.   Public financing would level the playing field and allow middle class non-rich people to again get elected to office.  Only when we again get regular working Americans in the Congress and the state legislatures are we going to get something done about our govenrment deficits without wiping out the programs that created the middle class in this country.

            THE RIGHT WING ATTEMPT TO REOPEN THE CULTURE WAR.

            From across the country comes reports of right wing, sometimes Tea Party Republicans, introducing state laws that are simply a way of reopening the culture wars of the 60’s which they feel they lost and now think they have the governmental power to reverse. The right wing seeks to use its political power, given it by voters who were distressed by the nations economic condition to revisit and retrench on social matters where their views were now in the minority. They seek to reopen Don’t Ask Don‘t Tell when that matter is closed both by the federal government and the public.  They seek to add restrictions on abortions that will discourage and in some cases prevent abortions when the societal consensus is that that should be a private matter between the potential parents and their religious counselor.  In Georgia a radical right wing legislator introduces a bill that would criminalize miscarriages and require an investigation of every miscarriage to determine if there was human involvement causing it.  Aside from the horror of putting women through such an investigation without cause this is a blatant violation of the rights and liberties of the people that these right wingers claim to hold so sacred. 

In North Dakota another radical legislator introduced a bill to repeal the child labor laws so that youngsters age 9 thru 15 can be put to work, I guess for minimum wage (although many of these right wingers are advocating repealing that too) – This country outlawed child labor because society believed it was better for children to be in school.  But then the extreme right seems to support schooling only for those who can pay for it and would emasculate public education thus reducing those in the lower middle class who could obtain a quality education. 

3-8-2011

The American Dream - Musn't Let it Become a Nightmare

            

            Immigrants came to America because they believed that life would be better here than where they lived; for the first three centuries of our settlement that trip was dangerous in a way almost incomprehensible to people living today.  Some came for religious freedom.  Some came to own land or to work in ways they could not in the stultified neo-feudal society of Europe and Asia.  Some came to escape poverty or prison.  Some came to pursue a dream that  ultimately  became known as the American Dream.  People could rise above the station they were born into.  They could make a really good living for themselves and their children. Their children would do better than they did.  And from the founding of the American colonies to the 1970's that was never questioned. 

            But there has arisen in America a generation that does not know the struggles of their ancestors or the history of their nation.  Born in the 1970's and coming of age in the 1980's they do not see that dream in all its manifestations.  They do not understand or recognize the struggle for equality that so many Irish Americans, Jewish Americans, African Americans, and women underwent and now LBGT citizens and Latino-Americans struggle with.  They do not understand the value of labor unions and what positive benefits their parents and grandparents obtained from those unions; nor do they understand that the laws that govern our nations workers e.g. social security, unemployment insurance, minimum wage, maximum hours, paid holidays, were not simply rights that they inherited when they were born but privileges that were enacted by the government due to the strong pressure of the previous generations.

            Todays generation of under 45'ers see an America that they think is holding them back.  They want to get to the top while their parents and grandparents were satisfied to be in the comfortable middle with some chance to advance.  And todays generation seems to have little empathy for those less fortunate.  Why should the government help poor people get heating oil in the winter - let them fend for themselves.  Why should the government sponsor social welfare programs -- let private charity take care of it.  Todays generation would be most comfortable I think in the 1920's since they have forgotten what their grandparents learned and passed on about the 1930's.

            There become an amnesia about the past and especially our political history.  Todays generation asks why we have an income tax and fails to understand that the progressive nature of that tax made it fair to their middle class antecedents. Some even support old ideas like the states having the ultimate powers in our nation and state legislatures electing Senators.  Todays generation does not understand how our system of government works - of course you can’t blame them when civics and politics is barely taught today in our schools. And now even essential elements of our democratic classless society like public education, collective bargaining, child labor laws, are under attack and todays generation does not know the philosphical underpinnings of those concepts.

            The political leaders of our nation need to use their bully pulpits to educate these new generations about the reasons why we forged a progress of history from 1607 to 1970 and what the social compact means and why government which gets its powers from the consent of the governed is essential to preserve the rights that this generation does value - privacy, speech, the pursuit of happiness, jobs and freedom of conscience.  If we have to start all over again so be it. The history of mankind is one of inexorable progress toward human freedom and maturity.  Appealing as Lincoln said to the better angels of our nature; - and following the moral injunction proclaimed some 2000 years ago that we should feed the hungry, clothe the naked and care for the sick and “love thy neighbor as thyself”.  These were the essential elements of the American covenant that created a Democracy that built a Middle Class that lived the American Dream.  Let that Middle Class Dream Again!

3-3-2011

 

End the Recession or Shut Down the Government

            The federal government faces two budget crises.  One is the attempt to reduce the deficit in the next annual budget as well as the remainder of this operating fiscal year. Many economists believe that cutting spending and reducing jobs as we are coming out of the Great Recession will stop the recovery and cause another recession.  In fact a recent study commissioned by Goldman Sachs contends that the Republican budget cuts will cost the growth in GDP 2 percentage points at a time when we are struggling to reach 4%. Cynics believe the Republicans don’t care a double dip recession because they’d just  blame it on Obama and use it to defeat him in 2012.

            The second budget crisis is how to get long term federal debt under control.   This is the question that the Presidents’ Debt Commission tackled last December. Most of the politicians of both parties make noise about cutting items like foreign aid and earmarks - items which would have no real impact on trillions of dollars of federal long term debt.

            The only way to reduce the long term debt is to deal with the three parts of the budget that make up 88% of it.  One of those is Military spending --which is almost untouchable in our political system.  We won the Cold War with the Ronald Reagan strategy of forcing the Soviet Union to spend itself into collapse in an arms race.  Now we’re spending ourselves into collapse and racing with no one. 

            The second of the three big ticket items is health care - the costs to the federal government of Medicare and Medicaid.  We could raise the payroll tax contribution for Medicare, and do it in some progressive fashion – that might be fair; and we should allow those who retire on partial social security to buy into Medicare.. We won’t solve the problem until we get the costs of health care down. Instead of rearguing “Obamacare” we should be finding ways to reduce health care costs in America. 

            The third item is Social Security - while it does not really impact on the federal deficit it will soon unless we revise the system to take in more money to cover the costs. I am amazed that Republicans and Democrats fall all over each other to fight against the small retirement age change proposed by the debt commission.  Currently the retirement age for those born after 1960 is 67.  The proposals are to gradually increase that age to 69 by the year 2075 (people born in 2006).  It affects no one working today and in no way violates the social security compact.  I also see no reason why workers shouldn’t contribute something to SS on their incomes over $106,000.  That contribution could be progressively scheduled so that the next $100,000 might withhold 3% and income above $206,00  1.5%. 

            The remaining big portion of the federal deficit is the interest on the debt.  That can only be reduced by ending the annual deficits and that is difficult because only about 12% of the federal budget is discretionary spending which can be cut.  On those cuts there is a great philosophical divide between the two national political parties. Republicans want to reduce the federal deficit by cutting the programs that created the middle class and help those who need help without a commensurate increase in the taxes that the very rich pay. 

            Republicans in the House want to cut from energy conservation programs; gut Americorps and heating assistance to working poor (LIHEAP); eliminate the operating budget of the Environmental Protection Agency; cut $5 billion for hi-speed rail programs that would catch us up to China and Europe; and cut  the Corporation for Public  Broadcasting (the only Corporation that Republicans don’t like).

            A country that would balance it’s budget by ending Sesame Street for it’s children and continue to spend $2-4 billion a week in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so that men and women can be killed and can kill others is not the country that the USA was meant to be.

            What is occurring today is a national debate on the role of government in our lives; Republicans argue that government is inefficient and should be limited; Democrats contend that government plays an essential role in regulating and making safe the services that are critical to our daily lives. Our country is at a crossroads - one fork rears to an imagined past and one to an uncertain future. If we choose the fork to that mythical past we take a dead end.

2-26-2011

The Unions -- They Must Be Preserved

            What’s going on in Wisconsin and Ohio today is a radical right-wing Republican attempt to break public employee unions for the dual purpose of weakening the Democratic party and crippling private sector labor unions (leaving both without public employee allies).  Claiming to plug budget gaps these Republicans are seeking to abolish collective bargaining  rights. The public employee unions have agreed to paying a share into their pensions and health insurance equivalent  to what private sector employees contribute.  But, abolish their unions, or restrict them to negotiating only salaries and you take away rights of public employees recognized for the past seventy five years – this the working people of Wisconsin are protesting. Irresponsible politicians of both parties have spent the past decades negotiating deferred compensation --  where for low or no salary increases public employees were allowed to contribute less to their pensions and health insurance.  The real cause of the state deficits is the Great Recession - caused not by public employees but by large multinational corporations and the super wealthy on Wall Street who are paying income taxes (when they pay and can’t find loopholes) at the lowest rates ever.  Minnesota had a huge budget deficit.  It raised income taxes on all those making over $½ million by 5% and closed the gap.  Right wing Republicans want to close those gaps on the backs of the working men and women of America and while at it destroy their ability to exercise influence collectively through a labor union.

            Labor Unions are not without their faults.  Too many fat cat leaders who like corporate CEO’s earn too much (although nothing like the corporate salaries).   Too much special interest style hob-nobbing with incumbent elected officials of both parties; and, in some union locals too much corruption.  But those problems can be cleaned up, as they should be, and as they should be in the case of the multinational corporations.

           

            Labor unions are an easy politcial target since today only about 16% of American families include union members.  What some fail to realize is that all workers public and private, union and non-union, benefit from unions and collective bargaining.  There would be no minimum wage laws today and few increases in those wages without the grass roots lobbying of unions most of whose members earn more than the minimum wage. Without organized labor this country would never have passed child labor laws, and our 9 to 14 year old children would still be working in sweatshops and at menial jobs.  Many companies provide health and pension benefits to their workers modeled on what union workers receive in part to discourage their workers from organizing unions.

            There is a tendency today to classify Americans in groups.  There are the union and blue collar workers.  Then there are the white collar and professional workers.  The latter are often college educated with many having graduate degrees.  These higher educated workers have bought into the canard that they are too good to be in unions. That’s another reason for the attack on public employee unions because they include well educated teachers and social workers and bridge the gap between the two.  But if the radical right is successful in breaking the public employee unions they will come after the private sector unions with the misnamed “right-to-work” laws that have no legitimate meaning in an era when we no longer have closed shops.

            If large multinational corporations are going to be allowed to spend whatever they want of their profits, to control the political branches of our government; and if the federal government is no longer to be what Theodore Roosevelt (Republican) saw it as, i.e., a powerful enough entity to control big business, --  then the preservation of our democracy depends upon enforcing the peoples’ rights.  One of those rights is the right of association (though not named specifically it exists as a combination of the 1st and 9^th amendments;  the 1^st includes “the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”.and the 9^th provides that “the enumeration … of certain rights, shall not be constructed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”)).

In 1832 President Jackson was faced with the same crisis confronted thirty years later by President Abraham Lincoln -- whether the Union would be preserved.  It Was.  Now we must make certain that the working peoples Unions are Preserved!  

2-21-2011