7. Alliance

Is there public support for the investment priorities we propose?

Considerable support from public opinion polls can be found over the last 10 years. For example, national surveys conducted from 1988 to 1994 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago show that a substantial majority of Americans want to see more money spent on improving the nation’s educational system and reducing crime and drug addiction.

In 1992, immediately after the Los Angeles riots, the New York Times and CBS asked in a nationwide poll, "Are we spending too much money, too little money, or about the right amount of money on problems of the big cities, on improving the conditions of blacks, and on the poor?" Sixty percent of the respondents stated that too little was being spent on urban problems, 61 percent said that too little was being spent on improving the condition of African-Americans, and 64 percent said that too little was being spent on problems of the poor. The pollsters also asked, "To reduce racial tension and prevent riots, would more jobs and job training help a lot, help a little or not make much difference?" Seventy-eight percent of the respondents said that more jobs and job training would help a lot.

Complementary findings come from a national poll of voters in 1996 sponsored by the Children’s Partnership, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Coalition for America’s Children, Kids Campaigns, the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and the National Parent Teacher Association. Seventy-six percent of the voters polled were more likely to vote for a candidate who supported increased spending for children’s programs. Sixty-five percent favored proposals for children and families, even if it meant slowing down deficit reduction. Sixty-four percent believed government should play a large role in solving problems facing children. Sixty-two percent supported children’s issues even if it meant raising their taxes by $100 a year. Sixty-two percent would oppose a balanced budget amendment if it required cuts in children’s programs. Framing the issue in terms of children was pioneered by Marian Wright Edelman, who has described how the Children’s Defense Fund was formed "because we recognized that support for whatever was labeled black and poor was shrinking, and that new ways had to be found to articulate and respond to the continuing problems of poverty and race, ways that appealed to the self-interest as well as the conscience of the American people."

In 1998, in the first national sampling of attitudes on surpluses since a federal FY 1999 budget surplus was projected, a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll found that the biggest group of respondents, 43 percent, called for using any extra money to invest in Social Security, Medicare and education. (Thirty percent backed paying down the debt and 22 percent favored tax cuts.)

The reaction of the print media to our 25 year update of the Kerner Commission in 1993 also reflected considerable support. A sampling of articles is found in Appendix 2. One of the most thoughtful articles in the news columns appeared in the Los Angeles Times -- unsurprisingly, given that the report appeared only a year after the 1992 Los Angeles riot. The National Journal pointed out, "The Eisenhower Foundation report lists dozens of programs that have made a big difference to children, youth and poor neighborhoods in the most distressed cities around the nation. These programs are, for the most part, local initiatives that have been designed to meet a community’s distinctive needs. Most of them are operated by private, nonprofit organizations. They get their money from a variety of sources, including the federal government. But they are not federal programs."

Prior to the 1992 Los Angeles riot, the most serious recent riot, in the 1980s, occurred in Miami. It therefore was not surprising that, when it came to editorials, the Miami Herald was particularly supportive of our 25 year update: "The report’s overall lesson couldn’t be more evident: seek inner city solutions based on existing needs, not fleeting political demands after a crisis. More important, don’t let workable solutions remain hostage to Washington’s gridlock." The Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune editorial observed, "[The report] is a road map to a better America that should be required reading for every public-policy thinker and elected official in the state." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial said the report’s recommendations "seem more promising" than existing policy. Although it warned not "to let the negative obscure the achievements made possible by the civil rights movement and by the individual struggles of millions of African Americans," the Washington Post editorial observed, in a way consistent with our thinking, that many of the most promising solutions concentrate on poverty reduction (for all races): "This is more than smart politics; it is a real step toward justice."

Among op-ed page writers, Anthony Lewis in the New York Times asked that race be more directly addressed, but he also concluded, "It is a valuable report because it refuses to accept what so many Americans have come to believe: that there is nothing to be done about the poverty, decay and crime of our inner cities."

On a CBS Sunday Morning cover story, the late Charles Kuralt said the "country should know better by now," and the coverage agreed with us that "no magic is required -- other than the political will to do what the Kerner Commission said should have been done 25 years ago."

The Story

In spite of such illustrations of support, the political will does not exist at the federal level to carry out the budget priorities of Chapter 6 as we enter the new millennium. How can we create the political will?

We need a new political alliance with a broad constituency. The heart of our policy, investing in education and employment to provide opportunity, needs to embrace not only the truly disadvantaged but also the working class and the middle class. The alliance should include persons in core cities and older suburbs who presently are forming common fronts in places like Minneapolis/St. Paul and Cleveland against losing resources to the new exurbs. The goal of the alliance should be to recapture some of the national mood after World War II, when Americans sought a more inclusive, equitable society in which everyone had a fair chance of making it.

To update this post World War II feeling for the next millennium, what "story," or message, might help coalesce a new political alliance? We need words around which to rally a more inclusive constituency. The words might include some of the following. You, the average citizen, are not alone in your search for a safe niche in the I-win-you-lose world. The economy can do much better for you. The very rich have profited at the expense of the families of salaried and working people of America. It is not fair for the rich to get richer at the expense of the rest of us. Power has shifted so significantly toward those at the top of the income and wealth pyramid that the majority of Americans who are struggling must mobilize themselves to force the rich and the elites back to the bargaining table. We must close the income and wage gaps. The way to do this is to invest in education, training and retraining so that Americans have the opportunity for jobs, and for better jobs. Among the middle class, working class and the truly disadvantaged, and among different racial and ethnic groups, this policy can be win-win. None of these groups needs to gain at the expense of the others. We can succeed with a full employment policy that eliminates the economic marginality of the poor and at the same time reduces the anxiety of the working and middle classes. Citizens deserve a higher quality of American life. We must invest in the human capital of our citizens, so all can deal successfully with technological change and the global economy. The role of the federal government must be to better serve the interests of the salaried and working classes, along with the poor.

This rallying message also can include some basic rights of fair play for the new millennium. You, the average citizen have:*

Does this story have sufficient appeal to sufficient numbers of Americans? We believe that the potential exists. The majority of Americans seems to know that they are not necessarily winners in today’s economy. For example, a 1996 New York Times poll reported that the share of the electorate that identifies itself as "working class" now outnumbers those who consider themselves "middle class" -- 55 percent to 36 percent. If to this 55 percent we add those who identify themselves as "poor," the total becomes 61 percent of the electorate. National polls also show that, despite their better education, young people surveyed often say they expect to do worse than their parents.

Common Policy Ground

In terms of policy, the common ground among the poor, working class and middle class can be job training and retraining -- to make all more productive. These investments in human capital can be directed not only toward employment that repairs our decaying public infrastructure but also toward opportunities to mine new public and private "klondikes," to use Robert Heibroner’s phrase in Chapter 6. If done to scale, building and repairing low tech urban infrastructure (like roads and sewers) can generate jobs both for the truly disadvantaged and for working class family breadwinners. The high tech klondikes for which working and middle class persons can be trained and retrained include, for example, computer smart urban transit systems, high speed and magnetic levitation trains, fiber optics, telecommunications, computer networking, electronic digital imaging, ceramics, advanced composites, sensors, photonics, artificial intelligence, robotics, computer-aided manufacturing, biotechnology, and research and development to find the cure for cancer, Parkinson’s disease, AIDS, other serious diseases and the common cold. Other examples include research and development to allow a shift to renewable energy and research and development to reduce environmental deterioration and pollution.

It is beyond the scope of this report to detail such a common ground training and retraining investment strategy, nor to estimate its costs. In terms of finance, we again propose a reordering of the present federal budget based on reductions in corporate welfare, wealthfare, military spending and cost-ineffective programs. But here, in a context where it is conceivable that a new political alliance can be mobilized, we believe it more feasible to also propose tax increases on the rich.

In the U.S., over the 1980s, the highest individual tax rate was reduced from approximately 70 percent to 28 percent, and the income tax became much less progressive. Countries such as France, Germany, Italy, and Japan have much wider gaps in tax rates between the wealthy and the poor. This is shown in Figure 7-1.

Thus, for example, an increase in taxes could be instituted for the wealthiest 1 percent in the United States. Raising the tax rate for the richest Americans to approximately 40 percent would put the United States in line with Great Britain but still keep the United States far below rates in France, Germany, Italy and Japan. The overall tax reform that is needed, and that could include such an increase only for the very rich, has been spelled out by Jeff Faux:

The simplest solution is a single federal tax rate schedule for all income regardless of its source. Individual and corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, gift and estate taxes, and so forth would be combined into one system, which could then be taxed at a progressive rate. Taxes would be applied at the level of the individual, eliminating the double taxation of corporate dividends. Social Security and Medicare would be financed out of a progressive general tax rather than the highly regressive payroll tax. Corporate welfare in the form of tax breaks would be eliminated. Reform should explicitly include the taxation of state tax subsidies resulting from the destructive competition among states for private investment, which now reduces the nation’s overall tax bas 

 

The Messengers

What institutions and individuals are best positioned to convey the story and message associated with this common ground policy? Nonprofit organizations, organized labor and existing political role models head the list.

Nonprofit Organizations

The movement for 1) campaign finance reform, 2) corporate welfare and wealthfare reductions, 3) communicating what works, and 4) an alliance among the poor, working class and middle class are complementary. The movements need to be led by cutting edge national nonprofit organizations that, in the words of William Greider in Who Will Tell the People, must "devote themselves first to challenging the status quo, disrupting the contours of power and opening the way to renewal. [Common citizens must engage their environments and] question the conflict between what they are told and what they see and experience."

Examples of such national nonprofit organizations include the American New Service, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the Center for Community Change, the Center for Defense Information, the Center for Living Democracy, the Center for Responsive Politics, the Child Welfare League, the Children’s Defense Fund, the Children’s Partnership, Common Cause, the Corporate Welfare Project, the Cultural Environmental Movement, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the Federation of American Scientists, the Institute for Alternative Journalism, La Raza, Millennium Communications, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Job Corps Coalition, the National Puerto Rican Coalition, the National Radio Project, the National Urban Coalition, the National Urban League, OMB Watch, Operation PUSH, Public Citizen and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference -- to name just a few. Such nonprofits need to better inform the public of the jobs, income, wage and wealth gaps; the way present campaign financing prevents these gaps from being closed, the size of corporate welfare and wealthfare, and the existence of win-win alliances among the poor, the working class and the middle class.

Such national nonprofit organizations also need to train grassroots nonprofit organizations to communicate these messages locally. As Kent Cooper, Executive Director of the Center for Responsive Politics has proposed, we need to develop a stronger system of communication, education and accountability between citizens and their elected representatives. Nonprofit, grassroots organizations are probably the most effective venue for an active citizenry. Grassroots nonprofits -- including religious groups, churches and synagogues -- need to demand more responsive information from elected officials. The nonprofit groups need to communicate more easily understood information on a more timely basis through the utilization of the new communication technologies. The result can be a more informed citizenry capable of conducting its own affairs -- and a worried Congress quickly wanting to meet the needs of constituents who are using new political methods equal in worth to millions of political dollars.

Grassroots community organizations must learn to better communicate to elected officials the needs of the community and the opinions of average citizens. Grassroots groups need to better communicate to local citizens the stated views of elected officials and their actual votes on the same topics, comparisons of those who the official claims to represent and those who actually contribute, regular candidate debates and public town meetings before Election Day, timely understandable explanations of upcoming congressional action and how it impacts on the everyday lives of citizens, key votes by elected representatives, and informative recaps just before the next election.

For too long, our federal elected officials have benefitted from thin and scant coverage by overworked, Washington-based, nationally oriented news media. With new communication technologies, there is no reason why citizens can’t have complete and timely public coverage and accountability of each U.S. Representative and Senator.

It is incumbent on national and local nonprofit organizations to make their views known to elected officials and to demand more responsive politics from their representatives. That may involve development of a standard "democracy ratio" or "representation index" to rate elected officials. It might involve citizens seeking information about when their representative will be in town to hear public concerns, inquiring why the representative is not returning regularly, demanding local public accountability from contributors to the representative, and asking whether the legislator’s staff has established a revolving door for jobs with a certain industry field or interest.

Organized Labor

In part because of supply-side policies in the 1980s, today only about 16 percent of American workers are represented by a union. A revived labor movement must join forces with national and grassroots nonprofit organizations as the messenger -- and as a financier of the movement. Labor needs to recover the kind of decisive role that organized workers had in winning the 5 day week, the 8 hour day, the minimum wage, Medicare and the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Historically, unions have secured national attention when they put forth a moral vision. For example, in the 1930s, unions tripled their membership under the rallying cry of "industrial democracy." In the 1960s, Martin Luther King helped mobilize workers into the civil rights movement by criticizing a system of "selfish ambition inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life." That legacy needs to be captured for the new millennium, through a moral vision that says the richer-poorer trend is unacceptable. A good model is the brief, well illustrated report, Why Isn’t the Economy Working for Workers, by the American Federation of State, Country and Municipal Employees. The report’s themes include these:

Surveys of workers suggest the potential for substantially increased union membership, in response to such themes. For example, the share of workers at large companies who fear being laid off rose from 25 percent in the depths of the 1991 recession to 46 percent in the midst of the "boom" of the late 1990s. A survey of private-sector workers in 1994 found only 14 percent belonged to a union but 40 percent wished they did. Sixty-three percent of the workers in the survey said they would like "more influence at work." Fifty-three percent believed that group representation would result in at least somewhat more influence.

To encourage a resurgent labor, we recommend that the President of the United States should:

Engaging Politically and Building on Role Models

Not only must a lower income-working class-middle class alliance be forged by nonprofit organizations and resurgent labor working together, but the alliance must be forged by a new generation ofIt means getti political candidates. What does it mean to get politically engaged? In words of former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich:

It means getting more people involved in the gritty, grimy job of politics starting at the local level, where every year there are close to 90,000 races -- the overwhelming majority of them nonpartisan -- for offices like school board and city council. It means convincing good people to run for office, maybe running yourself, getting on the phone, getting out the vote, mobilizing your friends and acquaintances; creating strong local alliances among the poor, the near poor, unionized and nonunionized hourly workers, religious groups, community-based groups, universities and others. And it means committing time and effort to initiatives that stress values -- that have a message, not just a program. Leadership does not depend for its efficacy upon holding a formal position of authority. True leadership is a matter of keeping people’s attention focused on the problems they would rather avoid, and it can be exercised by anyone. We seem to have too many people in formal positions of authority who are not leading, and too many at the grassroots resigned to the way things are.

Leadership

The most that we can expect for now is that grassroots, and perhaps city-wide and state-wide versions of the funding priorities, the what works agenda and the class alliances recommended here will emerge with greater frequency, gaining strength and local momentum from one another. We can work toward a kind of synergy -- where, for example, communicating what works encourages class alliances, which create more pressure for campaign finance reform, which allows a fairer debate on what works, which leads to even more effective communication.

The people need to make the leaders lead, or get new ones. Our proposed budget will not be approved at the federal level at this 30 year mark after the Kerner Commission, but perhaps the political will and leadership can emerge by the 40 or 50 year mark. To repair the millennium breach and fulfill the legacy of the Kerner Commission, we need Franklin Roosevelt’s commitment to effective government and Teddy Roosevelt’s boldness in establishing the limits of greed.