(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom and Daily Kos)
Last week, the increasingly irrelevant Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) released a platform called the American Dream Platform. As it is Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s pet project for the DLC, one might be interested to see what the intellectual heavyweights that claim the ‘centrist’ mantle of the Democratic Party (despite hiring people who sound oddly like foaming-at-the-mouth Republicans) had to offer. When one clicks at the above link, you get this optimistic editor’s note:
Editor’s Note: Due to the large size of these files, and increased website traffic, these files may take a few moments to load.
One would think that such a foreboding warning could mean that this document may carry some intellectual heft to it. But alas, if you actually read the PDF version of the ‘book’, it’s a mere 12 pages long. For a document that had the backing of such think tanks as the Center for American Progress, the Progressive Policy Institute, and the New Democratic Network, I would have thought that some real thought would have been put into this so-called ‘initiative’. Instead, what you end up with are populist-sounding claims that have absolutely no concrete policy proposals backing them up.
The introductory paragraph goes a little something like this:
Over the past six years, America has seen far too much politics and far too few ideas. When our leaders fail to provide an opportunity agenda, the whole country pays the price, from businesses struggling to create good jobs to the hard-working American middle class struggling to provide a better life for their children.
The American Dream Initiative is a challenge to the nation to remember what too many of our current leaders forgot. America’s strength in the century to come rests on the strength of the dream that got us this far. America will be a richer, safer, smarter, and stronger nation when everyone willing to work for it has the chance to get ahead.
Aside from the fact that the DLC has no ability to frame a compelling message, you will notice that there is a conspicuous absence of foreign policy content in this matter. Admittedly, this isn’t the stated goal of the ADI; it explicitly states that it is about economic policy. However, considering that Americans consider the war in Iraq to be the main issue leading up to this year’s elections, it’s just another example of the tone-deafness that the DLC has repeatedly demonstrated. It could also have to do with the fact that they were one of the biggest cheerleaders in the run-up to the war, and their star – Clinton – is the target of much anger in the grassroots do to her non-position on the war.
Let’s delve into the ‘substantive’ matters, though. Here are what the DLC calls the ‘pillars of a new opportunity agenda’:
- Every American should have the opportunity and responsibility to go to college and earn a degree, or to get the lifelong training they need.
- Every worker should have the opportunity and responsibility to save for a secure retirement.
- Every business should have the opportunity to grow and prosper in the strongest private economy on earth, and the responsibility to equip workers with the same tools of success as management.
- Every individual should have the opportunity and responsibility to start building wealth from day one, and the security and community that come from owning a home.
- Every family should have the opportunity to afford health insurance for their children, and the responsibility to obtain it.
- In order to expand opportunity for all Americans, we must demand a new ethic of responsibility from Washington: to put government’s priorities back in line with our values–and its books back in balance–by getting rid of wasteful corporate subsidies, unchecked bureaucracy, and narrow-interest loopholes; collecting taxes that are owed; clamping down on tens of billions
of dollars in improper payments and no bid-contracts; and restoring commonsense budgeting principles like pay-as-you-go.
You will notice that every point includes the words opportunity and responsibility except for the last point, which denigrates the government’s fiscal irresponsibility. I think they need some framing lessons – telling people they have the responsbility to do something sounds fairly condescending. Look at health care, for example. Most progressives would tell you that being entitled to affordable, universal health care is a right, not an opportunity – and it’s not just for children either. This is just one example of a meek step put forth, one that all Democrats can agree on – health care for all children. Hell, that was John Kerry’s first post-election policy campaign (although, ironically enough, his home page now touts universal health care). Additionally, the implication that parents are responsible for obtaining suggests that those who don’t are bad parents – even if they can’t get it for financial reasons or for other problems.
I’ll skip over the portion on government’s fiscal irresponsbility, as there’s really nothing worth commenting on there – it’s a safe subject, and there is nothing worth mentioning that wasn’t in the above statement. However, they do have some ideas for college education:
We propose a new, performance-based American Dream Grant that will award states money each year based on the number of students that attend and graduate from their colleges and universities. Over the next decade, this block grant will provide states $150 billion to increase graduation rates and reduce the cost of college. This grant will complement initiatives already under way in the states and enlist the national government as a partner in an effort that is vital to the nation’s economic interest.
[…]
We should simplify the tax code by replacing the HOPE tax credit, the Lifetime Learning Tax Credit, and the higher education deduction with a single, refundable $3,000 college tuition tax credit to help offset undergraduate and graduate costs for all families.
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In return for this unprecedented increase in college assistance, we must raise expectations for colleges and students alike, and address the high proportion of college students who leave without a degree.
It sounds great, but it leaves out a lot of inconvenient issues. The first is this: where are we going to get the money? The obvious answer is to stop pissing it away in Iraq, but that could cause a political conundrum for ‘centrist’ Democrats who have a staggering inability to openly admit the problems with the war. Talk of simplifying the tax code is great – but when one considers that families could receive more than $3,000 in tax deductions from the HOPE tax credit and the Lifetime Learning Tax Credit alone, one wonders if this will have a net beneficial effect. Furthermore, colleges will never agree to some sort of nationalized standard. It’s not even clear that standardized testing in regular schools does a good job of assessing capability. The ADI also mentions helping ‘non-traditional students’, but beyond stating that Pell Grants should be extended year-round, there’s mention of any sort of plan.
Now it’s on to talking of a ‘secure retirement’:
Americans deserve to know that a lifetime of work will ensure a secure retirement. We need a new approach that requires every employer to open a retirement account for every worker; enrolls workers automatically unless they opt out; increases their contribution automatically over time unless they direct otherwise; gives employees the advice and guidance to allow them to invest wisely; and enables workers to take their pensions with them when they change jobs.
[…]
Saver’s Credit. Instead of more breaks for those at the top, we should provide saving incentives to hard-working Americans who can least afford to put money aside. We should make the Saver’s Credit permanent and refundable so that working- and middle-class families receive a 50 percent matching contribution for retirement savings of up to $2,000 a year.
The first point sounds an awful lot like the Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security in that it calls for people to have accounts that are based in stock investments, not a guaranteed government payment. Although the ADI makes no mention of scrapping Social Security, one wonders why they would advocate people putting their money in company savings accounts, considering the risk. Just look at how well the employees of Enron fared. The second point is another tax cut. It’d be nice if there was mention of how these are getting funded – say, by repealing Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts – but there’s nothing about it. Zip. Zilch. Nada. The pro-corporate aspect of the DLC shows through with its advocacy for having people’s retirements in company-managed accounts. We cannot risk leaving retirement benefits in anyone’s hands except for the U.S. government.
Here’s what the DLC thinks about helping out the middle class:
To unleash the power of innovation and enterprise, we need to restore fiscal responsibility, open new markets, and make smart economicinvestments–such as broadband, basic scientific research, alternative fuels, and an advanced research projects agency for energy–that will spur the creation of new, high-wage jobs.
With a smart energy policy, we can create millions of good jobs, ease the burden on middle-class pocketbooks, and lead the way against climate change, all at the same time. To put the United States at the cutting edge of new, energy-efficient technologies, we should create a strategic energy fund that will sponsor research into the potential of cellulosic ethanol, bio-diesel, and other flexible fuels; support the development of plug-in hybrids, cleanburning diesel, and other high-mileage vehicles; and launch an advanced research projects agency for energy to spur innovation.
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Giving Every Worker the Chance to Get Ahead.
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To give the investing public an understanding of whether a CEO’s pay is fair relative to the firm’s overall performance, and to provide greater accountability, the SEC should require that public corporations disclose…
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The pension and mutual fund managers who do the actual investing work in financial markets that are obsessed with short-term
movements in stock price, sometimes at the expense of investments in corporations that create genuine long-term wealth. These intermediaries should be held more accountable to long-term investors…
The first point is actually a good one – we could create many new jobs if we started researching new energy technologies. However, the DLC fails to address the core problem America has – education. Considering how the U.S. is falling behind in educating our future scientists, it’s a bit difficult to consider this to be viable until we fix our public education system. In addition, these are not jobs that people can simply switch into – they are highly skilled jobs that would take years of re-education and retraining to ensure adults could transition easily. The second point – that is literally the only thing worth mentioning. The rest is without substance, with one suggestion of giving employees stock options. How the hell does that help people ‘get ahead’? The call for increased oversight of corporations is nice, but there’s someone who’s been doing that for several years now – and given he’s from Hillary’s adopted home state, the DLC should be familiar with him. His name is Eliot Spitzer.
For a ‘stake in the American dream’, the DLC offers up these ideas:
The United States should follow Tony Blair’s lead in Britain by providing a Baby Bond to each of the 4 million children born in America each year. A $500 savings bond at birth and again 10 years later would give young people from low- and middle-income families a stake in upward mobility. We should give families with incomes of $75,000 or less the option of directing their existing annual children’s tax credit into these accounts, tax-free. The money could be used for college and training, a first home, and retirement savings.
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We should make sure the mortgage deduction helps those who need it most–middle-income and working families–by making the deduction available to those who do not itemize their taxes. This would enable an additional 10 million Americans to take advantage of the primary incentive to help individuals purchase homes.
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As Hope Street Group has proposed, we should provide a $5,000 refundable tax credit for down payment assistance, which over the next 10 years will make homeownership possible for 7 million modest- to middle-income home buyers with good credit who would otherwise slip into the higher-interest rate subprime mortgage market or be rejected for a mortgage altogether.
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We need to raise the FHA loan limit to 100 percent of the area median home price, so that families in areas with high housing costs are not priced out of affordable, secure FHA mortgages.
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We should give employers a 50 percent tax credit for qualified employee housing assistance programs, and let working families exclude such housing assistance from their taxable income.
Giving $500 to every newborn child is a good idea – but considering that a year ago, each newborn inherited $34,000 in debt, it doesn’t really add up to much. There is more talk of tax credits, but as is the running theme throughout this proposal, how do we possibly pay for these? Most of the policies here sound good on paper, but there is no backing analysis as to how this can be achieved. Perhaps the DLC is counting on triangulation to eventually guide it to a solution as to how they can make it happen.
Finally, the DLC gets around to talking about health care:
It is time to pass bipartisan legislation to develop a secure, interoperable health information infrastructure that makes patient privacy paramount.
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Small businesses need access to stable, affordable health insurance so they do not have to worry whether they can provide coverage from year to year. We should allow small businesses to pool their workforces–much like large businesses–so they have the power to obtain cheaper health insurance for themselves and their employees.
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As we save money by reining in the cost of health care, we will be able to afford the next big step toward universal coverage:
making sure every child in America has health insurance. First, we must reauthorize and increase funds for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program so that all eligible children are covered.[…]
We should train health care professionals to prevent, diagnose, and treat obesity, overweight conditions, and eating disorders; provide the resources for community-based programs that promote healthy eating behaviors, improve nutrition, and increase physical activity; and close the loophole on the sale of junk food in schools.
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We should create a National Center for Cures that targets and coordinates our research dollars, encouraging better communication within the National Institutes of Health and between the NIH and the private sector.
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Strengthening the Medicare Trust Fund is essential to Americans’ long-term health and the nation’s longterm fiscal stability.
Patient privacy is great – but how does this make health care more affordable or ensure that everyone has access to it? Just about every policy proposal here is agreeable on some level or another, but there’s no intellectual lifting behind these bullet points. They’re things that can be thrown out on the campaign trail, but they do not answer how all Americans will be insured. If anyone reads nyceve’s diaries at Daily Kos, you know that our current system is a nightmare. Can anyone imagine things being markedly better under what the DLC has proposed here? I can’t, and that’s not even addressing the issues of implementation.
In conclusion, what you see here is an exercise of timidity. There’s nothing truly bold that is advanced, and the DLC avoids discussing any sort of real discussion as to how any of these policy proposals would be realistically implemented. It’s one thing to talk about the problems and a solution, but the middle part – figuring out how to get legislation passed – seems to elude them. They don’t even mention raising the minimum wage. Perhaps it’s not surprising; since Clinton was in charge of designing these policies, it’s pretty much in line with her attempt to not offend either side too much. But the result is that the ‘American Dream Initiative’ comes out as a big fat pipe dream that has no base in reality.